Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First of all, I will admit that I am a sucker for knitting and crochet dictionaries. I have all of the classics from the Harmony guides, Barbara Walker's treasuries to the older Mon Tricot books. There have been several other dictionaries, and I have also purchased them rationalizing that if I miss a pattern in one book, I may give it more attention in another one. I was excited when I heard Vogue knitting was going to publish a series of dictionaries based on all of their magazines; I am not only a subscriber but have kept all of the back issues. I pre-ordered the book from Amazon, and awaited its arrival with anticipation. As a dictionary, it does stand on its own and if you use knitting dictionaries, it is good to have it in your collection. But wait a minute. This is supposed to be Vogue Knitting who publishes a first rate knitting magazine as well as many books based on their magazine patterns. Moreover, their knitting on the go series was innovative. When a publication aspires to promote knitting and high standards, this dictionary is a disappointment, and I saw it in minutes after I read through it for the first time. The editors missed an opportunity to make this book stand above the other dictionaries for the following reasons: No charts! Any stitch dictionaries published today should now have charts! Even Barbara Walker saw this in her early classics and did them for her cable work. The newer dictionaries chart their patterns and there is no excuse to exclude them in this kind of book. Color choice and yarn weights. If this book is to be considered a classic, the faddish use of this color was a bad choice. Fads come and go, especially greens, and I don't understand what they were thinking when they used this color. Personally, I love the color green, however I found that the color was inappropriate for showing some of the stitches. The brightness of the yellow-green was a problem for showing textured stitch contrast and the darker greens were poor choices for showing floral style patterns. They also used the same yarn weight throughout the book; this was a serious problem in the lace section of the dictionary. They should have either used a lighter weight yarn or gone to a larger needle. Both the color and yarn weight compromised the beauty of lace stitches. Any knitter who submits swatches for the Knitter's Guild Master's Programs would have their swatch work rejected if they did something like this. References! If these patterns are based on previous sweaters published in the magazine as the editors claim, why not reference the original pattern? This alone would have distinguished this dictionary from the others. I hope the editors will take this to heart and publish an erratum to this book. Where were the editors when this book was being assembled? Was there a critical review of this book before it went to print? I would not discourage anyone from purchasing this book, but I will think twice before I purchase the second one in the series. It is good as another stand-alone dictionary but it does not live up to its title. I am convinced that the other higher end magazines publishes such as Interweave Knits and Knitter's Magazine would never publish a dictionary with these kinds of flaws. The editors of Vogue Knitting should know better and could have done better. I hope they will rectify these obvious mistakes in their future dictionaries.