This book was definitely a worthwhile read. As you may or may not know, I'm sort of new to knitting. I crochet like a demon, and can crank out granny squares all day long. But even though I've known how to knit (and purl!) for as long as I can remember, I never actually finished a knitting project until recently, when I made the birthday scarf last month. (BTW-I'll have you know that the birthday girl has worn her scarf nearly every day since then, according to her mother, and even showed up with it on for her yearbook pictures for our homeschool group!) Something about that scarf with the novelty yarn really got me jazzed about knitting. I've gone on to make other projects, and now I'm trying something more complicated (which I'm keeping a secret in the event that it's a complete failure. Keep tuned in just in case it's not! You may have to keep tuned a while, it's going much slower than expected.)

Anyway, back to the book. I found it very inspirational, but more importantly I found the author to have the ability to make knitting seem accessible to anyone. To me, knitting was always like the French-speaking segment of the fiber arts. Sure, you could really try hard, but people were going to end up mocking you. Not your accent in this case, but rather your choice of needles, or how you hold your yarn, or more likely, what type of yarn you're using. I always felt like if I tried to knit, I'd be like the fat girl at the debutant ball in last year's shoes, or the gawky one still dancing the Macarena. And although the author does make one dig at crochet, you can tell from the humorous and generous spirit in the rest of her writing that she really did mean it in the best possible way. :-)

You can feel her true joy for knitting in all of its forms, and you know she just wants to encourage people to try all of the wonderful yarns and needles out there, rather than berating the ones who don't like the same ones she does. She makes me want to go sheer a sheep and spin for myself, just because her experience with wool sounds so wonderful!

The book is full of helpful hints and is just a lot of fun to read. To see what this author's about and behold what beautiful things she's knitting while I putter away at my possible failure, you can check her out at her blog, The Yarn Harlot.