First Impression Book Review: Vintage Design Workshop by Geraldine Warner

Whenever I go to Half Price Books, the knitting section is always my first stop. Sometimes I have luck and find something of interest other days I don't. During my last trip, when I picked up, Vintage Design Workshop: Knitting Techniques for Modern Style by Geraldine Warner, I knew I had luck on my side that day.

Usually when I find a vintage knitting book, it's a collection of updated vintage patterns, which I love, but this book is different. Vintage Design Workshop is exactly what it says it is. It shows you step by step what you should do while knitting from a vintage pattern. It has everything from how to assess your vintage knitting pattern to how to adapt a modern pattern to give it a vintage look.

My latest vintage knitting project

My favorite section, in the entire book is Chapter 2: Substituting Yarns. This has been one of my biggest stumbling blocks when knitting from a vintage pattern. In vintage knitting patterns, there's very little information on the yarn. Usually, it just has something along the lines of, "12 balls of Patons Confetti Flecks". Not too terribly helpful. In this book, Warner gives you advice on how to figure out what type of yarn was used from analyzing a series of things from the gauge given to the description of the garmet. Then she has a whole section dedicated to learning what you can from the preview picture. I really could have used this section a few months ago when I started my most recent vintage project.

This is all just a first impression, I can only assume I'll love this book more once I have time to actually use it on a real project. But just from skimming through it, I would highly recommend it. And even though I got it at a deep discount, this is a book I would definitely feel good about paying full price for.

Have you guys purchased this book? How do you like it?

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