Loved this book !! I've read it cover to cover a few times now, and like it more and more each time. Great photos of every project. Some history on specific shawls, which I appreciate. Lots of different folks' designs, which is nice. I'm an intermediate knitter but new to lace. About to start my first shawl, wish me luck !

This book contains a gorgeous varity of shawls, of all shapes (square, rectangular, triangular, faroese, and scarf length and width). The lace stitching varies too, from intermediate to advanced, and recommended yarns are lace through medium weight, depending on the project. Most are designed to be all one color, but a couple in the back use mutiple colors - very interesting and beautiful look. I am knitting my first project now, chosen because I already had the appropriate yarn- DK weight lightly brushed alpaca in a heathered purply-mauve color - that I am using to recreate the "featherweight fantasy", a rectangular shawl with fringe and a diamond-like lace pattern. It is so beautiful, I will miss it when I give it away as a gift this Christmas. Happy knitting to you~

As expected, this book includes lots of traditional and innovative shawl patterns, however its true value is that it is an instruction book for designing your own shawls.

Shawl construction is solidly covered (e.g. the many ways of creating a traditional Shetland shawl, which consists of a square centre, lace border, and lacy edging), and explicit suggestions are given for how to design your own (e.g. the designer suggests using patterns with repeats of 15 or 14 plus 1). This is where things get interesting. You'll need to pull out your stitch dictionaries, pencil and graph paper, because after you read this book, the urge to design your own shawls will be irresistable!

A side note: if you've bought one of the later reprints, you don't have to worry about errata. If you have a copy from the original run in 1999, the errata can be found at the Knitting Universe web site.

I thoroughly enjoyed the learning portion of this book, and planned to knit the Faroese shawl. Fortunately, I belong to a sock knitters blog and someone who knitted this shawl warned everyone that it was riddled with errors! I still enjoyed many of the techniques that is shown in the book. But I'm understandably concerned about the accuracy of their patterns.....Katie

If you love a small, interesting and beautiful project which will be a treasure to you and your family for years, this is your book. Numerous beautiful shawls, varying in difficulty from intricate to easy are featured.

I love to work with beautiful delicate yarn. I love the intricate design created with simple yo's and K2tog's. This book is wonderful.