By Debbie StollerWorkman Publishing
The D.I.Y. craft uprising of the late nineties started in several places simultaneously (from the riot grrl movement to the indie music scene) in response to the proliferation of “Big Box Mart” and cheap consumerism, but no one launched their brand quite like Debbie Stoller (editor-in-cheif of Bust Magazine). Her book, Stitch ‘n Bitch: A Knitter’s Handbook, was a New York Times bestseller and quickly became a modern classic.
Stoller followed up with Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation and the crochet book, Stitch ‘n Bitch: the Happy Hooker. Much like the first of the series, they start with the basics and then assume you’re super cool and super fearless. Fingerless gloves, cotton bikinis, and scarves with intarsia skulls kick the dust off your grandma’s old doilies and reinvent the heirloom.
These books inspired countless hipsters to finally do better than the Salvation Army, styling the revolution with a pair of sticks and a ball of yarn. Stitch ‘n Bitch groups continue to meet in coffee shops and on the internet, in your auntie’s fabric store and at the downtown dive bar. And the knitting universe has grown bigger than just stitchin’ and bitchin’, into social networking websites, podcasts and blogs, and a thousand Etsy accounts selling handspun and hand-dyed yarn created by the same tattooed girl who puts the foam on your morning latte. At one point, the trend even had its own slick art journal, KnitKnit, devoted to the exploration of the “high art” of knitting and crochet.
Now that the fiber arts are firmly established, Stoller has written a book that assumes you know what you’re doing. Son of Stitch 'n Bitch welcomes men and women alike to continue their search for designs and styles that don’t look and feel like an old tapestry. Its pages overflow with sweaters, scarves, and socks to make the men of the world appreciate their hand-knit gifts, and even encourage them to grab a couple sticks and try it out for themselves.
Granted, if you and your man want to learn to knit, you’re going to need one of the earlier books to get you started. Son of Stitch 'n Bitch isn’t going to teach you how to KI P2. But once you’ve got that under control, be a fearless knitter and buy this as a companion volume. Your husband, your boyfriend, your dad, your brother… they’ll be stylish D.I.Y. comrades and not even know it.
Review by Jessica Star Rockers
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3 comments:
Most discussions of indie crafters make some comment about it being different from gramma's knitting and gramma's crafts. Are these sentiments actually expressed in the Stitch n Bitch books? 'Cus I like my gramma's crafts, and anyone telling me mine have to be ironic or political or plain "different" is kinda irritating. >(
thanks so much for your kind review!
sarah, i never say my knitting (or my knitting books) are different from my gramma's crafts. In fact, my entire first book is dedicated to my own grams who knit for 90 years of her life (most of my intro is about her too). I hate when people say "it's not your grandma's knitting." I just think -- it most definitely IS her knitting, it's just not her patterns. (And her patterns weren't like her own grandmas, either)
I have to agree... mostly because the phrase is so cliche.
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