Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders(r)

What a beautiful book! This book will inspire even the most reluctant crafter! The photographs are very well done and the yarn colors are lovely. I found many projects for my to do list. I especially liked the Parisian Alpaca wool scarf. It looks like a great project to start with because I find crochet much easier than knitting. There are a few crochet projects within this book. The directions seem to be very straightforward. I have not actually made any of the projects yet, but I hope to accomplish this before the winter is over. Any crafter would like to add this book to their collection.

This is the third in the "one skein wonder" series, featuring 101 projects made of luxury yarns. As with all books in this series the finished projects are shown in full-color photographs in a gallery in the front of the book. The chapters that follow are divided by yarn weight. This format allows for two options of skimming: you can browse through all projects with a certain weight yarn that you may want to work with, or you can skim through the photographs to find a project that catches your eye as the starting point. The yarns featured in this book are: silk and silk blends, cashmere, alpaca and alpaca blends, soy, qiviut (arctic musk ox), bison, and corn. Some `ecofriendly fibers' are featured: bamboo, flax, linen, organic cotton and organic wool. Since luxury yarns are expensive, it is a great idea to have access to projects that can be made with just one skein. It is apparent that the designers tried to get the most and best use from each yarn, giving luxury yarns a project that would show off their unique beauty, or take advantage of the softest fibers to use it in ways that we can appreciate the sensual nature against our skin, such as a very soft scarf or a hat for a baby or an adult. The super fine weight yarns have been made into lovely lacey objects. It seems to me that most of the projects are for the intermediate or advanced knitter. I feel this is due to the types of complex stitching used to either make a lovely lacey shawl or scarf or perhaps to make the one skein stretch to the largest size thing possible, as with the case with some of the scarves made more for show than warmth, and with an airy baby cap. There are gloves, socks, vests and baby sweaters which are projects or stitches for knitters with more skill than a beginner has. While at first I was a bit disappointed there were not more easy projects for beginners, after reading through the book a few times I came to realize that this is probably due to wanting to use an expensive and luxurious yarn in the most appropriate way to `honor it', if you will, by matching its cost and level of luxuriousness to a finished project that will really show it off. One would not want to waste an expensive and fancy yarn on a basic garter stitch scarf or a simple ribbed hat, typical beginner knitting projects. Also some of the yarns are delicate and would not hold up to some of the easier to knit projects that might get hard wear and be ruined in a short amount of time. I love the book because the designers have provided a variety of projects ranging from wearable items for babies to adults to home decor that make good and an appropriate use of the expensive luxury yarns. I am a beginner knitter and feel I'm not yet ready to knit most of these projects. I am inspired by this book to continue learning new knitting techniques and to try knitting with more delicate yarns. This book let me see that I have a lot of options for types of yarn to work with in the future. As a beginn

This is a great little book full of small projects. 101 in fact. I like the idea of one skein projects, because this way I can buy many of the different yards I see in my yarn shop. Many of these luxury yarns are expensive and having a project that takes only one skein is perfect. I made the Siostra Mohair-wool hat on page 182. This hat featured a border worked simply by slipping a group of stitches over one stitch and the top of the cap is decreased in three places, forming a very nice swirl pattern. There are other patterns I will try using high-end yarns -- luxury! This book would make a great gift for anyone who is into knitting.

As a part-time knitter (Work, & other obligations in life take up the bulk of my time. *sigh*) I am a big fan of the "one skein" series. For those of us with little time or on the move, these small projects are great for their portability and that they can be done up quickly for immediate gratification or spur-of-the-moment gift-giving. This is the third book in Judith Durant's series and many might be disappointed in that the projects might be considered "recycled" or not innovative enough to be considered new. This is a legitimate concern and for those knitters out there who have pretty much seen it, and done it all this book will not offer you anything new. However, the main focus of this third installment in the series is to focus on the use of luxury yarns. This includes Bamboo, Alpaca, Silk, Soy, Quivit, etc. Yarns that due to their texture will not knit up the way wool and synthetics do. In fact some of these yarns can be problematic in their use in which case this book is really beneficial for providing small projects and the appropriate direction & advice for their creation. If you are like me and not familiar with the use of these yarns, but would very much like to experiment, then this book will be very useful and you might actually be grateful that the patterns are so familiar.