Book Review: 201 Knitting Motifs, Blocks, Projects & Ideas

Back to the book reviews... did you see I've added a "book reviews" tab to my blog header? Now you can see all my book reviews in one place, if you want to, of course!

Today I'm looking at 201 Knitting Motifs, Blocks, Projects & Ideas by Nicki Trench who also wrote Cute & Easy Crochet which I reviewed last year. As the title suggests, there are a lot of different projects and patterns included in this book.

There's a brief "basic techniques" section at the back of the book, but the main content of the book is divided into "blocks" and "projects".

The "blocks" section includes 150 blocks divided into different sections: basic stitches, textured motifs, cables, ribbing, lace, stripes & colour, intarsia, fair isle, ripples, embroidery, beading and patterns for squares in the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 1-10. A few of the variations are quite similar (e.g. several of the "stripes and colour" blocks are just variations of the same stitch in different stripey colour combinations), but there's still a huge amount of information crammed into this section.

All the blocks are based on a 6 inch (15cm) square so if you wanted you could mix and match them to create something like a cushion or a blanket, or you could just use them to practice / develop your knitting skills.

The "projects" section contains 51 simple knitting projects including dishcloths, fingerless gloves, mug cosies, cushions, and scarves. Some of the projects are more detailed & complex, but most look like very accessible patterns that would be relatively quick to knit.

I rather liked the look of this fun cupcake pincushion...

 ... and this stripey draught excluder (love those giant pompoms!)...

... but the blocks section is the part which really appeals to me. I've got a similar book called How to Knit (now out of print, I think, my dad managed to find one for me second hand after I'd got a copy out of my local library) which contains lots of different stitch patterns and I really enjoying picking a new one and testing it out. The sheer number of blocks contained in 201 Knitting... and the fact that the blocks can be mixed and matched makes this a book I can see myself referencing again and again and spending many happy hours experimenting with the different designs.
 
201 knitting motifs, blocks, projects & ideas is published by CICO Books. RRP£14.99. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

[CICO Books sent me a free review copy of this book, and the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links which means if you click on them and then make a purchase I get a very small % as a referral fee.]