Power Cables

Power Cables by Lily M Chin is a brilliantly titled and humouresly written book to extend a knitters skills into the territory of cabling. The book is laid out in lessons to build skills and explain the authors charting method, it also includes projects to utilise these skills. Lily recommends that even if you have cabled before that you complete lesson one to get to grips with her charting technique. I took this book on holiday with Mum too, so she was the first one to get a proper look, she was immediately grabbing her needles to try the double sided cable and got in a right pickle- lots of tooth sucking and muttering. It would have been a bit mean spirited of me to take any pleasure in the super knitters’ struggles, so I rescued Mum and pointed out the bit about reading the first chapter! After this Mum was away and was soon dangling a very delicate piece of double sided cable under my nose. The patterns in the book have a lovely contemporary feel and include bag, hat, jumpers, men’s garments and the most amazing shrug/wrap construction. The writing style is really very sweet with useful little tips about keeping track of right and wrong side rows using peanut and plain M&M’s. I reviewed a basic cabling book a while back and I’d want to work through some projects in there first before moving onto this book, just to get my confidence. With fifteen projects and many more ideas I think the book is good value at £17.99. I certainly would have looked at it as a Christmas present for Mum- although if she had never read chapter one, she might not have thanked me!