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Rating: 
Summary: My holiday mittens were a hit!
Review: I have been knitting most of my life, but would certainly not consider myself an expert! It was with some trepidation then that I decided to knit mittens for my sisters, aunts, nieces and other special friends for Christmas this past year. The instructions in the front of the book were excellent. With a little trial and error, I was able to master the basic mitten. The individual patterns are easy to follow and are stunning. I eventually completed 27 pairs of bright and colorful mittens. The recipients were amazed. I even included a little gift insert that I had crafted about the Komi people from reading the history at the beginning of the book. I am now working on my 28th pair...for myself! And I purchased an additional copy of the book to keep in reserve just in case it ever (heaven forbid!) goes out of print.
Rating:
Summary: Simplicity at its best
Review: Ms. Schurch,
Thank you for taking your time, researching and writing such a detailed book on little known ethnic art of Komi people in Russia. The designs are very practical, colorful, and easy to make. Besides, saving a perishing heritage of knowledge of small nation in our mass-production age, is a noble cause. When this knowledge is gone, it will be gone forever.
Thanks again.
adriana
Rating:
Summary: I have to hand it to Charlene Schuch: These are marvelous
Review: There are a few mitten knitting books on the market; Latvian Mittens (Upitis) featuring the intricate, fine gauge knitting from that Baltic land; Magnificent Mittens by Zilboorg--colorful Turkish patterns and gauntlets in her original and very colorful style. So how many MORE mitten books do we need--being as we all wear far few mittens than, say, socks?I was not, therefore, immediately interested in this book. But, wait, who are the Komi people and what kind of knitting do they do? it turns out the Komi are a Finno-Ugric group who are ethnically related to the Estonians and Finns. Like the Baltic Estonians, they use the angular, diagonal patterns found in Estonia and Latvia, as well as in Lithuania and parts of Russia. The mittens here are colorful, with eye-catching use of all-over designs and mixed "septentary" smaller bands that make for very attractive hand coverings. But not only mittens--author Schurch includes a lovely pattern for long stockings which could be used for cross-country skiing, and two very nice hats--a Komi fez with tassels and a sort of stocking cap. If you like color pattern knitting, this book is a valuable idea resource. If you like knitting mittens, of course you will like it even better. But even if hats and socks are really your favorites, (they are for me) this book has a great deal to offer in novel patterns and colorways. I like it a lot.
Rating:
Summary: just what you need :)
Review: This is a wonderful book of mittens with intricate but easy to do patterns. Charlene's general mitten pattern in different sizes works out great and fits very well. The book is well thought out with a general introduction with information that relates to all the mittens and the separate patterns have their essential information. Her graphs are easy to read. There are a few goofs in the patterns like a wrong count/yarn for the pattern repeat, but you'd pick up on that right away checking count and yarn. Some of the shown gloves seem to be a previous version as they differ slightly from the actual pattern graph/position of the pattern on the glove. But I think that's a minor variation. The color photographs are gorgeous and make you want to knit just all of them.
I especially like the way the thumbs are worked, first of all with a pattern section on the thumb that is centered and looks very neat, then second, the way the thumb is finished is very fitting to the shape of a human thumb in a way that the reductions are only made on the "hand" side.
I am very very happy with this book and recommend it highly.
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