Free Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee

at four inthe morning on Christmas day. (Well, you can, and they might even understand, but the book will save you from needing to.)
    Type 2
    Stitch dictionaries. These books are pure inspiration. Filled cover to cover with ideas and patterns for wildly interesting ways to knit, stitch dictionaries are to knitters what the notes of the scale are to a piano virtuoso. Owning stitch dictionaries lets you add a lace cuff to a baby sweater, a cable to a sock, or to come up with 37 styles of ribbing.
    Type 3
    Books with patterns for simple, plain garments in shapes you like. These patterns will, as you move through your knitting life, become the templates for stuff that springs free of your imagination. A good sweater pattern can lead to 20 brilliant sweaters when you team it with the book on technique and your stitch dictionaries.
    Type 4
    Several books with brilliant, over-the-top “I-could-never” patterns in it. Wild intarsia, cables that make Celtic knots look simple, lace that drips complexity and makes your mind reel. Even if you’re never going to knit the patterns, it is the stuff that knitterly inspiration comes from. Aim high. Dream big.
    Type 5
    A few books with stories about knitting, ideas about knitting, and tales of people living a knitting lifestyle. Although you may never fall down the rabbit hole and make every breathing second of your life from this moment forward about knitting, it’s very normalizing and comforting to read about people who do.
    The great irony about knitting books is that the more you buy, the closer you come to the day when you’ve learned so much that you will no longer need them.
THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB
    My uncle Tupper is a carpenter. He’s been a carpenter most of his life, and he has many, many tools. The last time I visited him I went into his garage and noted (with some surprise) that he had 14 kinds of saws. This shocked me. How many ways could you need to cut up stuff? My uncle started to explain them then, probably because a lot of what I’m thinking comes straight out of my mouth. This one was a circular saw, and it cuts big pieces of wood in a straight line. That one over there was a jigsaw, and it cuts scrolls and curves in wood. That one over there cuts laminates, and the big one with a table cuts sheets of plywood. He had a handsaw, a band saw, a compound miter saw, a trim saw — 14 saws, all necessary and useful. I left with a new attitude about all my knitting stuff.
    Having the right tools matters, and all the knitting stuff I have isn’t silly, useless, or even an odd obsession. While people are going to come into my house and let loose with a low whistle when they see my needle collection, I know my knitting patterns, books, row counters, and tape measures are the stuff of my occupation and inspiration, and having 17 stitch dictionaries and 54 circular needles in wood, metal, and plastic is no different from Uncle Tupper having 14 saws. Every scrap of pattern adds up to potential.
    I really think the saws are more shocking.

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Gauge, Swatches , and Learning to Accept Them
    O NCE UPON A TIME , somewhere in the world in a house full of wool, a knitter had an idea. She sat at a table with her needles and her paper and she knit up her idea, writing down her pattern as she made it up. When she was done, she measured how many stitches and rows she had gotten to the inch and wrote it down. This number she wrote down is the concept of gauge. Now, if you want to knit what she did, all you have to do is follow her pattern and match the unique tension that her knitting had, so even though you and this knitter have never met, and your knitting style will never be like hers, while you knit her pattern your work can be identical and (at least somewhat) predictable.
    Simple, right?
WHY DOES GAUGE MATTER?
    Gauge is discussed more than any other knitting idea and this is probably because it’s the most important concept in knitting. Needles,