Patty Lyons' Knitting Bag Of Tricks: Sanity saving tips for better knitting

My wife bought me this as a christmas present as I am a bugger to buy for and normally just buy things I want when I see them. I have a huge shelf of knitting and crochet books and in all honesty would not have bought this for myself. I am a self taught from YouTube and books, but I get along. I read through the book though, and some great advice in there. If you are an experienced knitted and know all the tricks then this is not the book for you, but if you are a self taught knitter like me, then you are probably lacking a lot of information and tricks.The long tail cast on was a game changer straight away and makes the hem line of my sweaters so much neater. She has also brought out a companion book for this called "The offical Workbook" and it makes a great addition and gives you practical experience of her tips and tricks.

Great book - full of great tips!

Brilliant book it will be well used i should think, well written, easy to make sense of and amusing diagrams.

I bought this book on a whim, on the back of the other reviews - and I have to say that it is probably the best impulse purchase I have ever made.The book compiles the author’s lifetime of knitting and teaching experience in a very portable format. It is absolutely packed with knitting wisdom, richly illustrated with crystal clear images and photos (where you can actually decipher how stitches are constructed), and peppered with hilarious quotes and anecdotes. The fact that this is not a basic knitting manual - information that is repeated in pretty much every standard book on knitting - means that the space can be dedicated to truly valuable nuggets, teaching you how to fix all those annoying little imperfections, and dramatically elevate the quality of your knits. The author’s philosophy is to give the “why” as well as the “how”, arguing that “when we understand, we remember - whereas when we simply memorise, we can forget”.I can’t believe the wealth of information that the author has managed to pack into a relatively small volume. I honestly can’t recommend this book highly enough❣️

I have been knitting for many years and we often follow practices without questioning as we learned to knit. This book combines knowledge, humour and alternative ideas and techniques to challenge what we think we know and find new skills. Recommend this book and its companion work book

I have this book, the workbook, the online video lesson and the kindle.The book and the workbook are so full of errors, written and illustrated.These errors (erata) are listed on the publisher's website and there is link on Patty Lyons website too. Lord knows what edition I received. The writing is dark and readable.The first chapter, the fundamental truths of knitting, explaining how stitches are built, the different styles of knitting and the three different methods of knitting were to me a total revelation and would have been worth the price of the book had I not bought the workbook, the kindle and the online lessons.So I am working through the book, online video lessons and the accomanying workbook, plus kindle to see what will serve me and what will not.I have been knitting for years, I mostly knit fun things where I can get away with not being so accurate, but I wanted to improve so I could make fancy things to wear etc.However, as with all instruction books one presumes they are proofread and accurate initially. Finding things in a book difficult and then finding out the difficulty is due to errors of publication and not because I am reading incorrectly is frustrating because knowing what to check, and how do I know whether something is wrong or not, or I am doing something wrong or not is the million dollar question.I have to say, I have learnt a lot though from this book. Also, from now on I will check publisher's sites for updates.

Very helpful

When I discovered this book I thought it would be a good book to have in my vast knitting library, however, when I went to order it I wondered if it might be a bit basic for me, HOW WRONG WAS I? This is one of the most amazing knitting books I have ever come across, it has NUMEROUS tips in it and they are definitely for ALL knitters, I would rename it as "knitting bag of magic tricks", I cannot recommend this highly enough, if in doubt, BUY IT, and you will soon realise that it is worth every penny, I am an expert knitter and it has opened my eyes to all those little things that we put up with, that this book shows you there are better ways, it really is a revelation, one of the most important knitting books to be published.