Happy Independence Days – as I celebrated Canada Day on July 1st and Puddles celebrates Independence Day today, I thought it would be fun to take a break from our regular broadcasting to have an “indies unite” book review.
“Footnotes” designed by Canadian designer, Dana Gervais, invites your feet to do the talking with 11 word inspired sock designs. Setting the tone for her book in her foreword, Dana states, “Like words, hand-knit socks allow us to express our feelings of hope, support, and joy, and are our knitterly way of saying ‘I love you’ to the people we give them to. …(which also) applies when you knit socks for yourself, too.” This tone of loving yourself and loving others through the time of hand knitting socks flows through the book from beautifully designed and shot samples to the easy to understand directions and the book’s clean layout.
Whether you’re new to sock knitting or a sock knitter for life, Dana takes the time to walk you through the knitting essentials prior to getting to the splendid designs. So I’m breaking chronology and jumping in to examine the most important bit first… the patterns!
The Patterns
Sillage (page 13) – beautiful little cables
Interdependent (page 19) – cables and slip stitches
Autotelic (page 25) – cables and geometric texture
Eunoia (page 31) – cables and a touch of lace
Duende (page 39) – cables and slip stitches
Loquacious (page 47) – cables (super cool ones!) and slip stitches
Quaintrelle (page 55) – textured stitches and cables
Faodail (page 63) – textured stitches
Quiddity (page 69) – cables and slip stitches
Belles Chaussettes (page 79) – cables and lace (wow!)
Verdure (page 85) – lace
Cables feature strongly in this 11 pattern set… I wonder if there is an underlying connection between the way language developed over time and across dialects/ languages and the strong representation of cables in so many designs?
If I were to cast on socks, it’d be a tossup between Verdure and Belles Chaussettes. All the designs are gorgeously executed and written in such a straight forward / easy to understand manner, but these two really jumped out at me. Verdure – I love the short length mixed with the beautiful lace. Belles Chaussettes it reminds me a bit of Woodsong Camber and how I could have the fun of movement using different techniques head to toe when worn together.
Eco Value
From Dana: Each pattern uses a yarn from a different dyer, some of them may be eco-conscious and some may not. Some are superwash, some aren’t. (for instance) Christa (www.lakeknityarns.com) has a very cool new yarn base that is superwash but the process is more eco friendly than traditional superwash and uses very little water. Honestly, the most eco-friendly thing about it is that it’s available as an ebook and priced attractively do people will choose the ebook over the hardcopy because pdfs are better for the earth than paper books delivered using coal-based fuels.
Cons
Reading the PDF version of the book, I noticed a few dead links, which Dana said she’d investigate. Also there is some pixilation around the words on the cover, which belied the high quality of the rest of the images inside. Overall, these cons are minor, barely worth mentioning, except it is a review and a review requires it.
Random Joys
I chuckled over the helpful hints page… you think swatch is important there, Dana? ?
What does a chandelier have to do with knitting socks? You’ll find it in this book, page 7!
Footnotes around the web
Find full purchasing information on Dana’s website (https://www.danagervaisdesigns.com/footnotes)
Available on Amazon and Ravelry as an electronic book. For printed books, check out Amazon.