Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Far and away the best book yet on entrelac knitting! This is the book that I wish I'd had, when I first attempted entrelac. It has big, beautiful photos that illustrate each step in the entrelac process, and it includes detailed information on things like how to avoid holes where the triangles and rectangles are joined. It also explains how to knit backward (for increased speed), how to pick up stitches (from garter and stockinette edges), and how to knit entrelac in the round. But it gets better. It also includes written-out pattern instructions (no charts, sad to say) for knitting fancy, non-stockinette rectangles that can be combined with plain stockinette rectangles to add interest to entrelac fabric. The "designer" rectangles incorporate lace patterns, cables, relief designs, geometric designs, colorwork, beads, felting, embroidery, and "melange" techniques such as two-color garter stripes. Each "designer" rectangle pattern is illustrated by a large full-color swatch photo. By my count, there are more than 50 patterns for different fancy rectangles. And it gets even better. There are attractive patterns for garments that use entrelac accent panels (highly-textured entrelac fabric can be overpowering if a garment is knit entirely in entrelac). There are also patterns for pillows, socks, purses, blankets, cowls, scarves, shawls, and long mitts. The garment patterns include: (1) uptown poncho, (2) rose garden baby cardi, (3) Edwardian cardigan, (4) shades of gray vest, and (5) garden path jacket. I particularly like the baby cardigan, which has an entrelac border with embroidered roses, and the garment patterns that use stripes in combination with entrelac sections. All of the patterns are basic enough to have general appeal, without being boring. Moderately experienced knitters should have no trouble knitting the patterns, because the entrelac technique is easy to master, even though it appears complicated. Finally, there is a brief chapter on entrelac designing that includes a discussion about figuring out gauge. I really love this book, which belongs on any serious knitter's reference shelf. Another good new book on entrelac knitting is Entree to Entrelac: The Definitive Guide from a Biased Knitter, which has quite a bit of technical how-to information, but is primarily a collection of patterns which mostly use plain stockinette rectangles.