strongbookthoughts

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Stitchionary 3 published by Vogue Knitting

Volume three is color knitting! And, as usual, Vogue Knitting has given us a well designed books with complex techniques that mostly show a sense of taste. (Crocheters can play along on this book, btw.)

So what we have here is a collection of color motifs that can be used to design knitwear. This is volume 3, so it's all color-based design. The other volumes are knit&purl and cables. I thiiiink I own one or both of those from back in the day.

Publication date is 2006, but the colors run a little bit more classic/conservative/vintage for the most part. Though you can totes change any colors you see in the book.

Every entry in this book has a chart and an example piece. This is especially good if you are trying to understand how the designs shift when you translate them from a grid to the shape of your stitches.

The majority of the designs are based on just switching colors on flat stockingette, so easily adapted for crochet. I'm less sure that the section on texture and slip stitching will translate as easily, but I'm not the fiber police. You can totally try it.

The series is a solid collection of design reference for knitting, and if I found them used, I'd certainly be tempted to snap them all up.

Aaaaand I just checked. Volume 4 is crochet, so I've just put in a request for it. Will review when I get it in my hot little hands!

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Found Recipes published by Betty Crocker

Let's start with the most painful thing about this book: The 1990s are vintage now. On the other hand, that means we aren't about to discuss a bunch of jello salads.

Betty Crocker published a bunch of recipe magazines and books over the years. This book is mostly a collection of the most requested "lost" recipes in the archives, with a few that were attempts to recreate recipes that were truly lost. Most recipes have a blurb telling you the original source.

Betty Crocker recipes also skew towards baking, so... YUM.

Most recipes have pictures. Maybe all of them do, but I wasn't looking too closely because I started to get hungry. There are also genuine vintage pictures from the company's history scattered throughout. Many of those are 1970s or older, and some of them are kinda neat!

There's a chocolate scotchmallow cake. That alone would get a positive review from me.

There are also a high number of 1990s americanized interpretations of Mexican food. Honestly? They look like a lot of stuff my mom cooked, so I'm not going to knock them. But it's a lot of psuedo-mexican flavors applied to mid-western cooking techniques. That hits as comfort food for me, but I totally get it if it sounds like culinary horror for you.

Oh! And if you are familiar with those 1990s cookbooks, you know they used a ton of bisquik and cake mixes. There's a bit of that in this book, but a lot of the recipes were recreated with from-scratch directions instead. Not all of them tho! So that's another YMMV point.

Overall? I gotta go photocopy a cake recipe, but, uh.... I may kinda own a lot of those 1990s recipe magazines already?

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on The Just Bento Cookbook 2 by Makiko Itoh

I own and love the first book by this author, so I was delighted to find this on the library shelf.

So the main thing you should know about this book is that you can use it without having book 1, but this doesn't cover most of the stuff in book 1. So there's some stuff on how to pack bento boxes with food safety in mind, like in book 1. But there are classic recipes that are not here.

The recipes are written with Japanese taste in mind. I don't think the book is translated, but the bits with Mexican or Korean flavors (for example) are still very filtered through a Japanese lens. I don't mind that in the context of this book, but it might be a little weird if you are expecting an American filter, or an attempt at Doing Things Authentically For Each Culture.

Anyway, I wanna own this book, but I don't want to steal from the library. So it's going on my wishlist for now, which is the highest honor I can award a library book.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Some of my friends decided to start a book club, and this was the first pick. We, uh, collectively HATED it.

So very short reason: based on the cover and whatnot, we all thought this was going to be some kind of fantasy/horror novel. Maybe magical realism? It's not. It's just miserable people existing in the 70s. And none of us were up for that.

BTW, is that drip supposed to be pink? I never know with library books if the cover has faded a bit.

Anyway, I promised myself I'd make it 50 pages in, and I made it a smidge further than that simply out of respect for the chapter breaks. Someone else in the book club rage quit 4 times and only looped back out of the desire to participate.

