Review on Scottish Knits: Enhancing Colorwork and Cables with a Twist by Amber Perez

I keep this book for three reasons: the Mackintosh Rose Chart, the Thistle Chart, and the Tay Tarten Color History. The first two lend themselves better to needle or cross stitch due to the awkward distribution of the tricolor yarn, and the third piece is a great example of poor knitting quality in this book. I hate criticizing knitters, especially in a more advanced knitting book like this, because I think it's usually the result of design decisions and production issues with the editor, but... . . Thay Tarten's hat is in disarray, the back of Mackintosh's cardigan looks like it's been wrung out, and couldn't they fasten those mittens so they at least look like they fit on the arm instead of the leg? I strongly believe that these issues are the direct result of design decisions and not the fault of the knitters. Highlights: Do you like making patterns? Boy do I have some blankets you're gonna love! You make 40 patterns and then sew them together! Hooray, you'll look like you have no imagination! That leaf garland sweater from the cover: Did you know it has random, ugly diamond-shaped stripes? No, because the model cleverly conceals them with her hair and awkwardly placed hands! Not by chance! NOT all color works have charts. The houndstooth accessories don't have a chart, although they've stretched it across three entire designs. In three separate projects there was no room for a tiny diagram. Don't worry, there's: half a page of wood, a quarter page of a flower, and they have a full page, full back view of the hat and mittens on the man in the woods, but not the back or side view of the braided cardigan later! There are no diagrams on any of the cables. The Fair Isle cardigan on the cover is an odd beast. It almost reproduces the bold, garish colors of early fiction (which can have a charming effect), but the drawing is too broken up by odd color combinations and patterns, to the point that they register as ugly blotches. This was one of my big disappointments. I looked at this book on different monitors and the sweater looked dainty and beautiful, but when I received the book the colors were terrible. At least the top of the sleeve is neat. Scottish knitting is a classic example of a "hard" handknit that proves not worth the effort. And, of course, the making of patterns and books proves that they do not consider knitters worthy of receiving excellent instructions and well-executed diagrams, photos and examples. When I knit the hard way, the reverse way, the poorly designed way, the results have to be overwhelmingly spectacular. This book is far from that ideal.