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The second incarnation of Vogue Knitting celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007 with a large book featuring some of the best articles, essays and tips the magazine has had to offer.

Whether you're interested in the history of knitting, want to learn new cast on methods or finishing tricks, or you just don't have room for 25 years of knitting magazines, this is a great book.

Learning Through the Years

The Best of Vogue Knitting: 25 Years of Articles, Techniques and Expert Advice lives up to its name, providing more than 100 articles and nearly 250 pages of advice to knitters of all skill levels.

Many of these articles are from the best in business, such as Lily Chin, Mari Lynn Patrick, Meg Swansen, Barbara G. Walker and Elizabeth Zimmermann.

The book is set up for easy browsing with subject headings such as:

• Knitting history
• Fiber
• Basic techniques
• Working with schematics and charts
• Casting on and binding off
• Expert finishing tips and techniques
• Special techniques for knitting in the round
• The design process
• Shaping and sizing
• Caring for knitwear
• Designing men
• Designing women

These last two sections are profile essays of some of the best knitters and knitwear desiginers of the past 25 years, including Kaffe Fasset, Perry Ellis, Debbie Bliss and Nicky Epstein. These articles let you get into the mind of a designer and see what inspires him or her.

All About Design

While there is a ton of good information here for people who like to knit from other people's patterns, the most interesting and useful sections of this book are good training for people interested in designing their own patterns.

A series of articles on sweater design gives knitters a good idea how a piece comes together logistically as well as artistically. Articles about shaping, adding bust darts, sizing and altering patterns will help both knitters writing their own patterns and those who would like to get a more perfect fit from patterns they find in books or online.

And the sections on techniques provide a good education for newer knitters or a handy reference for knitters who don't use some of these techniques very often.

My only criticisms of the book have little to do with content and more to do with format: this is a big, heavy book with big pages. It's not good for bedtime reading, but the big size is helpful if you're trying to follow a technique.

It's a lot of fun to look back and see how far knitting has come in such a short time!

Publication date: May 2007.