Monthly Archives: January 2012

First, the facts:

Title: Nourishing Knits: 24 Projects to Gift and Entertain

Author: Kristi Schueler

Published by: Self-published e-book

Pages: 102

Type: PDF ebook of patterns and accompanying recipes

Chapters:

(Not so much chapters as a list of patterns and recipes)

The In-Depth Look:

Not every knitter cooks or bakes, of course, but I’ve noticed that many of us DO. Maybe we just like to nibble on yummy things as we knit, or maybe there’s some kind of home-maker impulse that goes along with creating knitwear, but there’s some kind of connection.

Which is why Kristi has put together this book–12 knitting patterns paired with the perfect 12 recipes to go with them. She says, “It did not take long to see how to pair knits with food both in and out of the kitchen. Since college I have loved cooking and developing my own recipes. I especially enjoy sharing my efforts, both from the kitchen and the needles, with others. One of my favorite groups to entertain is of course my knitting ensemble. We gather around a food-laden table. We knit, chat, and devour. This time spent enjoying each other’s company nourishes my creativity and spirit much like the processes of knitting and cooking. Each provides different sustenance and are vital to my well being. All 24 projects in this book (both knit and cooked) can be shared. Do not feel you have to though. Treating yourself is equally nourishing.”

These are lovely patterns, too, running through the usual assortment of sweater, gloves, scarf, shawl, and so on. Most of them are accessories, and there is one child’s sweater, and one man’s sweater. The recipes that go with them also run the usual gamut of sweet, savory, main course, dessert, beverage, snack … even dog biscuits that my dog has been clamoring for.

The photography is gorgeous throughout. I mean mouth-watering gorgeous (for the knits as well as the food). The layout is convenient–lots of links between pages, for example, and the header ties each recipe to its pattern, changing for each set throughout the book. There’s a table of contents, and a separate listing for each pattern and recipe, as well as an index for the sidebars. Each comes with a hyperlink to make your PDF as interactive and easy to move around as possible.

My only real complaint? In her “Tips on Using this E-Book,” she specifically says that the ebook was designed to look as much like a real book as possible, to be viewed as two-page spreads in your PDF reader. Which is fine–and don’t get me wrong, the layout is as beautiful to look at as the photos–but on my laptop screen, trying to read through this with a two-up layout is next to impossible. The headers on each page I can read, but the italicized descriptions that go with them are just too small. Reading the e-book in the recommended way more or less means that I can’t read it at all. (And it’s not my eyes–I keep the font on my Kindle at the smallest setting. It’s just a lot to fit into a laptop screen.) Presumably if you’re reading on a larger monitor, this isn’t an issue. And, of course, all you need to do is read in a single-page layout for this not to be an issue. I just thought it odd that the author and designer would go out of their way to tell you to view it in such a way that makes it harder to read.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go look at that dog biscuit recipe again.

Want to see bigger pictures? Click here.

This review copy was kindly donated by Kristi. Thank you!