Getting Started Knitting

Getting Started Knitting by Jennifer Worick, review columnist for Yarn Market News, is a great resource for the beginning knitter. In this article, I review this book.

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Getting Started Knitting is a beginning knitting book but takes knitters well past the usual first knitted scarf project. I especially like the section "A Tour of The Yarn Shop" in the first chapter. It can be overwhelming the first time we enter a yarn store. There are so many types of yarns and knitting notions. It is often hard to make sense out of it all. But Jennifer walks you through what you will find in a typical one and explains all this.

I also like the "Fiber Facts" section in the first chapter. She covers some of the major fibers used in yarn such as wool, mohair, cotton, and acrylic. She tells you about characteristics of each fiber type as well how to wash the finished knitted item that uses them.

The second chapter goes over the basics of knitting including casting on, the knit stitch, the purl stitch, gauge, ribbing, binding off, joining a new ball of yarn, and blocking. She even has a section on setting up your knitting space and storing your yarn stash.

The second chapter has basic patterns such as the garter stitch scarf, a novelty yarn scarf, a poncho, wrist warmers, and leg warmers. All of these are great, easy patterns to get the beginning knitter started.

The following three chapters introduce progressively challenging knitting techniques along with patterns that use these techniques. In the third chapter there is a cute baby blanket in the shape of a stop sign that uses increase and decrease explained in the chapter.

What I really like about the patterns in this book is a section in them called "Need to Know". This part of the pattern lists all the techniques along with the page number where they are explained so you can successfully knit the pattern.

If you are a beginning knitter that wants a book that walks you through more and more challenging projects while giving you explicit directions, Getting Started Knitting by Jennifer Worick, is a good choice. It not only covers the basics in an easy to reading style, it also helps the knitter learn more advanced knitting techniques with some great looking and fun patterns.