Customer Reviews

The Knitter's Book of Yarn: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Using, and Enjoying Yarn

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Have you ever wondered exactly how yarn is made? What a ply is? Why wool shrinks? This fascinating book will tell you.

As the author says, "Some [yarns] make our hearts and hands sing, some get the job done without much fanfare, and some cause nothing but frustration and disappointment." Been there, done that, folks! Eventually I began to wonder why some yarns are such a delight to knit with, some are simply tedious, and a few seem designed to wreak havoc with our blood pressure.

Now I wonder no more, because Clara Parkes has put together a book that not only describes the various fibres in depth, tells you where they come from, how they're made, how they're best used, and where examples of each type can be bought - but (icing on the cake) also gives you project patterns by such designers as Cat Bordhi and Norah Gaughan using each of the fibres she describes.

I actually hesitated to buy this book because I wasn't sure that I would be interested in something that might possibly read like a yarn dictionary. Thank goodness I went ahead and bought it anyway! When it came, I picked it up to browse through it - and simply could NOT put it down. I read this fascinating book every spare moment, from cover to cover - including the dust cover. It is beautifully and systematically organized, with excellent close-up colour photographs throughout; and the author writes in a clean, conversational style that is a pure delight to read.

P.S. If you're interested in getting a sense of her writing, Clara Parkes has a website (and weekly e-newsletter) entitled "Knitter's Review," here: [...].

Enjoy.

A logical guide to every type of yarn available, written with humour and clear instructions on how to use fibres for a number of patterns.