THAT SAID! If you like miserable, dysfunctional people who do not have good therapists being miserable all over each other, you might really like this book! The different POV characters all had different voices and concerns. The teenagers felt like teenagers. The stuff about the summer camp rang pretty true (I've never done that style camp, but it tracked with what friends have told me.). There were a few details that really hit nicely on the "this is set in the past" vibe in those pages I did get through.

Just, ugh, SO NOT MY GENRE.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on The Yearlong Pantry by Erin Alderson

I checked out this book because it was a new arrival I hadn't noticed before. I literally only looked at the front cover. So I was a bit surprised when I realized that it's a vegetarian cook book once I got home and started looking at it.

Honestly, when I grabbed the book, I was expecting something that focused more on seasonal foods. Instead, our three main categories are grains, legumes, and nuts & seeds.

The author does get a little into the weeds with grain prep, but also gives fairly good advice about where to buy some of the obscure grains. (Random fact: I had einkorn a few days ago, and it was quite tasty. I was completely surprised to realize it's mentioned in this book. In a waffle recipe, which is probably amazing.)

Also, you can pickle grains. My mind is blown.

The legumes section has a nice assortment of bean-types. There are directions for starting with dried beans (the point is pantry staples, after all!), but there are notes on how to make canned beans work with most recipes.

The seeds and nuts section feels the thinnest to me. Maybe it's because none of the recipes feature cashews, and those are my faves. On the other hand, the intro to the section talks about making nut milk. So it's not really lacking in culinary adventure. The very first recipe, Whipped Goat Cheese Dip with Black Pepper Hazelnuts, looks particularly yummy.

The flavor profiles are casually global. I noticed Italian, Indian and Korean back to back to back.

The book is vegetarian, not vegan, but there's a pretty good amount of wiggle room to go fully vegan in some recipes. And others are vegan anyway.

Some recipes do have seasonal notes for if ingredients are not easy to find year-round.

Overall, a solid reference book! I do think the most attention was given to the grain section. And if I was going to start exploring my options there, this would be a spectacular book to have on hand. And as a happy meat-eater, yes I did see a few ways I might tweak a recipe or two to include meat. But I honestly think that most of these recipes are more than flavorful enough without doing that.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on That Takes The Cookie by Ryan Alvarez and Adam Merrin

C is for cookie, and that's good enough for meeeeeeeeee~~~!!!

85 cookie recipes in one glorious place.

The pros: The recipes hit a good variety of skill levels. The chapter that gets international looks beyond white people cookies. The photography is attractive without getting fussy. It's easy to find how many cookies the recipe will make. Recipes that are vegan/dairy-free/gluten-free are also clearly marked.

The cons: Not every recipe has a picture. I have to give the book back to the library. The index doesn't list where the vegan and gluten free recipes are, so you gotta browse for them.

The book does have some notes on adapting recipes to be gluten free. As I don't do non-gluten baking, I don't know if the advice is good.

The book does NOT offer tips on how to make things dairy free as far as I can tell, so maybe that's why dairy-free does get an entry in the index?

Anyway, I am easily pleased when it comes to cookie recipes. I'm just a little sulky that the only cookie that has butterscotch also has nuts. But otherwise, I'd be happy to have this book in my cookbook collection.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Dark and Dramatic Mosaic Crochet by Alexis Sixel

So I requested this book because I misremembered the name of a technique that I was interested in. And NO REGRETS. I LOVE THIS BOOK. IT'S SO PRETTY.

Look, inside of me there are two wolves. One wants everything spoopy, and the other wants everything rainbow. Spoopy wolf just wants to gnaw on this book and never give it back to the library. Also, the technique looks pretty heckin' easy.

Like, if you can count, do single crochet and double crochet? This is at your level. The only thing to keep in mind is that you are overlapping a lot of stitches, so the garments are going to be fairly thick. But the home decor is going to be pretty sturdy!

