Book Review: What Would Madame Defarge Knit?

I came home from Vogue Knitting Live with so many books, I feel they each needed their own post.

First up is What Would Madame Defarge Knit?

Ok this book needs a back story.  If you listen to CraftLit, you can skip this.  If not, you should be listening to it.  Go subscribe on iTunes and I'll wait for you to return.
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Back?  Ok!  Throughout the time CraftLit has been going, Heather Ordover has been talking about and then eventually collecting patterns for a literature-inspired pattern book.  Viola!  We wound up with WWMDfK. Now I'm still far behind being current in the podcast (working my way from beginning to now), but I knew I wanted to support Heather and the other designers.

This book is a little different than your typical pattern book- there are no pictures.  There are some simple hand drawings, but with the proliferation of the internet (ahem, Ravelry), Heather and the publishers desided that photos are not a necessity.  All of the patterns are on Ravelry with pictures.  It was done, I'm assuming, to keep production cost down and therefore consumer cost down.  I have to say though, this is a downside for me.  I enjoy looking through my pattern books for inspiration.  Yes, I use Ravelry too, but there's nothing like flipping through a real book.  This of course did not stop me from buying though :o)

WWMDfK contains 21 patterns, each inspired by a classical work of literature and accompanied by an essay written by the designer on their inspiration.  I love these little essays :o)  The patterns range from super simple to seemingly very complex to just plain silly.  I want to make most of them (and the other few solely because I don't see myself making much use of).  As of writing this, I'm very drawn to the Princess Langwidere cowl.

© Gretchen Funk

The other patterns I really am itching to make:

Hyde's Hooded Sweater 
© Gretchen Funk     

Jane's Ubiquitous Shawl
© Erica Hernandez

Lysistrata's Chiton
© Brenda Dayne

Isolde Socks
© Meg

That's just my favorite.  I really do want to make almost everything in there.  I've already added almost the whole book to my queue.

If you want to purchase the book, you can find links on the CraftLit sidebar (about halfway down the page). There's options for digital, print and e-book versions (or a combination!).