Deborah Norville's Serenity yarns (available in sock, sport, worsted and chunky weights) are versatile yarns perfect for good-looking, easy-care projects.
For people who like a little pattern inspiration straight from the source, Leisure Arts and Premier Yarns have teamed up to publish Knit with Deborah Norville: 18 Classic Designs for the Whole Family, which includes projects for hats, scarves, sweaters, socks and more for babies, kids, men and women.
The Patterns
The 18 patterns in the book range from those suitable to new knitters to projects requiring a few more skills. Three patterns are ranked as for beginners, five easy (and two easy plus), seven intermediate and one intermediate plus.
There are afghans and baby blankets, hats, scarves, gloves, mittens, sweaters and socks, Christmas stockings, a bag and knit teddy bears. Pretty much any human member of your family could be covered by the projects in this book.
Some of my favorites are the lacy pillow made to match an afghan, the three-color ribbed hat, the chunky seed stitch tote bag and those bears, which can be worked in any weight of yarn, giving a different sized finished bear depending on the thickness of the yarn.
These patterns are mostly pretty basic in terms of design elements -- there's a lot of Stockinette Stitch and basic ribbing patterns -- but that's fine for someone who's somewhat new to knitting and would like to branch out into a basic vest or sweater without having to focus on the knitting and the shaping happening through the project.
Bottom Line
Because many of them are relatively plain, knitters with some experience will be able to make fast work of them, which makes this book a good go-to for quick gift projects, regardless of whether you use the yarns specified.
The book also includes some stories and comments about the patterns from Deborah Norville, which makes the book a little more fun than your standard pattern book.
If you know and enjoy knitting with the Serenity line, you'll like seeing what different designers did with the yarn and may even find some projects you want to try.
Publication date: January 2009.
