Spin to Knit: The Knitter's Guide to Making Yarn
Shannon Okey (Interweave Press)
ISBN 1-59668-007-5/$34.95
Remember having driving lessons with your parents? For a knitter taking up spinning, Shannon Okey is more like your laid-back aunt. She doesn't bother much with telling you the right way to do it; instead, she gives you the basics, hands you the keys to her (manual-shift) car and lets you get on the road. She knows nothing will teach you like experience.
In the first two paragraphs of this new book Okey proposes that not only can you learn to spin, it will take you a lot less time than learning to knit did, and in no time at all, you'll have some handspun to knit with.
In support of this theory the book gets up to speed quickly, with the first chapters whizzing through equipment, terms and the basic how-to of turning fibre to yarn. There's a chapter each on spindles and wheels; another chapter shows how to use both. Fun stuff (dyeing, adding beads to handspun) is introduced along with essentials like plying and the specifications of yarn.
Spin to Knit is never a dry technical manual, however. Okey often uses quite vivid language to evoke hands-on concepts that are difficult to get from print. (She describes Andean plying, for example, as 'looking like you're dancing the hula from the elbow down'.)
Most of this book is devoted to what to knit with handspun, so the balance definitely tips toward the product and not the process of spinning. But there's little point in insisting a beginner spin a 'perfect' yarn. By simply demonstrating the joy to be had in spinning, Okey will probably do more to build a new generation of spinners than any dedicated manual could.
—Barbara Coddington