Book Notes #2: Rowan Junior, Vogue Knitting's Baby Blankets and Vintage Knits
May 27, 2005 23:03
Rowan Junior: Over Thirty Five Knitting Designs for Babies and Children Up to Twelve Years, Kim Hargreaves (2002). A fairly basic variety of sweaters seems to be this book's focus, along with hats, scarves and bags. I liked details such as the thin, contrasting color stripe atop the raised collar of 'Will,' the wide ribbing on 'Felix' that was similarly in a contrasting color and fell at the same level on body and sleeves, and the flower on the 'Alice' bag that showed up on at least one sweater as well. The models tend to be a bit sulky-looking, especially the boys. My favorite was the infant sweater 'Mya,' which has an overlapping wrap-look front that makes for lots of room to get sweater over the baby's head, even if it does mean extra knitting to do. Typical for Rowan, it has both charts and schematics where appropriate, but also the big pictures in the front followed by little have-to-hunt pictures with the instructions.
Vogue Knitting on the Go: Vintage Knits, ed. Trisha Malcolm (2001). A variety of vintage-y garments range from sweaters to very odd golf gloves, and range in eras too (1930s, '40s, '50s...). Among others, there's a cashmere bed jacket; a romper with fitted bodice and full bottom that would look amazingly like a couple of dresses that were knitted for me as a child, if you just gave it a skirt hem instead of a snapped bottom; otherwise adorable baby bunny slippers that could stand being embroidered so they didn't look as if they were frowning; a cropped pullover with portrait collar and seed stitch edging, ranging in size only from 39-1/2" to 44"; a pretty simple, nice rib/lace stole; a child's top with even more adorable ducks (and I'm not a duck person); a pretty but very complicated-looking 'baby ensemble' that I probably am even less likely to knit; and a faux-fur-trimmed baby outfit that I reluctantly confess would be darling for a baby Santa. Or, at least, for the baby's parents/grandparents/hangers-on.
Vogue Knitting on the Go: Baby Blankets, ed. Trisha Malcolm (2000). Some baby blankets look easy, others... advanced. I like the chevron lace throw with bobbles on the tips; the look of the jewel-tone chenille squares divided by black stitching for a stained-glass look, even though there's no way I would knit with that much chenille; the simple, attractive checkerboard entrelac with its self-finish diamond pattern border; the 'Frost Flowers' blanket and its art deco styling; the 'Ostrich Plume' lace throw, that mostly looks like a variation of feather-and-fan with a border; the lots-of-work lace christening blanket; the amazing 'Octogonal Lace'; the Old Shale lace that's worked in the round for a scalloped edge; the blanket with a pocket in the middle for a stuffed bear or what have you; the also-complicated Fair Isle 'Friendship Blanket' that, I think, really needs a backing; and the relatively simple-looking 'Cozy Corners' with its interesting stripes. I see a lot of these more as lap-size adult throws than baby blankets.