I love books and always have.  Since I learned to read I’ve collected books and consider them my friends.  I turn to them with I need advice, comfort, or inspiration.  Some books I need to have close at hand–they ride around in my knitting bag and sit next to my knitting/spinning lamp, seldom more than an arm’s length away from me while I work.  Others I reach for when I need to check a stitch pattern or breed of sheep–they live on my bookshelf.  Finally, there are books that inspire me–they include more than patterns, more than techniques.

Today I’ll go over the books I like to have close at hand. 

My knitting bag is chock full of projects, yarn, double-pointed needles, and patterns.  There’s barely room for some dark chocolate.  Two books are usually wedged into my bag next to the patterns:

• Knitter’s Companion is out in a new edition (2006), which has even more good information than the first edition.  This little book has everything from a variety of ways to cast-on, increase, and decrease, to pages on intarsia and colorwork.  There are no patterns in this book, but you can check your needle size on the handy gauge check page.
• Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns has patterns for scarves, socks, gloves, mittens, hats, sweaters, and vests in every size and almost every gauge.  In addition to the basic patterns, there are many ideas for embellishments (there are six different "toppers" for hats).  If you’ve ever needed to know how many stitches to cast on to make someone a mitten, this is your book.  It’s the last book you’ll need for basic patterns.
• It’s not a book, but Yankee Knitter Sock pattern #29

  is so good I’ve memorized most of it.  I still carry a copy with me at all times, in case I have an emergency need to cast-on a sock in a different size or weight of yarn. I teach people to knit socks with this pattern because I think it’s very clearly written.  Even the heel gusset is clearly written.

Next time I’ll tell you about my reference books.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 7th, 2007 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.