I wish I'd had time to make the belt, but the book is due back tomorrow. I might be photocopying some pages before I actually drop it in the return box. Or just asking if I can check it out again. (yes, I already renewed it the max number of times).

ALSO, some of the projects look fairly small? They might be good projects for using up mini skeins? Like, especially the coasters and the plant holders? Yeah, good stuff. Other projects are definitely not small.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on The Beaded Edge by Midori Nishida

If this looks familiar, it's because I found book 2 by this author first.

Okay, so same complaints apply: it's thread crochet and you string all the beads on before you even make your slipknot. That's potentially an awful lot of math before you get to the fun part.

My general sense is that more of the patterns in this book are traditional motifs. The author has a lovely section on the traditional oyas that inspired her interest in beaded trim. I kind of like the suggested projects more? Not sure they are my vibe, but they are closer to my vibe than book 2.

I think, if I were buying only one book in the series, I'd pick the first one unless I really wanted a particular motif from book 2.

[strongbookthoughts]

Hi

I just wanted to let you know I really enjoy your book reviews on all things fibre crafty. Thy are concise and let me know what I would want to know about a book before deciding to buy one. Also, I get to know about books I otherwise would have missed.

Thank you!

I'm glad you're enjoying the reviews! I'm mostly doing it to keep track of what I've checked out, but knowing other people like them makes it easier to keep doing it. :)

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Third Culture Cooking by Zaynab Issa

I took my time getting around to this book, and now I'm sad that it's due back today. I could spend hours with this one and just get hungrier with every picture. Instead, I'm rushing before running out the door.

While the author of this book is born-American, her parents are from Tanzania. This book is her lifetime of juggling wanting to be a "normal" American, and the food culture she inherited from her parents.

I want to eat it all.

Every recipe has a few substitution suggestions to either make it easier to find the vibe, or just suggesting a way to use something you already have on hand so you don't have to go to the store. Like trying basil instead of cilantro.

The author mentions not eating pork in one of the little recipe intros, so I'm going to assume that we're pork-free. I saw a lot of chicken, and a lot of fish tho. Some of the recipes are vegetarian, but the book doesn't seem to label them or have a glossary to help find them. I didn't particularly notice anything vegan, but I was rushing through.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Well Worn by Skye Pennant

So I've looked up a lot about mending in the last few years, but what I really like about this book is how it's organized.

I know I opened with something else, but first, a HUGE shout out to the author on having a section on when it's time to say a garment can't be mended. Some mending resources get painfully optimistic about it, so the realism is greatly appreciated.

Okay, so this book is sorted by garment, and then further broken down by what part of the garment needs mending. So the section on socks talks about different stitches for the toe vs, the heel. The book also talks really nicely about woven vs. knit garments.

So yeah, this is a nice resource with good pics and explanations for why you want to know different techniques for different parts of clothing.

And also, if you don't want super visible mending? Some of the tricks in here are pretty subtle if you match colors. Not all of them, but the book can get you moving in that direction if that's more to your taste.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Knitting Lace by Barbara Abbey

First published in 1974, this edition is from 1993, but it really kept the vintage vibes.

So the author of the book died the year before the book was released. That's giving me feelings. This is why I usually skip the introductions.

ANYWAY. The book assumes that you already know how to knit a bit. It's got nice clear diagrams for how to do all those increases and decreases that make knit lace so pretty. (I don't know about all y'all, but sometimes those black and white diagrams are way easier for me to understand than actual photos.)

Most of the book is lace motifs that are shown outside of patterns, but there are a few patterns at the back of the book. These are written out in very concise shorthand. At a quick glance, I don't know all the abbreviations used, but I'm sure they are explained somewhere earlier in the book.

New knitters who are used to the more expanded and detailed tutorial style patterns might not like this book's format very much. But if you can get into it, you will unlock the ability to use so many vintage patterns.

