Jeanne Stauffer

Big-Needle Knit Afghans

3 stars (Beautiful Ideas - Full of Mistakes) - A beautifully photographed book of afgans for beginning to advanced knitters. How discouraging can it be to start a project, and realize things just don't "add up". If you are a knitter, you know what I mean. I contacted the publisher and pointed out a number of errors in their directions. Surprisingly, they sent me two pages of Editorial corrections, most of them identified by readers. All I can say is, BEWARE, and call the publisher and ask for the Editorial corrections OR you try to figure out if there is a mistake in the directions. Just have fun!! 3 stars (Beautiful patterns, needs better editor) - I love this book. The patterns are beautiful and easy to follow, the pictures are stunning, and I expect to get a lot of use out of it in the coming years. However, I'm working on my first afghan from the book, and there are two mistakes in the pattern. It's on page 52, and the pattern doesn't work unless you cast on 154 stitches instead of 152, and there's a psso missing from Row 11 - without it, the row is a disaster of increasing stitches that would probably result in a giant triangle. I'm about 80 rows into the afghan, which had to be restarted three times in order to work out these typos, but now is coming along beautifully. But it makes me wonder what other typos are in store for me on the other pages. 4 stars (Excellent source book for a variety of afghans) - This book has plenty of afghans in various styles, from Bavarian traveling stitch (difficult) to garter blocks (easy.) All are designed in yarns you can find fairly easily on the Web or Ebay or in yarn shops. The styles also vary from lacy, openwork, to fairisle, to colorblock, to dense cables or texture. So there is a bit of something for everyone. I found the color choices mundane, but with some imagination (or even scanning software followed by image manipulation) you could envision an aqua lace block afghan in a stunning creamy taupe rather tha...
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