Afghans and Throws

Afghans and Throws

Publisher Trafalgar Square has provided an outstanding hard cover book. On every level, it 's artfully done. The book design is superb, beautiful on every page, with great graphics and wonderful stitch details.  Paper quality, binding, and photographs, are all first class. The book is rich in content too. Roberts covers an exhaustive list of subjects. She writes very economically, imparting great quantities of quality information. For example, two pages on color work are brimming with color samples to stir invention, plus instructions on how to make cool little color tools to bring when yarn shopping.

Roberts' real agenda in this book is to teach how to design blocks.  In turn, the designing of blocks becomes a vehicle for looking at a great range of techniques:  applique, knitted and crochet lace, motifs, cables, cross stitch charts, mitred corners, filet lace, embroidery, chart-reading.  Finishing details too are included in great detail, covering decorative seams, working around corners, edgings, tassels, and beads. There also stitch dictionaries for knit and crochet, and more and more. It's overwhelming in the most pleasant way.

The book is aimed at knitters and crocheters, with rare equal emphasis on both. What I love so much is what it has to say about the reader it's aimed at.  That person is intelligent, with discerning taste and an appetite for beauty, yet is a voracious learner who wants lots more than pretty pictures. The somewhat techno style of the layout implies the reader is computer savvy, probably young.  A young tech savvy afghan maker, hmm.  Well, I'm none of the above but I'm grooving on it.  "Afghans & Throws" (the title may be the only weakness),  shows how concept and design come together in a really fine book.  (review by Dora Ohrenstein)