Knit Noro: Accessories: 30 Colorful Little Knits [Hardcover]

I love Noro yarn and have been using it since it first came to the United States many years ago. I love its color changes and the varied thickness and thinness of the yarn. It is absolutely wonderful to knit with. This new book contains many wonderful projects that will put a smile on any knitter's face.

The Tulip Scarf is short and lovely, knit with Silk Garden in brown/rose/blue.
The Modular Neck Wrap is also short and lovely, knit with Silk Garden purple/gold/green with three buttons holding it together in the front.
The slip-Stitch Cowl is beautiful, elongated and sophisticated. It utilized Kuryon in brown/red/gold.
The Welted Cowl will keep you warm and looking beautiful at the same time. It calls for Iro in two separate colorways - brown/green/gray and blue/green/bronze.
The Riverbed Rib Hat is knit with Iro in green/purple/teal/lilac colorway with a ribbed pattern. It doesn't look too difficult and I can't wait to knit it.
The Intarsia Lace Scarf is one of those patterns that made me take in a deep breath. It is just that beautiful. It uses Silk Garden in royal/purple/fuchsia/lime colorway.

I could go on and on about the beautiful patterns but I think you get the idea. This is a book to treasure. The patterns are all from different designers and there is a wide array of choices for the knitter. I love this book and intend to look at it again and again - and then take out my needles and begin knitting.

Hot off the press and wonderful. Lots of nice, easy to follow patterns featuring easy to find popular Noro yarns-Silk garden and Kureyon to name a few. The projects are portable and many require just a few skeins. I made the tulip scarf-nice way to learn "double knitting" to make the slot- also made the Intarsia Scarf in the featured colorway-made some adjustments to make the yarn change smoother- and want to star the Iro welted caplet- Worth every penny. Great Job!!

Making a small project with Noro makes a lot more sense to someone like me on a budget. And this book has 30 projects that you can make with a hank or two of Noro so that you can enjoy the artful color arrays without breaking the bank on a sweater. You can make scarves, fingerless gloves, an Entrelac iPad cover, a tote, hats and cowls. There's even a little shrug for someone who wants to invest in some Noro Kureyon, a wool yarn.

If you read this book and think that the projects are just too expensive to make in the recommended yarn, you may still find this book very useful. Substitute your own yarn. If you can't find a similar self-striping yarn, like Lion Brand Amazing or Bernat Mosaic, just get some odds and ends out of your stash and experiment. Is the quality going to be the same? It depends. Maybe, maybe not. But I'll bet you can create something wonderful if you put your mind to it.

The Slip Stitch Cowl on page 42 is an example of what I mean. This is a long, full cowl that uses slip stitches to take advantage of the self-striping yarn. But if you don't have yarn that changes colors, you could make this scarf by manually changing the colors yourself, and it would be just as beautiful.

I really like this book for ideas for gift-giving, too. There are projects in here that are very stylish, and if you make a gift from this book and tell the recipient that you made her something from Vogue, that gives you a certain caché.

The book retails for $25 in the US and has 30 patterns. That's less than $1 per pattern. I think it's the kind of book you can turn to often as you are looking for last-minute gifts, swap gifts or gifts for people you don't know real well but need a nice gift for. For these reasons, I think the $25 could be a good investment.