I was banned from spinning my merino/silk yesterday by my daughter because she didn't want me throwing the waste bits on the floor when her friends were sleeping over for her birthday, so I decided to bite the bullet and have a go at knitting a couple of the patterns from my non-english stitch dictionaries.

Now this would not have been a problem had I even the slightest inkling of how to read German or Estonian but I don't. My only contact with the German language, aside from my other German knitting books and occasional purchases from Martina's Bastel und Hobbykiste, is from listening to Rammstein. And Rammstein don't sing about knitting. (Some people would say they don't sing at all but that's also got nothing to do with knitting...)

So, where was I?

Oh yeah, knitting.

I ended up making two swatches, one from the now out of print "Oma's Strickgeheimnisse" (it seems I was lucky enough to purchase the last copy still in circulation), and Pitsilised Koekirjad.

This is the swatch from Oma's Strickgeheimnisse, a German stitch dictionary:

It's the stitch pattern from page 51.

I found working with this book to be really easy once I got used to the different set of knitting symbols (for instance / means yarn over, and I caught myself about to knit two together a couple of times at first).

There are two things that I really like about it. One is that it has some amazing leafy and lacy patterns that I have seen nowhere else and two, it charts each pattern for knitting flat and knitting in the round. For flat knitting it also uses the charting system that I really like, in that each wrong side row is written as you would knit it, so O means to knit the stitch, regardless of which side of the knitting you're looking at. This might drive US knitters crazy but it would be really easy to redraw any of the charts so it doesn't really matter. I found it very easy just to knit straight from the chart. Now that I've had the courage to tackle knitting from this book I'd rate it as high as any of the Barabara Walker stitch dictionaries and will never hesitate to knit from it again!

On the other hand I would consider Pitsilised Koekirjad (an Estonian stitch dictionary) to be suitable for somewhat experienced knitters. At the very least someone who can read their knitting and make corrections. It's also for people who aren't precious about the binding in their books. I do love it because of the number of times it caused me to exclaim "I didn't even know you could do that with knitting!" whilst looking through it. However there are a couple of caveats.

Some of the charts are printed so small and close to the binding that even the most experienced lace knitter with an excellent magnifying glass would have trouble with them. I ended up taking digital photos of the charts at a really large size, then printing them in photoshop so I could read them. Even though I was careful I still cracked the binding so I'm going to have to pull the pages out and put them in a folder at some stage (before they start falling out). It may make book collectors cry but I would suggest cracking the binding as soon as you get it and putting it in a folder straight away so you won't be scared to use it! I wouldn't suggest getting the spine cut off to release the pages because some of the charts are so close to the binding you'd really be risking losing part of the chart if you did that.

I knit pattern 221.

My swatch doesn't look anything like the photo (which actually shows stitch 222) but even though there are errors in the pattern, and an error that I made because of lack of information in the translation, I can easily make the corrections and use the stitch in a project. The stitches are charted for flat knitting with wrong side rows uncharted unless necessary. If a wrong side row is all knit or all purl then you are expected to be able to see that from the photo. The symbol set used in this book is also much closer to the Barbara Walker style of chart than Oma's Strick-thingy and so is a lot easier to get used to.

First of all I'll point out the problems that were my fault so you won't go blaming the book!

This particular stitch pattern should have been knit with needles a couple of sizes larger that I would normally use for this yarn. I knew that before I started but I still didn't do it.

In this section:

You work a really cool technique that I had never come across before. I've seen patterns such as the Shetland lace stitch "Crown of Glory" where you work a bunch of stitches into a big yarn over, but this is done differently.

This particular pattern has you knit three together through the back of the loop, transfer the stitch back onto the left hand needle and then work 9 stitches into it. Looking at the picture, I was pretty sure they had worked K1, yo, k1, yo, k1,yo, k1, yo, k1, but I wasn't totally sure so didn't do it that way. I worked K1 into the back of the stitch, knit into the front, knit into the back etc until I had 9 stitches. This made a really pretty little braid type thing above the hole, but it made the hole REALLY big. I don't count this as a mistake. I think it's a cool discovery that lets me create two slightly different looks with the same pattern. However, since the translation sheet offered online doesn't spell out which technique to use it's handy if you can see which technique was used by looking at the photos in the book.

This, however, was not my doing:

I don't know if this is common throughout the book but there was an error in the chart that I used (and since it's a variation of pattern 222, the same error is in that chart).

On row 11 it says to work "slip 1, k2tog, psso, k3, slip 1, k2tog, psso" when it should say "slip 1, k2tog, psso, k3, k3tog", with a similar error on row 3. However this is easily seen by any experienced lace knitter so there really isn't any great problem.

So, my experience with Pitsilised Koekirjad is that it's an amazing book full of beautiful and unique stitches but you will need a little patience to work with it. Plus a digital camera, a photocopier, or a book of graph paper and a nice cup of tea.

If you'd like to buy a copy you can purchase it from Martina's Bastel und Hobbykiste. Both Martina and her website speak English, but make sure to send her an email to say you'd like your purchase sent airmail as airmail was listed in the shopping cart when I purchased my copy but Martina sent it surface mail to save me a few Euros.

PS: I hate bright yellow :P