Have you ever bought an entire cookbook because three recipes looked great?
I have. Many, many times. Dare I admit my cookbook collection rivals my knitting and crochet book collection? I bought numerous books about Mediterranean cooking because I was convinced I would become a person who keeps fresh herbs alive.
I did not.
Instead, I am inordinately pleased when I remember to buy fresh herbs at the farmers’ market. Most of us don’t expect to prepare every recipe in every cookbook we own. We choose a book because we might want to try a couple of dishes, because we trust the author, because we are considering becoming a vegetarian, because making 100 soups from scratch seems like a great plan for winter, or because the pictures make it all look so doable.
Knitting and crochet pattern books work much the same way. You may not make all 25 projects in a pattern book. You may not even make five of them. But if you discover two or three patterns that become favorites, projects you enjoy making, then that book is worth keeping keeping on your shelf. I think we sometimes judge craft books by an unrealistic standard. We pick up a knitting or crochet book, flip through it, and think, “I would only make three of these.”
Only three?
I consider three patterns I genuinely want to make in any book a home run. At my current rate of finishing projects, I am bound to start each of them more than once (with different types of yarn, of course) and may eventually finish one or more. Hope springs eternal.
Back to my cookbook analogy. Consider how we use them. One contains the chowder recipe we make when it’s cold outside. Another has the cake everyone requests for birthdays. A third we keep for its cornbread recipe because it goes with all the chili we make. The other recipes aren’t wasted. They are simply waiting.
Pattern books are the same way. One book might have your favorite basic cardigan. Another might contain the baby blanket you have made for three different grandchildren. A crochet book might have the granny-square design you return to whenever you want something familiar and relaxing. I have at least 15 (probably closer to 20) books devoted to granny-square designs. I love every one of them, even though I’m not nearly as enthusiastic about joining the squares. As a result, I have growing stacks of granny squares all over the place waiting to become sleeves, bags, sweaters, and blankets.
Most of us have a few dependable patterns we use repeatedly. Sometimes it is not even the complete pattern that keeps us returning to a book. It may be a particular border, stitch pattern, construction method, shaping technique, or edging. A sweater pattern might inspire a different neckline or a blanket pattern may introduce you to a stitch you later use for a scarf. Once we become comfortable making changes, a single pattern can lead to many different projects.
This is another reason craft books remain useful. They give us more than a set of finished projects. They become reference books and sources of ideas. Eventually, the best books become part of our own creative history. They acquire bent corners, post-it notes, bookmarks, and scribbled slashes across stitch counts (in pencil so they can be erased the next time we use the pattern). At that point, they are repositories of our past creative journeys.
The book stays the same, but how we use it changes as our skills and interests grow.
Electronic Patterns
Electronic patterns are convenient. We can find a project, purchase the pattern, download it, and begin almost immediately. Independent designers can publish their work directly, and knitters and crocheters have access to a huge variety of designs.
Quite a few digital patterns also come with the added benefit of stitch demonstrations or video tutorials. For visual learners, this can make a huge difference, especially when trying a new technique or tackling complex construction.
But purchasing patterns individually can become expensive surprisingly quickly. When several individual downloads catch your eye, their combined cost may be considerably more than the price of a complete book, especially a pre-owned book. A single physical book may contain 20 patterns for less than the cost of purchasing just a couple of electronic patterns separately. The comparison isn’t exact, though. When buying an individual pattern, you are choosing precisely the project you want and directly supporting the designer who created it. That has real value.
Electronic pattern libraries are convenient, but they can also become a little invisible. Files are stored on a computer, tablet, phone, or in an online library. Unless we deliberately search through them, it is easy to forget what we already own. I’ve lost count of the number of apps I’ve tried to use to organize my electronic library into a go-to kind of collection. I’m still searching for one that works for me.
A book offers a different kind of value. It gives you a collection to explore. You may buy it for one pattern and later discover that another pattern, overlooked during your first reading, is exactly what you need for yarn you acquired years before—or years afterward. A physical book keeps its ideas within sight. You can pull several books from the shelf, spread them across a table, and compare projects. Browsing a book is different from searching online. Online, we generally begin by looking for something specific: a worsted-weight cardigan, a one-skein shawl, a crocheted baby blanket, or toe up socks. A book can show us something we did not know we were looking for. Sometimes a project we would have scrolled past online becomes much more appealing when we slow down and study it on the page.
There is also nothing wrong with collecting knitting and crochet books simply because we enjoy them. Some people collect cookbooks. Others collect gardening books, travel guides, mysteries, or art books. For yarn lovers, a shelf filled with pattern books can be a working resource, a record of the craft, a source of inspiration, a personal archive, a reference library, a history of changing styles, and a collection of creative possibilities.
Older books show us the colors, silhouettes, and decorating styles of another era. Some designs look unmistakably vintage. Others could be made today with almost no changes at all. Even dated or vintage patterns contain beautiful stitchwork or details worth borrowing. Books preserve patterns that are no longer readily available elsewhere. Designers retire, publishers close, websites disappear, and digital platforms change. A physical book remains on the shelf, ready to be opened again.
Just as a cook develops a collection that reflects the way they cook, a yarn lover develops a library that reflects the way they make. And sometimes, the library reflects the way we imagine we make. This is how I end up with a half a dozen books about lace knitting while primarily making hooked-on-sunshine blankets in fingering yarn.
New Books vs. Pre-Owned Books
New pattern books are exciting, especially when they introduce current designers, contemporary sizing (one of my personal pet peeves), new approaches to familiar techniques, or yarn sizes and textures that we would otherwise not use. There is something satisfying about opening a brand-new book and thinking, “This is it. This is the project that will finally use that yarn.”
Pre-owned books offer a similar but different kind of adventure. An older book that naturally falls open to a favorite pattern can feel as though it has already lived part of a creative life. Sometimes the notes are helpful. Sometimes they say things like “NO” in large letters, which is also helpful, although not always in the way the original knitter intended.
Pre-owned books also make it affordable to experiment. You might pick up a book devoted to a technique you have never tried or a type of project that falls outside your usual comfort zone. You might discover a new designer. You might find helpful explanations of finishing methods, shaping, or yarn substitution that become useful in future projects. And sometimes an inexpensive pre-owned book gives you the freedom to try something unfamiliar without feeling that you have made a major investment.
If you enjoy discovering useful older titles, Treasured Yarns has recently added a bunch of pre-owned knitting and crochet books to our collection. You can browse them here and find another opportunity to discover a new soon-to-be-favorite pattern.
A Caveat
Naturally, there is always the possibility that collecting pattern books will become suspiciously similar to collecting yarn. We buy them with projects in mind. We arrange them neatly. We promise ourselves we already have enough. Then another especially appealing one appears. This is not a problem. This merely shows we need more bookshelves to accommodate our library of future possibilities.
A pattern-book's value lies in the inspiration it holds. If a book gives you one favorite pattern that you make over and over, it was worthwhile. If it teaches you one new technique, it was worthwhile. If it helps you see an old skein of yarn in a new way, it was worthwhile. And if it simply gives you an enjoyable hour with a cup of coffee, turning pages and imagining what you might make someday? Also worthwhile.
Mental health is important. Making time for small pleasures is part of taking care of ourselves. If browsing those pages brings you peace, that is reason enough to keep the book.
Happy knitting and crocheting!
Heidi