The Principles of Knitting
I have finally recovered from a visit to Chuck E. Cheese's on Friday, which was, well interesting. It's not a very restful place....
I could go on, but forget that. Much nicer to think about knitting. I was extremely pleased to read that Joe came across a copy of June Hiatt's 1988 volume, The Principles of Knitting for $6.50 a few weeks ago. On Amazon, I see that they have a list of used copies, the cheapest of which is selling, as I write this, for $175. On Abebooks they're running from $175 up to $360. This is Too Much Money.
It's a marvelous book, alas. I wish somebody would reprint it. (I've heard rumors of a planned second edition, and I've heard rumors of a planned reprinting, but neither has shown up. If you'd like to create loads of hoopla on one of the Knitting Lists, then write an innocent query on this subject and sit back and watch the fun. I predict MANY opinions as to the state of the reprinting process, and the state of the rewriting process, and the state of Hiatt herself, degenerating quickly into veiled insults and grief. Or, since this happens occasionally anyway, you can just wait for somebody else to innocently start it off.)
If what a knitter needs is a good basic book on knitting techniques, with forays into more advanced subjects so that one can expand one's horizons, there are many much cheaper books on the market that are good -- I like Vogue Knitting, for instance. And if one needs a push towards knitting without patterns, or with minimal ones, then anything by Elizabeth Zimmerman will serve well. (It's nice to get such books directly from Schoolhouse Press, the company she founded.)
But for thinking about the structure of knitting, for learning the various techniques available for doing just about anything in the realm of knitting, for clear illustrations showing one how to perform all these techniques, I don't think Hiatt can be beat. If you're interested in conceptualizing the structure of the fabric you're creating, and incorporating this theory into your designs, she's useful . And if you're interested in polishing your techniques, even if you're not designing patterns yourself -- if you just want to be able to substitute other techniques for the ones given in a pattern, she's useful.
Also, the size of the volume manifests the seriousness of the endeavor. If your family and friends think of your knitting as a cute hobby, you can leave the Hiatt tome around and they'll be impressed and cowed by it -- takes up a lot of space on the coffee table. I like to lie in bed sometimes, reading it as my night reading before I sleep -- I figure it lets Sam know that I'm involved here in a Serious Study of a Serious Subject, thereby mitigating somewhat the impression I give of being simply off my rocker.
And I enjoy her tone. It's hard to find non-opinionated knitters -- we tend to be a stubborn sort of bunch, all of us convinced we know the best way to do what we're doing, but Hiatt is even more opinionated than most. At the very beginning of the book, of course, she must discuss How To Hold the Yarn and Needles, and though she says that all methods of knitting can produce exquisite knitting, and that if we're comfortable with our methods, we don't need to change, nevertheless, when she discusses Left-Finger Knitting (the method I use), she says it causes difficulty in bringing the yarn through the stitch (I don't find this to be true, myself), and considers it of use ONLY in two-color knitting. Indeed, even though she's been at pains to tell me that my method is fine if I like it, and I shouldn't feel I need to change, if by chance I am set in my foolish ways, nevertheless I should NOT teach a new knitter to knit in this way, as it will not "serve that person best" (p. 7). Well, too bad. I've personally been involved in leading new knitters -- many of them, many -- down the path of dreadful Left-Finger-Knitting sorrow, and shall continue to do so. Sue me.
What I enjoy here is the way she sets me up and then whacks the ground out from under my feet -- nice movement of the argument --1) all the methods are useful; 2) they are useful in different ways; 3) some of the methods are useful only in obscure ways that don't mean much; 4) all y'all who are using the aforesaid methods should therefore take care not to pass them on, YOU LOSERS!
I have to admire that method. Brilliant argumentation, though not exactly ethical argumentation.
Anyway, she's wrong on that point. And on others -- she's got some convoluted arguments as to why we shouldn't knit in the round unless a garment "is one that would be particularly enhanced by being seamless" (p. 117) -- whatever the hell that means. This makes no sense to anybody who enjoys knitting stranded-color designs, such as Fair Isle.
Unless, of course, you, like Hiatt, are fond of "Slip Stranding" (p. 256), which causes you to be able to knit stranded designs flat, by working each row twice, each time slipping the stitches that are worked in the color you're not using.
Very useful, I think, for little sections of stranded knitting -- such as the cuffs and borders on Starmore's "Catherine Parr" -- otherwise, why not just go round and round, with two colors! Just like everybody else! But she finds making armholes, or the opening in the front of a cardigan, or neck shaping, to be problematic. She gives directions for making steeks (extra stitches knit into a garment that can be cut open, creating an opening), but I don't think she really "gets" them.
To sum up -- beginners don't need to worry about finding this volume, or saving up spare cash for it. If you're out and about, and you find it being sold by a used-book seller who doesn't know what it is, SNAP IT UP! If you get advanced, you might want to save up for it -- certainly one could borrow it from a public library, but it's really not the sort of book you want to sit around reading once (despite my breaking my neck with it reading it in bed); it's the sort of book you want on your shelf as a reference. I turn to it often -- more often than I turn to my other reference books -- when I'm considering the best method for making a buttonhole, or deciding which cast-on method to use, or figuring out if I want selvedge stitches, or thinking about using short-row shaping on some pieces of fabric.
