Book Review: You Can Knit That

I don't usually review knit books, but when I do... it's a good one!
Amy Herzog's publisher sent me a free copy of her new book, You Can Knit That and I was intrigued.

I met Amy on the set of Knit and Crochet Now a few years back and she's delightful! She has a great philosophy that any knitter can knit a sweater that fits. As a novice knitter of course I was doubtful but she gave me some great tips. She suggested that since I worry about even tension with flat knit, that I should choose a tweedy looking yarn to "hide" some of my practice inconsistencies. (Great idea!)

Anyway, her new book, as of this writing, is the #1 bestselling book in Knit on Amazon and I can see why. 24 gorgeous but not intimidating sweaters of all types. Vests, pullovers, cardigans, tunics, set-in sleeves, raglan sleeves, yoke necked, v-necked... So many choices!  The front section of the book is so helpful with information on yarn but also how to put pieces together... with photos and methods of seaming. The book is more than a book of patterns, it's a REFERENCE book. I can totally see coming back to this book again and again to understand different sweater shapes and techniques.

Briefly, here are two of Amy's sweaters that were stunning...

The Revive Cardigan is gorgeous! And look at that lovely, curvy model!  So refreshing. (Congratulations to her publisher Abrams for being SMART in choosing models.) The Revive Cardigan is written up to a 60" bust. It's stitched in the Fibre Company's Acadia (wool/alpaca/silk) blend. It has lovely ribbing details down the fronts lapel edgings and at the cuff and hem. I didn't notice any skill levels on the patterns, but most of them look do-able.  Some of them later in the book have great cabling details that I think I'm not ready for but more experienced knitters would totally dig it. Anyway, the Revive Cardigan instructions are only 4 pages long... including a schematic and a side bar article on shaping... so technically the pattern is only 3 pages long. Not scary at all!

The Rigging Sweatshirt is beautiful, looks easy without being boring and is something I think I could knit. Maybe Amy is right, maybe I CAN KNIT THAT!  Eureka!  :)  If you are scared of sleeves, this design (and others in the book) are workable! This sweater has a + shape construction, all in one piece. Again, the pattern is only 4 pages and one of those pages is a schematic and there is a full-page photo. You aren't going to need a decoder ring to make these patterns.

Congratulations on a great book, Amy!