Book Review: Love Knitting

You'll have noticed how much I've fallen in love with knitting this year, and I've blogged before about how excited I am to start trying out simple patterns... so it will come as no surprise to hear I was interested in this book when it arrived in the post this month:


Love Knitting: 25 Simple Projects to Knit is published by New Holland and, guess what, it's full of lovely simple projects!

The book starts out with a detailed beginners guide to the basics of knitting, with fantastic clear photos, which are then followed by 25 projects that increase in difficulty as you move through the book, from a super-simple baby blanket to bigger projects like a lacy shawl and a ribbed jumper (sweater).

The blurb I was sent about this book describes it as a "one stop guide to knitting" which I think is a teeny bit of an exaggeration, as though the knitting basics are great you wouldn't get very far through the book as a beginner knitter without coming across something not covered in the introductory "how to" section.

The patterns cover a wide range of techniques and yarn types and working through the book would be a great way to practice lots of new skills, but if you're not an experienced knitter you'll definitely need someone who is to help you out, or to buy a comprehensive "how to" knitting book to help you get to grips with the stitches involved.


The patterns themselves are a great mix of what I would call "classic" knitting patterns (like knitted slippers) and more modern, trend-driven designs like a bow hairband and a fun stripey snood which I'm particularly looking forward to knitting.

If you're a younger knitter there might be a few projects in there that you'd only knit for your aunt or your grandma, and if you're an older knitter some of the projects would make good gifts for a teenage neice or granddaughter, but as many of us knit presents for people I think this is no bad thing. There are also almost no baby/child projects in the book, which as a young unmarried person with few friends who have kids and no nieces or nephews to knit for I found quite refreshing after seeing several knitting books where the easy projects are all booties and other new baby gifts.

I took the book along to my knitting club and got everyone's feedback on it: all the ladies found projects they really liked, the more experienced knitters thought it was full of great easy things to knit as gifts and the less experienced knitters agreed with me that it looked like a great primer to start improving our knitting skills.

Love Knitting is available from New Holland, Amazon UK, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

(Disclaimer: New Holland sent me a free review copy of this book and the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links)