Price: USD $24.27
Notes: When I mentioned knitting a circular swearter, someone linked to this book for inspiration. I was curious right off the bat, because I love the look of circular or "swirl" sweaters. I picked up my copy from the library, just to give it a quick browse before committing the $25 to the book, since I'm not usually a sweater knitter (see London Calling sweater, on the needles since 2010).
Now that I've looked through it up close, I can say this: It's got great photography, lots of good information on the different shapes that can be used with this type of sweater (basically, knitting a flat circle with sleeves, which then drapes itself into a nice cardigan). I think many of the designs are beautiful. The book itself is quite thick and well made, and lies open flat, which makes it great for knitting directly from the book if you're so inclined (that being said it's a very heavy hardbound book, and I'd prefer to make a copy of each page I'm going to use).
Bad points: Every single sweater in this book has textural ridges. Here is the book page on Ravelry so that you can see what I mean (you can also click the "look inside" feature on Amazon, linked above. It's probably best illustrated by the image on the back cover). It's not that these are bad...they're just not to my personal taste. I would either find a way of hiding the increases to that the sweater could be knit all in one stitch type, or replace the garter/reverse stockinette bands with some kind of open stitch work (again, hiding the increases within). Or just knit a basic pinwheel swirl jacket, incorporating some of the elements from the book.
This is still on my wish list, because I find that the technique information at the beginning of the book is more valuable than the patterns it includes.
Rating: three out of five skeins
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