The Principles of Knitting: a review

In this post, I'd promised to review "The Principles of Knitting" by June Hemmons Hiatt, so here it is. This huge book is probably the most complete that will ever be written on knitting techniques. I doubt that anyone else besides its author will ever find the time, the patience and the perseverance to surpass it.

To cut a long post short, I can start by saying that I highly recommend any serious, ambitious knitter to own this book. This is, in my opinion, the best knitting reference book (that I know of, of course).

The pros:

• Very complete. There are, of course, some techniques missing from this book, but as I said above, this is probably the most complete book you can find. It is also complete in explaining almost every possible way to achieve a result. June doesn't just present the way she thinks is best, she explains every other way she has ever heard of achieving the same result, because she understands and respects the fact that everyone is different and her reader may have a different opinion from hers. In addition, this book is the result of a lifetime of research of knitting techniques and a testament to June's insatiable curiosity about this subject.
• June is my kind of knitter, she is very rational and logical. She finds that explaining the whys is as important as explaining the hows. So for almost every technique included, you'll find clear explanations of what is it used for and how it compares to other similar techniques in terms of ease of execution and results obtained, as well as any other information June finds relevant.
• There are not a lot of illustrations in this book, but June has achieved the unbelievable feat of writing instructions that are absolutely clear and easy to follow. So much so that, for some of the techniques I use regularly, I prefer to freshen up my memory by reading them here than by watching video tutorials.

The cons:

• Non-standard naming. One of the things I admire about June is the respect she shows for every knitter. She avoids ever calling a technique standard or correct, because she knows well that what is standard for one person or in one region may not be standard for/in another. She also doesn't think that something is more correct if a high authority of knitting says so, than if a humble, unknown knitter says differently. This principle she applies to the problem of naming techniques. As any knitter with some experience knows, one of the most annoying problems of the knitting world is that there are no unique names for most techniques (or stitch patterns, or anything you can think of). Constantly one finds that the same name is used for different techniques and different names are given to the same technique, generating all kinds of annoying doubts and misunderstandings. Any author of a knitting reference book must face the conundrum of choosing how to name things in the book. June took a very radical approach to this problem, she decided that, since there are no standard names for almost any technique and a lot of the most common names are confusing and misleading, she would come up with her own names. The result: she ended up adding to the confusion, although I must agree that her choices are usual pretty good and the knitting world would be a lot less confusing if she succeed in imposing them.
• It's too long. Paradoxically, its greatest pro, that is so complete, is also its main con. I find that often I get lost in so much information. I've bought another book that is a lot more succinct and I tend to use it more often. However, this laziness has a price and I often find myself making mistakes or using techniques that do not give the best results and later finding out that if I'd consulted The Principles of Knitting I could have avoided a lot of trouble.