love this one! ( )

The tone is friendly and engaging. The section on how and where to measure is detailed and relatively straightforward. The book does best when it's describing qualitatively (e.g. short rows are added to make a wedge shape...) rather than quantitatively (e.g. (TND - F)/2... ). The math is solid, stepwise and correct but the presentation is stretched out over several pages with multitudes of acronyms. If you find yourself losing track, draw yourself a schematic and label it with all the acronyms.

The patterns are well-written and photographed. As with any book, tastes vary. The patterns are aimed at the 20-30 year old demographic. ( )

I wish they wrote this book 25 years ago! ( )

I’d borrowed Big Girl Knits by Jillian Moreno and Amy R. Singer from the library to look over the patterns, wondering whether or not I should buy a copy for myself. What I found more interesting than the patterns, however, were the discussions about what and why to use certain materials and designs to work with the Big Girl body in all its variations. The patterns, while mostly attractive to me, are far more complicated than I want to deal with, and I appreciate the guideposts the authors have included to point out which patterns work best for which body shape(s). I can use the principles they have outlined to choose clothing appropriate to my body shape as well as applying them to any garment I might knit for myself. My compromise - I bought a used copy of Big Girl Knits for the information in the book that I’d like to have on hand, regardless of the patterns. ( )

This book has some great information about not only how to knit clothes that look good on plus size women but also how to dress in clothes you would buy from a store. It also has a great section on how to make measurments of your body before starting a knitted item and about ease in a knitted garment. I would like to make almost all of the patterns in the book as well. They are all really stylish and wouldn't make me feel older than I am like a lot of the plus size knitting patterns out there. ( )