Review & Giveaway: You Can Knit That

Abrams provided a copy of You Can Knit That free of charge. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own. 

Amy Herzog has a Superpower: creating confident sweater knitters.

Maybe FOMS (Fear of Making Sweaters) has kept you from even attempting a sweater. Or maybe you have knit a sweater or two or fifty, but are you happy with the results? Every time? Really?

You Can Knit That is the next best thing to having a friendly, knowledgeable knitter sitting by your side while you work on a sweater. The subtitle promises a lot: Foolproof Instructions for Fabulous Sweaters, but Amy is up to the challenge. She understands what intimidates us about making sweaters: the idea that we’ll pour out time, energy, effort and money for something that may not even fit.

What You’ll Learn:

• What to do before the knitting to assure great results. Seriously, this is really important, and the thing that most sweater knitters, and (let’s be honest), knitters in general, ignore.
• What to do during the knitting to assure great results.
• What to do after the knitting to assure great results. Again, really really important and often overlooked.

Let me interrupt this review to say that, so far, it looks like the outline of the finishing class that I’ve taught for many years. Finishing doesn’t just happen after the sweater pieces are knit. But I digress…

Sweater Styles Covered:

• Vests
• Integrated Sleeves (knit at the same time as the body)
• Drop Shoulders
• Raglans
• Yokes
• Set-in Sleeves

These are fairly classic styles in a modern fit, in mostly stockinette stitch, but with enough detailing to keep from being boring. The silhouettes are ones that will stay in style for quite some time.

Cool Features:

• Real-body adult models
• Adult sweater instructions in twelve sizes
• Super-clean layout. I especially love the font and the spacious leading (that’s the distance between lines of text). To me, it’s optimal for ease of reading.
• Super-clean photography so that we can really see the sweaters. In other words, the models are on clean sets which aren’t mucked up with lots of stuff. And there are closeups when needed. And the models look happy, because they love their sweaters.
• Each chapter starts with a kid’s size sweater in six sizes, from 1-10 years. This lessens the intimidation factor even more. What could be scary about making a kid’s sweater?

One Thing I Was a Little Bit Bummed About:

My main complaint was that the mini sweaters were photographed on hangers rather than on kids. I suppose that keeps us from being overcome with photographed adorableness. After all, we’re supposed to be making sweaters for adult women here. Focus!

If you are familiar with Amy’s previous books, Knit to Flatter and Knit Wear Love, you know how friendly and accessible Amy is with her patient explanations of fit and tailoring. If you’ve seen those and find them a bit beyond your comfort level, rest assured that You Can Knit That dials it back a notch: it’s the perfect volume to begin your sweater-knitting journey.

Giveaway

The giveaway has ended. Congratulations to winner Connie K!

You can always sign up for my newsletter so you won’t miss future giveaways!