Book Review: Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel
I received Stefanie Japel’s new book, Fitted Knits: Twenty-Five Designs for the Fashionable Knitter, in the mail today (an Amazon.com preorder), and I’m very impressed with it. I ordered it because I generally like Stefanie’s sweater designs — though her aesthetic is sometimes too funky for me — and I wanted to add a book to my collection that had some specific instructions about shaping patterns to fit.
Fitted Knits is beautifully designed and laid out, and the number of patterns (twenty-five) seems generous. There’s a lot of lovely knitting to look at here, and a nice variety of pretty, wearable garments. I saw several things that I would be happy to add to my wardrobe, and there are interesting ideas behind some of the patterns that don’t quite suit me.
Here are a few of my favorites. You can click to get a better view, but these are quickie pictures, so don’t expect much by way of quality.
I was a little disappointed only in my hope of finding extensive instructions about fitting. Don’t get me wrong: Stefanie describes how to modify her patterns, provides great schematics, and breaks her instructions up into yoke, body, and peplum (where it applies) so that you can see where to modify. All of this is great. Because she knits all of her garments in one piece from the top down, however, there are no instructions here that would be helpful in designing or modifying garments knit in pieces from the bottom up. This is not really a criticism of Stefanie’s book, of course; it just means I’ll have to keep looking for the reference I’m lacking. Her “reference library” at the back of the book provides some good leads.
The patterns in Fitted Knits cover a range from easy to more complicated, from quick knits to more intricate ones, and from inexpensive to pricey yarn. There’s also an excellent variety of color in the book (and some smart patterns that use variegated yarns). I suspect there’s something for everyone here. I’m certainly pleased to have added Fitted Knits to my collection.
February 14th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Thanks for the review! I still haven’t had a chance to see this one yet! Very helpful!
February 15th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Thanks for the very focused and thorough review! I especially appreciate your taking the time to upload the photos. This is going on my wish list.
February 15th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for your comment! Your blog is one of few I found when looking for other people’s reviews… but I’m so bad at remembering to leave comments. It’s certainly great to see what other people pick out of the book as their favorite designs!
Also your Buster sweater looks great! (Its funny how many sweaters are inspired by television these days!) I’ve only done a little argyle intarsia once before, but there was a really great issue of IK awhile back that had a whole primer on it… they suggest knitting a swatch, then unraveling it, to see how much yardage you use for each diamond. Then you make smaller balls/bobbins for each diamond, which helps not have so many things to tangle up. I think they also suggested nixing intarsia altogether and doing duplicate stitch instead for the lines of single stitches.
Anyway, it’s a little late in your sweater for all that.
Can’t wait to see how it turns out!
March 1st, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Hey, it’s good to read your review: I like the red cardigan in spite of the puffed sleeves. If I make those I might look like a footballer, but it’s very pretty.
Are you going to make anything from it? This might be a book to buy, after all.