 Trade In this Item for up to £1.70
Trade in Best in Show: Knit Your Own Cat for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.70, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Best in Show: Knit Your Own Cat offers the unique opportuity to knit yourself a cat. There are 25 different breeds included, from a charming moggy to a sleek Siamese, a precious Persian to a loving long hair. With Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne's designs you can now knit your precious pet, reproduce your favourite breed or even knit the cat you have always desperately wanted. The cats are surprisingly easy to make. It will only take a few evenings to create a covetable companion for life. Idiosyncratic descriptions of the various breeds accompany beautiful photography, making this book irresistable for both keen knitters and devoted cat-lovers.
About the Author
Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne run their own knitwear business, Muir and Osborne. They export their knitwear to stores in the United States, Japan and Europe as well as selling to shops in the United Kingdom. Several pieces of their knitwear are in the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. They are the authors of the bestselling Best in Show (9781843405733).
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I wish I could knit and can only admire all these lovely pussies all with full knitting instructions. Best of all, it's very amusing and informative. Did Isaac Newton really get so tired of letting his black cat out that he was forced to invent the cat flap? If you suffer from warts, you will be interested to know that rubbing a male tortoiseshell's tail in May will cure them. A delightful book of great use for all knitters with an abundance of left-over wool!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Marvellous guide to creating your own furry feline friends. Amazingly detailed instructions, but wittily and charmingly written so every page is a pleasure. Includes traditional moggies as well as more exotic and aristocratic cats - the rag doll is particularly adorable.
What a perfect gift for any knitter or cat person. A great sequel to the Best in Show DOGS which I already have.
As horse lover as well as a cat lover I hope this brilliantly creative pair will tackle a knit your own pony next.
What a perfect gift for any knitter or cat person. A great sequel to the Best in Show DOGS which I already have.
As horse lover as well as a cat lover I hope this brilliantly creative pair will tackle a knit your own pony next.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The patterns in this book are marvellous and the photographs charming; really it's a book that's worth owning for the pictures alone. As far as actually knitting the cats goes, the patterns are fairly clear, though the explanations of techniques in the back could have benefitted from some illustrations, and they produce much better toys/models than most other books I've seen, but be advised, if you don't know how to wrap and turn or pick up stitches, you won't be able to knit the cats. Fortunately there are a lot of good instructional videos on YouTube (knitpicks videos are particularly helpful, I find), so this rusty knitter was able to brush up her skills and have fun.
In terms of equipment, the patterns call for needles of 2.75mm, both ordinary and double-pointed, and use 4-ply wool - though of course, you can still follow the patterns using different materials if you want to. You're also advised to use pipe cleaners to shape the legs and tail, unless it's a gift for a small child.
If you're just starting out you should probably begin with something easier, but if you're experienced or ready to hone your techniques, this book is lovely.
--
Thought I'd come back and add to this review having had some more practice with the book. The more I use it, the better I like it. Having had some practice with the basic techniques of wrap and turn and picking up stitches (though there are some patterns where you only need to do the former), I'm finding the patterns are quite straightforward. Having said it's not for beginners in my original title, I now think that if a beginner can teach themselves a few basics, it's actually a very good book to start with: the patterns are very well laid out and the whole book is easy on the eyes, the cats are quick to knit and rewarding. I've used it as a jumping-board, and now my knitting's a lot more advanced.
The making up can be a bit of a fiddle and if you don't do it very carefully the cats can come out wry-necked or twisty-legged, and the 'standing up' cats tend to get a bit melty-legged if you don't stuff and pipe-cleaner them very thoroughly, so I've tended to stick to the sitting and lying-down cats. There's one particularly good pattern near the end for a lying-down but not curled up tabby (pp 130-133), and if I have a complaint it's that, while the authors offer a lot of variations on the standing-up, sitting-up and curled-up cats, they only offer the one pattern for the short-haired lying-down one, and as it's one of the most attractive patterns in the book, as well as one of the most stable once it's made up and sitting on your shelf or desk, that's a real pity. I'd really like it if they'd offered more variations on that theme.
