#i've been swatching cables all day for a cardigan using the sweater pattern book as a recipe.

[journeyman-tier-fibercraft]

Four of my six books arrived! And I am VERY inspired.

Both the Vogue Designer Knits and the Knitting Off the Axis books are pattern collections. Since I've been so into cabled sweaters lately, I picked them both up more for inspiration than the patterns themselves (they tend to run small, most of the vogue patterns max out at 40 inch bust). They were each less than 5 dollars tho, so even if I only ever end up knitting one pattern from each that's still cheaper than buying individual patterns.

Next, the Japanese Stitch Bible. I heard a lot of hype around this book for a long time and it honestly deserves it. It's about 99% charts but that doesn't bother me. Like most stitch dictionaries, for the most part it just gives you a bunch of charts and then lets you go wild go crazy. However near the back of this book there's a section where they take a stitch pattern and then remix it in some way, splitting it in half or adding an element, or doing a half drop to make it an all over pattern. Which is REALLY nice to see. There's also some examples of how some of the designs could be used in a hat or sock and those patterns are included. Would recommend for those in the advanced side of knitting, pretty much every stitch pattern included includes either lace/openwork or cables or bobbles or all three.

Finally, the pièce de résistance and the book I'm the most happy to have. Ann Budd's Book of Sweater Patterns is just fantastic. This book takes six of the most common types of sweater construction (Drop Shoulder, Modified Drop Shoulder, Set In Sleeves, Saddle Shoulder Sleeves, Raglan, and Seamless Yoke) and does basically all the math you could need for most common yarn gauges/sweater sizes. The sizes go from a 26 inch to 54 inch bust and the yarn gauges are for heavy sock weight (7st/inch) to heavy aran (3st/inch). And every sweater construction has options for either a v neck or crew neck and a pull over or cardigan construction. It also gives a lot suggestions/tips to personalize sweaters either to make them fit better or to give the look you're wanting. 10/10 for anyone who wants to knit custom sweaters but is bad at math.

Recently I've been obsessed with the idea of knitting a wool cabled cardigan. Which would be over 100 USD in yarn. I cannot justify that to myself when I don't even like cabling.

So instead I decided to finally buy a knitting book I've had my eye on for a while, the Japanese Stitch Bible by Hitomi Shida (260 pattern version). And an additional five knitting books that were all super cheap. eBay my beloved <3

Hoping they are so beautiful and so inspiring I get over my dislike of cabling and how long it takes to knit sweaters in my size. Sometimes it's worth it to spend a little money just to be excited about Something.