Knit Fix

I was so excited when this book arrived in the mail today. I immediately flipped through it to see if it was what I was looking for. I was so excited to find it was better then I hoped! I'm a new knitter and was desperately looking for a book that would be chock full of photos and diagrams (step-by-step, not just beginning and end). Knit fix has plenty of both. Everything is very clearly labeled and highlighted. The Table of Contents include: Knitting Foundations (great step-by-step instruction for newbies) Fixes You'll Use Again and Again Troubleshooting Solving Problems Before They Grow Extreme Fixes: Altering When You're Done Knitting Test Driving (making your own patterns) The book is very well designed with easy to follow step-by-step instructions that follow the photos or diagrams. In the troubleshooting section they have Problem followed by Diagnosis and then the Fix. What's also nice about this book is they show you what something should look like when it's correct and how it looks when it's wrong, so you can see dropped or twisted stitches, etc. The book also does an excellent job of explaining how to count stitches and rows, showing you from both the "right" and "wrong" side. The spiral binding makes this book very easy to use. The layout is very well done and very appealing. The writing style is fresh and quick, not too long winded or too stuffy. The feeling is like having an experienced knitting friend sitting next to you giving you suggestions and tips. This book is a must have for new knitters, and probably an excellent aid for experienced knitters as well.

I taught myself to knit from books when I was a teenager. Now that I'm in my 50s I've knitted for many years, but still didn't know some of the common "tricks of the trade" I might have learned if I had been taught by an old pro or if I had taken classes. This book fills in the gaps and gives me lots of ideas about how to work around problems. It also increased my understanding of some technical details of knitting that I would never have figured out on my own. Easy to read, well organized, and a useful reference book to keep on hand.

This book is the best "fix it" book I've ever come across. Lots of books tell you, "If you dropped a stitch then do this..." or "If you twisted your stitches then do this..." and so on. But most of the time, for me anyway, I know there's a mistake, but I don't have any idea what I've done- if I did then I wouldn't have done it in the first place! This book is layed out differently. It has FULL COLOR photographs, not just drawings, and says "If your knitting looks like this (see picture) then you probably made this xyz mistake... and this is how you fix it. Then it goes on to explain what you probably accidentally did to cause the mistake and how you can go about avoiding making the same mistake in the future. Excellent! And everything is written in very simple easy to understand language, unlike some books who use so much knitting jargon it's like they're written in code. Plus, this book covers simple errors, like dropped stitches, to complicated problems, like stranding in intarsia, and everything in between- making it useful for all skill levels of knitters. I checked this book out from the library initially and was so impressed that i bought a copy for myself and my grandma immediately. I would highly and unreservedly reccommend this book to anyone who has ever made a mistake of any kind when they were knitting.

I am both dyslexic and left handed -- and after many years of false starts at learning to knit, I finally found a very patient woman at the local yarn store who stuck it out with me until all the left, right, back, front, yarn-in-back, yarn-in-front basics took hold. What I was not prepared for was the continuing confusion of slants, slips, drops, and other directional-dependent problems that inevitably occur throughout a project. After digging through all the books at the local library, the yarn store, and the local book stores, this book jumped off the shelf at me the first day it arrived after publication -- and voila! A book written in un-confuseable English, with an abundance of clear and concise illustrations! It is spiral bound, small enough to carry in my bag and go wherever I take my knitting. Another Interweave Press book -- "Compendium of Finishing Techniques..." is the perfect counterpart to this book -- also spiral bound and compact, it covers the seams, attaching, finishing/polishing info that keeps me fromknitting a 27 foot long mitten. I have 4 very widely recommended beginning knitters reference books on the shelf, but this is the book I keep at hand.

If you're a relatively new knitter without a seasoned 24 x 7 knitterly support staff at your disposal, this is the book for you. It will save you hours of grief and help you identify and fix many mistakes without frogging your project all the way back to zero. Kartus, a seasoned knitter and excellent writer, patiently walks you through the very basics of goof repair. Undoing stitches, unraveling entire rows, and specifically targeting one or two mis-formed stitches several rows below. Problems are illustrated in clear photographs, and fixes shown in illustrations. Kartus also goes deeper into issues like pucker-free Intarsia, fixing color mistakes in Fair Isle, and even re-turning a cable that you either forgot to turn or turned in the wrong direction - always showing just one or two common fixes. Most experienced knitters will have already tackled many of the problem scenarios listed in this book -- and they may even have a larger list of their own fixes. But for relative newcomers who haven't yet faced the slings and arrows of outrageous knitterly fortune, this book will be your new friend.