But that said, it's an extremely good knitting book. I've made a lot of cats as gifts for people since getting it, and they've been received with universal excitement, and now my friends are all impressed with me!
In terms of equipment, the patterns call for needles of 2.75mm, both ordinary and double-pointed, and use 4-ply wool - though of course, you can still follow the patterns using different materials if you want to. You're also advised to use pipe cleaners to shape the legs and tail, unless it's a gift for a small child.
If you're just starting out you should probably begin with something easier, but if you're experienced or ready to hone your techniques, this book is lovely.
--
Thought I'd come back and add to this review having had some more practice with the book. The more I use it, the better I like it. Having had some practice with the basic techniques of wrap and turn and picking up stitches (though there are some patterns where you only need to do the former), I'm finding the patterns are quite straightforward. Having said it's not for beginners in my original title, I now think that if a beginner can teach themselves a few basics, it's actually a very good book to start with: the patterns are very well laid out and the whole book is easy on the eyes, the cats are quick to knit and rewarding. I've used it as a jumping-board, and now my knitting's a lot more advanced.
The making up can be a bit of a fiddle and if you don't do it very carefully the cats can come out wry-necked or twisty-legged, and the 'standing up' cats tend to get a bit melty-legged if you don't stuff and pipe-cleaner them very thoroughly, so I've tended to stick to the sitting and lying-down cats. There's one particularly good pattern near the end for a lying-down but not curled up tabby (pp 130-133), and if I have a complaint it's that, while the authors offer a lot of variations on the standing-up, sitting-up and curled-up cats, they only offer the one pattern for the short-haired lying-down one, and as it's one of the most attractive patterns in the book, as well as one of the most stable once it's made up and sitting on your shelf or desk, that's a real pity. I'd really like it if they'd offered more variations on that theme.
But that said, it's an extremely good knitting book. I've made a lot of cats as gifts for people since getting it, and they've been received with universal excitement, and now my friends are all impressed with me!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
best in show
purchased as a gift,great pictures, i am not a knitter myself so can't comment about the actual patterns quoted, but the person we gave it to was very pleased with it.
Published 9 days ago by a flynn
Great fun book
This was a Christmas present for my niece, at her request. The book is great and we all had fun looking at the pictures. For the experienced knitter rather than the novice. Read more
Published 3 months ago by J. Jones
fabulous
this book is great, in fact i took it to college and my tutor borrowed it to show all the staff, i've not put it down since and now have knitted six cats!!
Published 3 months ago by charlotte
if you like cats & you knit - you will love this book
possibly not for the novice knitter. but, easy to read patterns. lots of tips. loads of great photos. not many good patterns out there for cats. Read more
Published 4 months ago by G. Evans
great book for catlovers
lots of patterns for different breeds of cats and kittens. Some unusual breeds, like the Maine Coon, Bengal, Turkish Van and Devon Rex as well as Tabby, Siamese, ginger and black... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Poppy
Great fun
This book is a real gem for cat lovers everywhere. It is fun and beautifully illustrated and caused lots of amusement in my family. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Denny
Brilliant!
I have to admit that I purchased this, and other amazing knitting books of the same ilk, for a friend in Canada. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mrs. J. A. Radford
Witty knitty stuff.
I have been hoping for a Knit Your Own Cat book from these authors because I was a big fan of their lovely Knit Your Own Dog book from a couple of years ago. Read more
Published 6 months ago by S. Lancaster
Really good book
This is a really good book with easy to follow instructions just wish I'd found it earlier...will keep me busy for a while yet so thank goodness Winter's here!!!
Published 6 months ago by Sallie
Another delightful bit of animal magic
Best in Show (with and for cats) is another wonderful example of extended creativity from Osborne and Muir - and for those of us who don't knit (or not yet) it is a great way of... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mr. Alexander R. Nairne
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Home & Garden > Crafts > Toys & Dolls
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
