A Book I Recommend

I have often recommended Nancie M. Wiseman's book on finishing techniques to my knitting students.  It is aptly titled THE KNITTER'S BOOK OF FINISHING TECHNIQUES [Martingale & Co, 2002] and the publisher's description may be found here.

I have learned much from this book, though I have owned it for only about five years.

I have learned to make all kinds of woven seams.  It is a fact that back in the dark ages, when I first learned to knit and seam sweaters, my mother taught me to make back stitch seams (it was the only kind of seam that she and her sisters ever used).  I could do a decent job with these, but it was always a pain to have to keep turning the work to see how it was coming out on the right side.  Woven seams are done with right sides facing and are practically invisible.  The book covers all possibilities in woven seams.  Now I always adjust my ribbing for seaming as on page 66-67.  Often I wonder why I did not think to do that on my own.  But I did not.

See more on this project here on Ravelry.

See more on this project here on Ravelry.

There are side seams in the middle of each photo above.
My favorite button hole is the One-Row Buttonhole -- Revised Method, pages 116-117.

See more on this project here on Ravelry.

My first tubular cast, pages 20-23, really impressed me.

See more on this project here on Ravelry.

What I plan to talk about even more in my next post is Nancie M Wiseman's "Grafting or Kitchener Stitch Bind Off", pages 54-55.  It really is a beautiful thing!

See more on this project here on Ravelry.

I modified the above sweater just so I could use the Kitchener bind-off (in the round) for all of the ribbing.

Final thoughts:  There are so very many knitting videos out in the world today.  I have students who literally learned to knit from videos.  I do tell those students that this book might not appeal to them.  It is somewhat old-fashioned with finished photos followed by only words and illustrations to describe what to do.  But in just five years it has taught this "old dog" some "new tricks".
Thanks, Nancie!