Useful book. Suffered a bit with age. Weirdly religious?
4 stars
There's a lot to learn in this book. There are even a few concepts I recognize which were presented as "new" in the much more recent Patty Lyons' Knitting Bag of Tricks. The vast, vast majority of these tips are still true today.
However, some aren't - there are fixes for some of the problems Righetti describes as unsolvable which have been discovered in the past 15 years since this updated edition was published. I'd be cautious of giving it to a brand new knitter without annotations, but I think a copy with some page tabs added in the sections which are now outdated would be a lovely gift for a new and eager knitter.
My last comment feels petty to say. Righetti is obviously the kind of person who has an honest, strong faith - and who assumes everyone around her does, too. For some reason, this book …
There's a lot to learn in this book. There are even a few concepts I recognize which were presented as "new" in the much more recent Patty Lyons' Knitting Bag of Tricks. The vast, vast majority of these tips are still true today.
However, some aren't - there are fixes for some of the problems Righetti describes as unsolvable which have been discovered in the past 15 years since this updated edition was published. I'd be cautious of giving it to a brand new knitter without annotations, but I think a copy with some page tabs added in the sections which are now outdated would be a lovely gift for a new and eager knitter.
My last comment feels petty to say. Righetti is obviously the kind of person who has an honest, strong faith - and who assumes everyone around her does, too. For some reason, this book is filled with Biblical references and mentions of God. (Charmingly, Righetti often refers to her Christian God in the female, which makes me forgive quite a lot.) There is a (funny!) chapter-long prayer smacked in the middle; if you get around the religious nature, you can see it for a litany of lessons learned the hard way, and an appreciation for the knowledge Righetti gained. But if you aren't a Christian too, these references feel pretty awkward.
Overall, though, this is a book I'm very happy to have on my shelf for a reference. I learned something new reading it!