But the best-case scenario is the thing gets republished and we can all buy it at a reasonable price.
I could go on, but forget that. Much nicer to think about knitting. I was extremely pleased to read that Joe came across a copy of June Hiatt's 1988 volume, The Principles of Knitting for $6.50 a few weeks ago. On Amazon, I see that they have a list of used copies, the cheapest of which is selling, as I write this, for $175. On Abebooks they're running from $175 up to $360. This is Too Much Money.
It's a marvelous book, alas. I wish somebody would reprint it. (I've heard rumors of a planned second edition, and I've heard rumors of a planned reprinting, but neither has shown up. If you'd like to create loads of hoopla on one of the Knitting Lists, then write an innocent query on this subject and sit back and watch the fun. I predict MANY opinions as to the state of the reprinting process, and the state of the rewriting process, and the state of Hiatt herself, degenerating quickly into veiled insults and grief. Or, since this happens occasionally anyway, you can just wait for somebody else to innocently start it off.)
If what a knitter needs is a good basic book on knitting techniques, with forays into more advanced subjects so that one can expand one's horizons, there are many much cheaper books on the market that are good -- I like Vogue Knitting, for instance. And if one needs a push towards knitting without patterns, or with minimal ones, then anything by Elizabeth Zimmerman will serve well. (It's nice to get such books directly from Schoolhouse Press, the company she founded.)
But for thinking about the structure of knitting, for learning the various techniques available for doing just about anything in the realm of knitting, for clear illustrations showing one how to perform all these techniques, I don't think Hiatt can be beat. If you're interested in conceptualizing the structure of the fabric you're creating, and incorporating this theory into your designs, she's useful . And if you're interested in polishing your techniques, even if you're not designing patterns yourself -- if you just want to be able to substitute other techniques for the ones given in a pattern, she's useful.
Also, the size of the volume manifests the seriousness of the endeavor. If your family and friends think of your knitting as a cute hobby, you can leave the Hiatt tome around and they'll be impressed and cowed by it -- takes up a lot of space on the coffee table. I like to lie in bed sometimes, reading it as my night reading before I sleep -- I figure it lets Sam know that I'm involved here in a Serious Study of a Serious Subject, thereby mitigating somewhat the impression I give of being simply off my rocker.
And I enjoy her tone. It's hard to find non-opinionated knitters -- we tend to be a stubborn sort of bunch, all of us convinced we know the best way to do what we're doing, but Hiatt is even more opinionated than most. At the very beginning of the book, of course, she must discuss How To Hold the Yarn and Needles, and though she says that all methods of knitting can produce exquisite knitting, and that if we're comfortable with our methods, we don't need to change, nevertheless, when she discusses Left-Finger Knitting (the method I use), she says it causes difficulty in bringing the yarn through the stitch (I don't find this to be true, myself), and considers it of use ONLY in two-color knitting. Indeed, even though she's been at pains to tell me that my method is fine if I like it, and I shouldn't feel I need to change, if by chance I am set in my foolish ways, nevertheless I should NOT teach a new knitter to knit in this way, as it will not "serve that person best" (p. 7). Well, too bad. I've personally been involved in leading new knitters -- many of them, many -- down the path of dreadful Left-Finger-Knitting sorrow, and shall continue to do so. Sue me.
What I enjoy here is the way she sets me up and then whacks the ground out from under my feet -- nice movement of the argument --1) all the methods are useful; 2) they are useful in different ways; 3) some of the methods are useful only in obscure ways that don't mean much; 4) all y'all who are using the aforesaid methods should therefore take care not to pass them on, YOU LOSERS!
I have to admire that method. Brilliant argumentation, though not exactly ethical argumentation.
Anyway, she's wrong on that point. And on others -- she's got some convoluted arguments as to why we shouldn't knit in the round unless a garment "is one that would be particularly enhanced by being seamless" (p. 117) -- whatever the hell that means. This makes no sense to anybody who enjoys knitting stranded-color designs, such as Fair Isle.
Unless, of course, you, like Hiatt, are fond of "Slip Stranding" (p. 256), which causes you to be able to knit stranded designs flat, by working each row twice, each time slipping the stitches that are worked in the color you're not using.
Very useful, I think, for little sections of stranded knitting -- such as the cuffs and borders on Starmore's "Catherine Parr" -- otherwise, why not just go round and round, with two colors! Just like everybody else! But she finds making armholes, or the opening in the front of a cardigan, or neck shaping, to be problematic. She gives directions for making steeks (extra stitches knit into a garment that can be cut open, creating an opening), but I don't think she really "gets" them.
To sum up -- beginners don't need to worry about finding this volume, or saving up spare cash for it. If you're out and about, and you find it being sold by a used-book seller who doesn't know what it is, SNAP IT UP! If you get advanced, you might want to save up for it -- certainly one could borrow it from a public library, but it's really not the sort of book you want to sit around reading once (despite my breaking my neck with it reading it in bed); it's the sort of book you want on your shelf as a reference. I turn to it often -- more often than I turn to my other reference books -- when I'm considering the best method for making a buttonhole, or deciding which cast-on method to use, or figuring out if I want selvedge stitches, or thinking about using short-row shaping on some pieces of fabric.
But the best-case scenario is the thing gets republished and we can all buy it at a reasonable price.
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