The Little Box of Scarves

While I thoroughly enjoy the novelty packaging of these patterns, a number of the actual designs are rather lackluster. The box is fun, and I admit I have some sort of container fetish that surely influences my opinion, while the laminated cards are a good size and tough enough to travel. Best of all, I can stick a Post-It note to the back of the card and use it to keep track of my rows! As far as the box goes, the one downside I found was that the inside had a horrible plastic stink when I first got it and hasn't really dissipated over time. It's a little off-putting to open up the box and get a whiff of that. As for the patterns, I've never been very concerned with using the yarn called for, so I haven't run into any problems with discontinued brands. My favorites are the lace scarves - they're simple enough to not be utterly exhausting over the full length of the scarf, but still complex enough to keep my attention. (And they're pretty, to boot.) Another pattern that's become a standby of mine is the Farrow Rib scarf - it's a nice twist on a traditional ribbed scarf and I just can't get enough of it because I can just put my mind on autopilot while I knit and still get an interesting result. Unfortunately, a few of the patterns here rely on novelty yarns rather than stitch patterns or such, and they're just unimpressive because they fade from the vernacular very quickly. The Big Lace scarf and the Bold and Beautiful scarf in particular are a little too obvious and don't feel like good company for the numerous lace scarves, which seem more enduring. I'm sure the authors had variety in mind here, but it comes across as a bit scattered. All that said, I would recommend this for a beginning knitter who's gotten tired of plain old garter stitch or ribbed scarves and would like to make a foray into more complicated stitch patterns without having to worry about shaping, etc. OR for intermediate knitters who are looking for some stash-gobbling projects with a bit of challenge. In the end, it's worth having on hand, because you can never have too many patterns for inspiration!

I am fairly new to knitting and am intimidated by knitting books -- usually I have to "see" how to do it rather than "read" how to do it, but this book really makes it easy. Each scarf has its own laminated card with a beautiful color picture on the front and everything laid out on the flip side -- materials, gauge, edge, and instructions. There's a separate, handy "Abbreviations" card that makes quick work of understanding the instruction codes. For now the ruffled edge scarf is my favorite, but I'm excited to try my hand at the others.