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Book Reviews... Continued...
Of the four books I reviewed, and the entire Elizabeth
Zimmermann series, hands down, no questions asked, the
most informative and detailed book is Sweater Design in
Plain English (ed. 1 Righetti, 1992; ed 2. Righetti & Shaw,
2011). This book is out of print, and I am so glad I pursued
a copy of the second edition via Interlibrary Loan. As of 27
December 2023, there are six used copies of the first
edition for sale on Amazon at ranging from $24.49 to
$71.05, that can be found at:
https://a.co/d/0UWneEC
There were no copies of the second edition available
that I could locate. I have asked Santa already to please
bring me a copy of this book as I want to add this to my
knitting reference bookshelf.
Maggie Righetti is the author of
Knitting in Plain English, a well-respected
book on knitting techniques.
Sweater Design in Plain English brings
together all aspects of sweater design
to help you make the best decisions
along the way in designing and knitting
a sweater. Maggie Righetti is an
experienced knitter and custom knitwear
designer. She has been active in
knitting guilds and gained an immense
body of knowledge about
what can go right and wrong when
knitting. In addition, Righetti learned
quite a bit about the human body
from life drawing and color from art
classes. The book contains three useful sections: “Before
You Begin, “Doing It: The Actual Designs,” and “Appendices.”
The first section, “Before You Begin,” is extremely informative
as she uses her knitting, design, human body,
and color theory knowledge to explain to you each aspect
of sweater design. The 18 chapters in the first section deal
with one topic at a time and make for quick reference if
you want to reread a section. All chapters are informative,
yet not too long or detailed, compelling, and the information
learned builds upon the information in the previous
chapter. “Before You Begin” contains 18 chapters,
including chapters on:
• Overcoming Your Fears
• Avoiding Costly Mistakes
• Yarn and how it behaves
• Body shapes
• How to measure
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• Flattering designs for body shapes
• Achieving the right marriage of fiber, fabric,
and fashion
• How pattern stitches behave
• Color selection, including color theory
supporting color selection
• Yarn quantities
• Gauge
• Steps to design a sweater
• Arithmetic of knitting
The second section, “Doing It: The Actual Designs,”
provides 13 separate sweater designs, with each sweater
design building your design skills as you progress through
each sweater design. All but one
sweater are knit flat and sewn together
and knit from the bottom up. One
sweater is knit in the round, top down.
Righetti provides thorough explanations
of the positive and negative features
of each design and how to work
within those features. Righetti goes
step by step for each of the 13 sweater
designs. She selects a size and gauge,
then walks you through how to make all
the design decisions with each sweater
design. This section is much more of a
workbook, or template, for how to custom
design each of these sweaters for
yourself or your intended recipient. She
provides the measurements needed for
each sweater design and how to calculate the size of each
piece. With those numbers, she provides a detailed explanation
of how to calculate each number you need (stitch
counts) along with detailed knitting instructions throughout
the calculations. The “Personal Measurements Chart”
and “Project Record Form,” both found in Part 3, will help
you capture all these measurements and calculations.
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