Wednesday, July 8, 2015

What Would Madame Defarge Knit – Book Review and Giveaway

A little while ago Cooperative Press sent me What Would Madame Defarge Knit (edited by Heather Ordover)  to review and I am not being paid to review this book. The print plus PDF version is $26.95 and the PDF version is $16.95. The book is deliberately printed in black and white to focus on the illustrations and not the color. You can see pictures of the patterns on Ravelry here.

The patterns are labeled by three levels of difficulty: liberte (beginner knitter), egalite (intermediate knitter), and fraternite (the expert knitter). There is a great variety of patterns including hats, hoods, scarfs, cowls, socks, shawls, mittens, and sweaters. There are 21 different patterns and even though most of them are for knitting, there are three crochet patterns.

The patterns are separated into several sections: What I Did for Love, Interlude I, Interlude II, Song of the Sea, Interlude III, and Women of Valor. In each section there is a discussion about the inspiration for each pattern, which I found extremely interesting. I like to learn how designers use this information in the process of designing patterns and I feel like I have an insider view to this process.

I think this was a good book to have on your shelf. Out of the 21 patterns, I can see myself knitting 14 of them.

If you like the book and want to enter to win a digital copy, please leave a comment below by July 15 along with your Ravelry name or email address.  I will draw a name on July 15, using a random number generator and the winner will get a digital copy of the book. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

13 comments:

aews said...

There are several cool patterns. Not sure what I'd do first. Definitely on my "to get" list. I'd heard about this from some others but hadn't looked at the patterns yet. :):)

rav: aewsimmons

karyn said...

I'm Lanier3212 on Ravelry. I'd love to win a copy of "What Would Madame Defarge Knit"! I'm excited to get a closer look at the stories and patterns in the book. Thanks for the opportunity!

Anonymous said...

These look like lovely patterns, and I too enjoy reading the stories that inspired the designers. Thanks for the great giveaway!

chana on Rav

Deborah said...

That sounds like an interesting book to add to the library...
momartist on Ravelry

Sioux Roslawski said...

Madame Defarge was one of my favorite characters of all time. It was so clever of Dickens to create her.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like an interesting book - I like a lot of the patterns, too. I'm wisinor on ravelry!

Thanks -

Unknown said...

How fun! Rav is battygrl

StarMeadow said...

StarMeadow... this would be one to have. A friend often refers to Madame L when she talks about me and my knitting!

Anonymous said...

Looks like great fun! Fingers crossed :D

Helen

HelenGuate on Ravelry

lmecoll on Ravlery said...

Thanks for the review and giveaway. I'd love to win the book.
Lmecoll on Ravelry

asteride said...

I would certainly knit Ms Prynn with all the beads!
asteride on Ravelry

Unknown said...

That would be a nice book for this knitting college English professor to win! Afton in real life as well as Ravelry

loonyhiker said...

The winner was...#1 aewsimmons!