My book: Beyond Knit & Purl

"Beyond Knit and Purl" is designed to be the book that takes you from being confident about your needles to being confident about patterns.

I've been teaching knitting for nearly 10 years, and it's pretty clear to me that there's been a massive hole in the knitting literature and instruction... we teach you how to hold your yarn and needles, we show you how to knit and purl, and then we send you into a yarn shop and expect you to be able to choose a pattern and yarn and then successfully knit it.

My book is designed to help knitters grow from being confident with their needles to being confident with patterns. In it, key questions are answered, e.g.: "What's ease", "What does it mean when it says to decrease evenly across?", "What skills do I need to knit socks?", and "What's the big deal about not twisting the round?"

The first third of the book is all about working with and from patterns - how to choose a good pattern, how to know if a pattern is going to be easy or difficult.  How to choose the appropriate yarn and why and how to swatch (and when not to... ).  How to choose what size to knit. And I explain all that strange language you see in patterns... like "work even" and "every foll alt"; I teach you how to read charts.  I clearly explain what skills are needed for different types of projects and what the appropriate next steps are for newer knitters.

The rest of the book is all about specific techniques... Increasing & Decreasing, Working in the Round, Socks, Cables, Lace and Colorwork. Each chapter explains they key facts, stitches and techniques with lots of helpful photos and diagrams, and then provides four projects for knitters to practice.  There's a quick-hit mini project, one or two evening's worth of work, a great way to try out some skills and gain confidence, and then there are three other skill-builder projects, lots of quick and easy knits like hats and mitts and scarves and shawls.  Even a top-down one piece baby sweater, to learn all about this important and popular sweater knitting method.

You can see the projects here on Ravelry. Buy the book at your local yarnshop, or a physical or digital copy, here.


UPDATE: As is always the way, as few mistakes and typos crept into the first edition. All purchasers of the digital edition will receive an update free of charge. Download this list if you purchased the physical edition.