a really lovely knitting book for a present

[highlandcoo]

I've recently got back into knitting and a lovely knitting book would be a great Christmas present. Not just a collection of patterns, but including explanations of techniques as well as maybe some history of the craft and most of all inspiration for new projects.

It'll be my only present from DH - we like to keep Christmas simple - so it doesn't have to be super-cheap ..

I've heard that the Vogue book is good - does anyone have it - or other suggestions would also be great 😊

The Vogue one is lovely but feels too lovely to have out all the time. I really like the Dorling Kindersley The Knitting Book. Good explanations and clear pictures.

I do have the Vogue book, if you mean the Best of Vogue Knitting one. It has lots of essays from 25 years of the magazine, lots of interesting techniques, knitting history, design principles, and interviews with major designers. But it doesn't have patterns.

I have lots of knitting books and I find that the pattern books are best when focussed on a particular technique or tradition - aran, or lace, or fairisle, or brioche - or when they offer basic patterns you can adapt yourself (for instance the Ann Budd Knitter's Handy Book series). Some fun books that do have patterns along with essays, inspiration, etc are the Mason-Dixon Knitting books. A really lovely stitch guide might be good - Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns series is excellent - the first and second are the ones most people usually recommend. For a really big guide to every issue you might ever encounter in knitting there's June Hemmons Hiatt's The Principles of Knitting. Maggie Righetti's Knitting in Plain English is also good.

Thanks so much to both of you- lots of great ideas to explore