Review & Giveaway :: Knitted Accessories with Koigu & Short Row Slip Stitch

Since I've been completely worthless at posting lately, I thought I'd pop in with a long overdue book review and giveaway. It's been ages since I've done one of these. And today I'll double up to give you not one, but two chances to win a great new book from Annie's. :)

The first book on the agenda is A Playful Palette of 10 Knitted Accessories by the talented and prolific designer, Tabetha Hedrick. (She and I are in a couple of Knit Picks collections together, as well as Free Spirit Shawls. Cool!) This book is made up of (you guessed it) 10 accessories, all of which use between one and four skeins of Koigu sock yarn (the gorgeous KPM and KPPM). And she's focused the collection on accessories that are appropriate to knit while traveling -- small projects that can be completed in a short amount of time and won't take up very much space in your travel bag. All of the projects are named after airports and look like fun instant gratification knits that you'll probably actually wear. Below are a few of my faves.

The Bethel Scarf. This project takes just 1 skein, and Tabetha claims it to be such a fast knit that she completed hers during a 2.5 hour flight! Bethel is long and lacey with the added bonus of diagrams for various ways of tying it.

Below is the less slouchy option for the the Garden City Hat. This is another one-skeiner and, though I can't say I'm a huge fan of this particular colorway, I think this hat is extremely cute. I'd probably choose a yarn more on the semi-solid side, but that's just me.

What project is better for traveling than socks?! The Nantucket Socks take 2 skeins for either the shorter or the longer version (shown below are the shorter). I love these. And I want some now.

Finally, we have the Hilo Scarflette, which takes 3 skeins of MC and 1 skein of CC. The MC is held double throughout and is worked in Fisherman's Rib with the semi-circle shape created with short rows. I originally thought the cool edging was made up of about a million bobbles, but it ends up it's a Picot BO done on a ruffle. Sounds much easier. :)

As always, the instructions look very clear and all techniques are helpfully spelled right out. The book is nice and lightweight, too, in keeping with the travel theme. You can find out more about this book on the Annie's website, and also on Amazon here.

But wait, we're not done yet!

The next book I want to talk about is a technique book: Learn Short Row Slip Stitch, by Nancy Nehring. Now I will be honest with you. When I heard "short row slip stitch", I thought we were talking about knitting and signed up for a review copy of the book right away. But I missed one crucial piece of information: this is crochet short row-ing...not knit. And I know very little about crochet. But I do know a lot about learning new techniques and following directions so, though I can't really speak to the technical aspects of this book, I can tell you how well I think I'd be able to learn from it. And I think that would be pretty well.

The introduction is great and includes very clear instructions for how to do crochet slip stitch ribbing (which looks exactly like knit ribbing!) and how to do a crochet short row. Little mini-patterns are included for practice swatches, and the author gives notes like "If your fabric does not stretch at least two times, then you are probably using the wrong loop", which I would find pretty handy. The stitch guide and diagrams on the back page are awesome, and I'm really tempted to get out a crochet hook and try to do one of these projects myself. Another nice thing about this book is that all 7 projects included are designed to help you master this technique. They are all basically rectangles that use short rows for shaping. So, really, just larger versions of the swatches. But, as we know, you can do a whole lot with short rows. For example...

Check out these cute little Flanders Poppies...

And the very neat striping pattern achieved in the Wedge Cowl...

Then the Four Seasons Top, rated more advanced, but it still seems to be pretty simple in construction. This is adorable!

 And I love the Cozy Vest. Can you believe that's not knitted? Totally fooled me.

You can check out the book on the Annie's website or on Amazon.

OR, for a chance to win your own copy of one of these books, leave a comment here telling me which one you're more interested in. (Hopefully there are a few crocheters among you!) You have until 11:59pm Pacific time this coming Friday (the 25th), and I'll draw a winner for each book on Saturday morning.

Thanks for playing, and happy Easter to everyone!