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Fishermen's Sweaters: Twenty Exclusive Knitwear Designs for All Generations
The elegant styling and exquisite detail of traditional fisherman's knits are brought to life in Alice Starmore's 20 original sweater designs for men, women, and children.
- GenresKnittingNonfictionCrafts
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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About the author
Alice Starmore
30 books66 followersAlice Starmore (née Matheson) was raised in a traditional, Gaelic-speaking Scottish fishing village. She began knitting as a child, studying the folk knitting traditions of her native Scotland. Starmore later expanded her textile studies, traveling in Scandinavia in the late 1970s on a Winston Churchill Fellowship.
Broadly recognized as one of the world's authorities on Fair Isle and other folk knitting traditions, Starmore founded Windfall Press in 1991. Windfall produces knitting patterns and instructional manuals as well as a large number of Scottish Gaelic titles.
Starmore expanded her career beyond knitting in the 1990s, focusing on fine art and photography. She held her first major solo exhibition in 2008 on the Isle of Lewis.
Broadly recognized as one of the world's authorities on Fair Isle and other folk knitting traditions, Starmore founded Windfall Press in 1991. Windfall produces knitting patterns and instructional manuals as well as a large number of Scottish Gaelic titles.
Starmore expanded her career beyond knitting in the 1990s, focusing on fine art and photography. She held her first major solo exhibition in 2008 on the Isle of Lewis.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 4, 2012
BOTTOM LINE: Absolutely superb book from a Master of her craft. Wonderful designs, nicely arranged. A book to keep in any serious knitter's home library.
While this is an almost perfect book of its kind, filled with the sorts of things that only someone as innovative and talented as Alice Starmore can imagine, there are two caveats that must be kept in mind. Firstly, all, yes, ALL the stitch patterns are charted; none of them are explained in the text. Admittedly, the charts are fairly simple given such complex patternings on some of the designs and thus easy to understand given time and patience, but for me they make this lovely book completely unusable - I simply cannot grasp the use of charting knitting stitches.
The second difficulty I had was that ALL the patterns are worked in the round, with circular needles, Ms Starmore's preferred style. While this results in a lovely finished fabric, I simply don't like using circular needles and suspect there are other knitters "out there" who feel the same. Unfortunately, all the books of hers I've seen so far (at least a half-dozen or so) have the same two drawbacks, although one or two of the earlier books did have stitch instructions inside the patterns for a couple of designs in each book.
These pet peeves of mine should not detract from *your* probably enjoying and using this book IF you can read/use knitting charts and don't mind or even enjoy/prefer using circular needles. Should that be the case, then this is a superb pattern book, worthy of a knitter's closest attention and likely to bring great enjoyment.
While this is an almost perfect book of its kind, filled with the sorts of things that only someone as innovative and talented as Alice Starmore can imagine, there are two caveats that must be kept in mind. Firstly, all, yes, ALL the stitch patterns are charted; none of them are explained in the text. Admittedly, the charts are fairly simple given such complex patternings on some of the designs and thus easy to understand given time and patience, but for me they make this lovely book completely unusable - I simply cannot grasp the use of charting knitting stitches.
The second difficulty I had was that ALL the patterns are worked in the round, with circular needles, Ms Starmore's preferred style. While this results in a lovely finished fabric, I simply don't like using circular needles and suspect there are other knitters "out there" who feel the same. Unfortunately, all the books of hers I've seen so far (at least a half-dozen or so) have the same two drawbacks, although one or two of the earlier books did have stitch instructions inside the patterns for a couple of designs in each book.
These pet peeves of mine should not detract from *your* probably enjoying and using this book IF you can read/use knitting charts and don't mind or even enjoy/prefer using circular needles. Should that be the case, then this is a superb pattern book, worthy of a knitter's closest attention and likely to bring great enjoyment.
August 9, 2021
Classic fishermen's sweaters and a few personal interpretations of the tradition by the author. The book doesn't contain a lot of information apart from the knitting patterns but it does provide some technical instructions. Most of the designs are rather timeless, perhaps slightly 90s with regards to the oversized fit, but you could always modify that.
October 20, 2011
Although I haven't got around to knitting anything from this book yet, it is still a joy to flick through. The photography and locations are beautiful and it is a truly lovely book to just enjoy looking at.
My main gripe with it is that although the photos are stunning, they don't really show the sweaters properly, which is kind of a problem in a book of knitting patterns. It's really difficult to see the cabling and detail on the darker coloured sweaters in particular. Some of the pictures are taken at a distance, for example of someone walking along a rocky shore, you can see she is wearing a sweater but that's about all! But for that, it would have got 4 or 5 stars but a knitting book where you cannot properly see the garments that you are considering investing hours and hours of work in, well that's not so great.
My main gripe with it is that although the photos are stunning, they don't really show the sweaters properly, which is kind of a problem in a book of knitting patterns. It's really difficult to see the cabling and detail on the darker coloured sweaters in particular. Some of the pictures are taken at a distance, for example of someone walking along a rocky shore, you can see she is wearing a sweater but that's about all! But for that, it would have got 4 or 5 stars but a knitting book where you cannot properly see the garments that you are considering investing hours and hours of work in, well that's not so great.
January 18, 2016
Inishmaan pattern looks interesting
March 4, 2012
Alice is a gift to knitting- precise, historic and inspiring patterns - thank heaven for her work.
June 7, 2014
Wonderful. A steal I found on EBay. I will be knitting 3 projects from this book. Great sweaters!
October 4, 2015
Chockfull of beautiful patterns.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews