Simple Knits with a Twist: Unique Projects for Creative Knitters

Rating:
Summary: great for creative knitters
Review: I consult this book more than follow the patterns - and I have really enjoyed it. If you like to knit, and to use patterns as a departure rather than a construction manual, this is a fine book to look into. I should add that I'm neither novice nor really experienced but an accessory knitter who enjoys trying new things. And as far as knitting plastic bags goes, that's an old practice as well as a great way to recycle and the bags are surprisingly strong. Mine have lasted far longer than they took to knit!

Rating:
Summary: You can knit with anything...
Review: I first saw this book when a co-worker and fellow knitter showed it to me. She was ecstatic about a pattern for slippers that required only regular satin ribbon, of the sort she had about the house for wrapping presents. We'd both been feeling more than a little bit of sticker shock on the prices of quality yarn in our favorite knitting salon, and this book seemed like the perfect remedy. Because it reminds you that you can literally knit with anything, and so when you've exhausted your stash of yarn, and you can't afford the $200 cashmere sweater project you've been eyeing, you can pick up this book with loads of patterns and make a knit shopping bag with the cheap plastic shopping bags in your pantry that you've been waiting to take to the recycler. I've not tried any of the patterns yet, but they look clear enough and that's the only reason why I gave the book four stars instead of five.

Rating:
Summary: A Curiosity
Review: In general, I don't think anyone should review a knitting book without having made some of the projects in it, but for this book I am making an exception. If you want to knit a shopping bag with strips of old plastic bags (I think it would wear out in less time than it took to cut all the bags into little strips, never mind the actual knitting) or napkin rings with wire, this book will inspire you to do it. I won't say it will tell you how, because the patterns are more of a concept than a specific pattern. An experienced knitter could follow them -- but an experienced knitter could also do those things without a pattern. And the knitter who is feeling a bit jaded, bored with merely making sweaters out of yarn, and ready to do something exotic may find a starting point here.
But is it practical to have a white Aran slipcover for a chair? Could you let anyone sit on it after you had made it? And that was my favorite pattern in the book. Would a beanbag chair of knitting and denim hold its shape? Would you wear a pre-laddered sweater? Could a pink poodle-shaped wine bottle remain amusing for more than a day or two? I truly don't think these are patterns to be made and used, as much as they are exercises in how to push the knitting envelope.
It is a very attractive book. If you think of it as a conceptual art exhibit, you might enjoy it. But the projects are extreme and, I would think, impractical.