The other day I was tagged in a Facebook post about a book called The Manly Art of Knitting. Yesterday, I accidentally came across that same book in my local library. Obviously I was a little excited as I said that I would try and read one knitting book/magazine (or at least peruse) a week this year. Well, this one took all of about 30 minutes to get through – reading! Now I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but there were a lot of comments on the post saying they’d love to find the book and would love to see it in re-print. No, you wouldn’t. No, you don’t. I’m not a fan of negative press, and I hate delivering it myself, but this book is just the sort of thing that would have men running for the hills instead of their LYS.
Yes, the cover looks manly and you’d think that’s great that this guy can knit AND ride a horse at the same time! But truly, that’s where the allure ends. I’m sure that the author – Dave Fougner – had nothing but the best of intentions when he sat down and wrote this book which was published in 1972. Unfortunately, I think the only real value of this book is as a piece of history as I’m not sure how many books about knitting were written by men before this.
As a book about knitting or even trying to entice men to learn to knit however, it falls short of the mark, very short. The table of contents seems fairly expansive for a learn to knit book, but the actual instructions are very brief and in most cases leave out crucial information. As an instructor myself, I cringe to think that people were left with this as their only means of learning to knit.
There’s roughly 36 pages with text, and most of those pages contain only 1 paragraph. I hope I don’t violate any copyright laws by doing this, but as an example, here’s the instructions on how to increase when purling … “In some projects it may become necessary to add or increase a stitch. If you are purling and must increase, take the yarn in your left hand and cast on one stitch.” This instruction is followed by a black and white diagram of yarn around a finger of a knitter’s left hand.
After covering the basics and pattern stitches, the author goes on to describe how to make 6 different projects. The only difference between the dog’s blanket and the ribbed cap however, is the size and finishing technique. Both are simple rectangles, but the one for the dog is used as a practice piece for the knitter as the dog “won’t mind a small blanket with an irregular shape and unusual stitches”. He is after all, “someone uncritical”! The hat is a rectangle that is seamed twice. I’m thinking you’d have to give it to someone “uncritcal” as well!
In the book Dave does have one revolutionary idea – knitting a blanket for your horse in the round, with garden hose!! I won’t get into ALL the ways this possibly exciting project fails in the book. The hammock also sounds exciting as well, until you find out you have to use shovel handle or pool cues for needles!
In fact, the most exciting portion of this book is the Bibliography. It has given me a list of 4 books that have piqued my interest and may even show up on a review here someday! So in short, thanks should go to Dave Fougner for the effort, but you won’t miss out on much if you don’t happen to find this self published work. I truly hope it didn’tdiscourage too many people from pursuing The Manly Art of Knitting!
Hugzzz 😎