I basically eat books for breakfast at this point in my career as a student, so yesterday’s heavy package from Amazon.com was initially no great surprise to me. Until I opened it up and found this goodness:
It is the second edition of The Principles of Knitting: Methods and Techniques of Hand Knitting, an encyclopedia of all things knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt. I preorded this last year as soon as I learned it was being published and then forgot to track the progress. What a nice surprise it is! There is enough knitting knowledge in here to keep me busy for a lifetime. No, I’m not exaggerating.
In case you are unfamiliar with this volume, a bit of background: Hiatt originally wrote it back in the 1980s. It became a classic for yarn addicts everywhere, but went out of print during the grunge years of the 1990s. I’ve actually only seen the first edition of this once, in a library reference section. First edition copies retail for $250-300—well out of reach for most of us.
The new edition is even bigger and better than the old. The author has added about 100 pages of content and gone carefully through every word (according to the preface, Hiatt had to retype the entire manuscript. Gasp!). There are over 700 pages to the book, including a very comprehensive index.
So what will you find in the book? Friends, an easier question might be what won’t you find in the book. When it comes to knitting info, it’s all here. From casting on, to how you hold the needles; from stitch patterns to pattern abbreviations; from choosing yarn to fighting stains in garments—you will find it all in this volume. Hiatt explicitly wrote this book to be suitable for beginners, but I can’t imagine even the most expert knitters not learning something new from it as well.
In short, if I could only have one knitting book on my shelf, it would be this one.
The publishers, Simon & Schuster would be morons to let this go out of print again, but just in case, you may want to get your own while the price is still accessible. You won’t regret it.
