Knitting Around the World: A Multistranded History of a Time-Honored Tradition
This is a global review of knitting’s past and present, though to call it a true history would be a miscue to avid stitchers. What Nargi does, she does well: provide a documented and photographic survey of traditions and patterns, starting in the Islamic world and finishing, some 260 pages later, in Central and South America. Much information is borrowed from (and attributed to) other writers, more scholarly in their intentions; she extends beyond the predictable in her spotlight of 20 knitting artisans. Meet Veronika Persche, an Austrian native who sculpts with machine knitting, or the recently deceased Olga Alexandrovna Federova, queen of gossamer knitting (think lighter-than-air shawls). Add to those individuals major sidebars on breeds of sheep and occasional oddities (Habu Textiles, in Manhattan, is the only non-Japanese repository-store of Asian yarns). --Barbara Jacobs