Anyway, the book is very low frills in terms of style and layout. YMMV on if you like that type of book or not.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Knitting Patterns for Dummies by Kristi Porter

Not a lot of strong thoughts on this one either. It definitely exists.

Okay, so I'm old enough to remember when the For Dummies books were pretty much the most reliable way to get your hands on a good how-to book. So when I saw this in the library catalog, I figured I might as well see how my memory of the titles holds up against the reality.

This book is solid. It's not flashy. There's lots of clear diagrams where you will probably need them, but not a lot of color images.

Oh, and I should say, it's pretty much about how to design and tweak knitting patterns, not how to knit. Important distinction. And probably why I'm kind of neutral about it. I'm not interested in thinking that much this week. There's a lot of math in pattern design.

That said? If you do want to design knitting patterns? This is worth checking out.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Charts for Color Knitting by Alice Starmore

Book thoughts aren't super strong on this one. It's pretty much what it says it is.

Yeah, that chart style on the bottom half of the cover? That's like 75% of the book. There's a small section on how to use the patterns, kinda. There are a few color examples here and there, but mostly it's just charts.

If you're designing stranded knitting patterns? Great resource. If you're looking for a pre-written pattern? Not the place to go.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on The Art of Slip-Stitch Knitting by Faina Goberstein and Simona Merchant-Dest

I've never done slip stitch knitting, but I liked the vibes on the cover enough to want to see the designs. And I am all about judging a book by its cover, at least in terms of deciding to look at the inside. But let's discuss the inside of the book, too. :)

So the main things that catches my eye on flipping through this book, is that the authors love bold colors, and I am here for it. Slip stitch can do colorwork OR really cool textures, and the colors stay bold on the texture-focused pieces too.

If you're looking for a waffle stitch in knitting, slip stitch is the place for you, btw.

Sections on how to slip stitch are nicely detailed, and the patterns have both charts and text block sections.

There are sections of just how to do the slip stitch pattern, and also projects where it's applied. The projects assume intermediate-to-advanced skill levels, and I'm appreciating that change of pace.

Lots of the patterns are sweaters, and sizing seems to run from roughly 32-56in, with some adjustments for the stitch pattern. I think my favorite design is the cardigan on the cover, but I liked a lot of the others. A few had kind of a retro vibe. Think the classy end of 1960s fashion (as opposed to the party girl trendy of things). Most patterns are feminine.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Pantry Genius by Anna Berrill

Okay, so I totally grabbed this because I was just curious what ingredients would make the list, but I really liked it!

So just real quick, I'm going to note that the author is British, so expect that for some of the food names. As an American I was confused a few times about what things were. The copy I got from my library still used the measuring systems I'm used to.

Anyway! If you, like me, occasionally make up a recipe for a cuisine you aren't used to, and then have leftover ingredients, this book is GREAT. IT goes through 40 ingredients that are mostly shelf stable (until opened anyway) and gives 5 recipes to use them up. The recipes are mostly short. Quite a few are 5 ingredients and under.

I'm most excited about the miso deviled eggs and the corn drop scones.

Ingredients range all across the world. Asia, North Africa, Middle East, American, Indian, possibly more. Look, the book is due back and I'm in a hurry to sing the praises of this one.

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Vogue Knitting's Shawls on the Go

Anything published by Vogue is going to have exquisite techniques and some fairly out there fashion choices. So this wee book holds up to my expectations for Vogue

First of all, this book is small. It's not much larger than my hand, and it's under 100 pages. It has 15 patterns with a wide range of techniques.

I rather love the one on the cover. It looks like it would work well with something like a Noro yarn.

and then there's this.

please free them. they have seen the horrors.

The rest of the patterns land between the two in terms of taste.

Some of them are photographed in such a way that I actually can't tell what the finished scarf should look like. That's a rare disappointment for Vogue. They are usually far better at showing the full garment.