I [Heart] Felt: 33 Eye-Popping Projects for the Inspired Knitter by Kathleen Taylor, published by Taunton (February 19, 2008).

A book about fulling, that is the felting process of knitted items. It is pitched at having a huge ‘wow’ factor, and is described as having ‘eye popping’ projects that ‘may cause gasps of disbelief’. All of this buzz had me intrigued - which is why I was slightly dissapointed. Don’t get me wrong, there are some very decent projects in here, interesting and lovely - but not sure about the hype.

This is an usually designed book - what I mean by that is that it has large retro font in the project introduction in groovy candy colours - very cool - but somehow strangely at odds with the style of the projects. Now that I have my bug bear out of the way I will discuss the instructions. And these are very clear, detailed and nicely written, the author, Kathleen has a lovely writing style that is shown off in this section, she obviously knows a lot about her topic and it shows. There are also lots of before and after photos of the felting/fulling process which I really love.

The projects might be ‘eye popping’ for their difficulty level and use of luxury yarn, such as the ‘peppermint stick’ christmas stocking knitted in peruvian wool with fair isle stitch, or the ‘grazing sheep bag’ an intarsia knit in peruvian wool, or the ‘cabled tote’ knit from alpaca/wool, or the ‘big bag’ knit from noro iro with raised rib handles in a contrasting yarn.

I asked advise from a more experienced knitter than myself, and it was as I expected, the projects would not be difficult for an experienced knitter. I guess the ‘eye popping’ comes into it when you knit a cable stitch bag and then throw it into the washing machine to fend for itself. You certainly need a little bravery to take that next step in the process.

Unfortunately I was not really inspired by many of the projects in this book. I found the colour choices off putting and the rather bright cheery studio shots (not the authors fault) terribly fake. I did really like the felted slipper - in a couple of variations rather lovely, and the child’s gingham vest and alpaca toddler earflap cap the highlights of the book.

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