Customer Reviews

A Gathering of Lace

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a collection of beautiful designs, and it has great color pictures of each shawl. The designs are unique and challenging. Pattern instructions are presented in chart-form only, which makes things exceptionally difficult because many of the charts are flawed. Written instructions would have been an easy way for knitters to double-check confusing instructions. An errata file can be found at www.knittinguniverse.com, but this is the only knitting book I own with errors, so it's disappointing that the errata sheet is necessary. Most of the patterns are for shawls, with a few sweaters, a hat, a pair of gloves, three sock patterns, a couple pillows, a child's pinafore, two purses, and a hat thrown in. Then, for some reason, there are pictures in the back of shawls without patterns provided, which is completely baffling in a pattern book. While I love the designs and the variety of the patterns, the book falls short of expectations. I would not recommend any of the patterns for beginners.

As noted, this is a fabulous, inspiring book on lace knitting. Before embarking on one of the patterns, however, check the errata posted on the publisher's website. There are LOTS of errors in the charts and instructions. It's disappointing, because the publisher is one of the best-known knitting publishers, and one expects better editing from them.

The long awaited A Gathering of Lace is truly a beautiful book containing so many projects that you just have to make that it will be hard to decide which one to knit first.

However, be aware that there are NUMEROUS errors in the charts and directions in the first edition. Before knitting anything it would be prudent to check the publisher's website for revisions and corrections. If not for the large number of errors, I would have given this book five stars.

I have to differ with the previous reviewer on a number of points. I'm a knitter of over 15 years experience, both for my own pleasure and for others on a commision basis. The size of my knitting library is the bane of husband's existence. This book is, without a doubt, one of the most delightful I have ever purchased. There are at least 5 projects that I am rumaging through my yarn stash to start. The photography (by Alexis Xenakis of Knitter's Magazine fame)manages to be both beautiful enough to be called art, and illustative enough to be a real aid in knitting the project.

Projects range from beginner's projects with instructions that are extremely user-friendly and will help the knitter enter into lace knitting with confidence to more advanced projects that will provide the more advanced knitter with a happy challenge (due to their intricate nature, *not* due to difficulties in the instructions, which seem very clear and complete, including charting).

As for lack of originality: did you see that coracle!!!! (Yes, a knitted boat). Or the hat. Or the beauty of so many of the projects compared to the rather humdrum offerings that are being called lace knitting today.

Definitely a book that deserves to be in your library, if only for inspiration (though there are some smaller projects such as gloves, hats, and purses that even the most time-challenged person can squeeze in). It's taken up semi-permanent residence on my night-table.

I have knitted only one project from this book (the Faroese shawl) and it went really well. There is a typo in the directions, but it is easy to catch (chart goes to 198 rows, written direction say to knit to 129). The beginning/finishing techniques needed were all in the book. Many blocking techniques to choose from.
This is eye candy of the first order. I am sure I have spent as many hours looking at this book as I spent knitting my one lace shawl.
One thing. I design my own things, and I like to do lace. I want to knit a lace garment that is shaped, which is to say, the hips decrease to waist and the waist increases to bust (or vice-versa for knitting from the top). With all these brilliant lace knitters, couldn't one of them have developed a shaped lace garment? There is a lace sweater done with short rows into a kind of crazy-quilt sampler of lace, but how about shaping with short rows in pattern in an unobtrusive way?

This is a collection of lots of different knitters shawls, it is NOT all Meg Swansen shawls,so for this reazon is a GREAT book, with beautiful and delicate shawls, worth the price!!

I wish that I had read the reviews before I started knitting because ,yes, there are errors in the charts.
It is a LOVELY book however and I enjoy just looking at it. I will go to the website before I start another project...

This book is so wonderful, my Mother-in-Law and my Aunt both baught it for me, so now I have 2 copies!

I have not knitted anything from this book yet, but find it a lovely selection of lace patterns and designs for the experienced knitter. The patterns are completely graphed, and the items range from shawls, stoles and shrugs to purses, socks and pillows. It shows the marvelous inventiveness of our present day needle workers.

This fab book has been in my hot, sweaty hands for just a few days. I flip from section to section, feverishly, wanting to know it all at once. Anywhere I flip I'm sucked into the page. I'm a lace-junkie trying to sniff it all in at once. The photography is divine--even the endpapers are lovely photos.

And to finally see Liesl's shawl that we watched grow effortlessly from Meg's needles at her knitting camp several years ago, is such a beauty. Debbie New's lacy coracle/boat is a riot--of an idea and of laces and colors. That's thinking outside the box--or inside the boat--in this case. How did Robert Powell get the lettering "a rose is a rose" to fit and be so easy to read completely encircling the center rose of his magnificent shawl? It's in there. His two-stitch decrease that is perfectly symetrical is such a boon; and his color-change technique is brilliant.

The knitting directions are so easy to read--clear charts/directions and often more than one photo of the article should make an easy knit. The range of difficulty is from easy to advanced, with a variety of items from socks to gloves to hats and boats! and artist Katherine Cobey's whimsical coat from strips cut from plastic bags that looks like it could cover a bridal gown. So many choices.

The title could be also: A Gathering Of Delightful Knitters so rich is the collection of knitting artists. I think Meg's mom (the incomparable Elizabeth Zimmermann)is 'knitting' up this grand community of craftspeople/artists from beyond the veil--knitted, of course. It's a wonderfully rich book and a 'must have' reference on lace knitting & knitted lace.