Anyone else majorally disappointed with this book?
(Harmony Guide: Lace & Eyelets by Interweave Press)
Two major complaints:
- There are no charts!
Who heard of knitting lace without charts? In my opinion, you need both the written out and the charts to knit lace. Sometimes one works better than the other. Seems very lazy of them not to include charts. - The photos really tick me off.
O.k. yes, they are all colorful and glossy and an improvement from the old guides, but…. They are cropped in too close, so you can’t see the edges of the lace, or how it is supposed to look as a row or column of lace. The beauty of the lace stitch gets totally lost. And some will show 2/3 of the stitch, then the other 1/3 is to the side. Sloppy work.
I can’t decide if I want to keep the book, or ship it back. I wish I had had the chance to see the book in person before ordering it online. (Bad me.) But to find out if I like a stitch, I’ll have to knit it up myself. But what would I replace it with? I was really excited about having a lace reference book for designing my own stuff. It is hard to find books with JUST lace. (and 250 stitches to boot!)
I’m curious to see what others think..
I have the book on hold at the library. I can’t say that there are many resources for lace stitches that only have lace.
The Knitting Stitch Bible has all sorts of stuff, charts, but no written directions
The Barbara Walker series of books. I have A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns – there are the written directions, but no charts.
Maybe this means that we should write one, lace, written directions and charts … similar to Knitting on the Edge, but with charts. See now I’m getting excited about sending a proposal to Interweave.
I knew there were no charts before I ordered and thought, well, I’ll manage – but. I tried a few of the patterns and was really frustrated since nothing seemed to turn out how it was supposed to look. And then they use some abbreviations I don’t really understand. So, in short, I was very disappointed, too and I really hope for a book with as many patterns, but with charts and proper explanations.
Cheers,
Weird