Stitchionaries of the Italian variety

In that Italian magazine I bought last week I spotted an advert for a stitch dictionary from the same publisher, Mani di Fata. So whilst in town today, I popped back to the magazine shop for a closure inspection of the craft mags.

And there it was, just waiting for me to buy it!

My apologies for the craptastic photography - the light here has been really poor lately and of course Aran and Tom have been playing which causes the bus to move around some... you try getting a clear shot under such conditions!

As far as stitch dictionaries go, it's not bad. The photography is nice, although I'm not one to be seduced by lots of graphics and flashy layouts - simple works best for me, and the content is more important than the presentation (although a good presentation is a must, just not one too heavy on the graphics please!)

There are 272 stitches (the cover says 274, but I counted, twice, and there are 272) and surprisingly, there are some stitches in there that I haven't spotted in my other stitch dictionaries, which pleases me muchly. I don't like having too many books around that have all the same content, and have given some away before if they duplicate, so this one seems worth it's price (although it was only 2 Euros more than that last mag)

All of the stitches are charted, giving me more options for learning not only Italian, but also the Italian knitting language. Most of the chart symbols are common, although the cable symbols I haven't seen before but are self explanatory. Cable symbols keep grabbing my attention right now as I want to change how I chart my patterns, and am keeping an eye open for clear and intuitive symbols. There's plenty of white space around the instructions, photos of the swatches at least double the size of the ones in the Harmonies, which in turn means the book is twice as thick.

Any faults? Well, apart from the landscape binding, not really. The new stitches that I've spied have planted some new ideas, although I still need to fathom what some of the symbols mean before I can start implementing them....

I did order myself 2 of the Japanese Stitch dictionaries the other evening, and also the Japanese Hat pattern book (which was v.reasonably priced so it *had* to go in the cart) - a bit of a binge has been had. I'm trying to push the guilty thoughts away and remind myself that I don't really spend much money these days, and it is for business!

Now, if only I hadn't missed the chance of getting Mon Tricot from the KCG book sale the other year (SkipNorth guys - bring me one back?!)(seriously, I still kick myself over that) then I'd have a nice little stitchionary collection brewing... I have most of the Harmonies (old, old style) and all of the Barbara Walkers, so a couple of other language ones should sit rather nicely on the shelf :)