Yarn Substitution Made Easy: Matching the Right Yarn to Any Knitting Pattern

This is a thorough, clearly written book on the complex subject of yarn substitution for knitters. We live in a world with seemingly infinite access to knitting patterns and yarn, but that really complicates the task of choosing the right yarn for our next project. Carol Sulcoski's new book focuses on the details of yarn structure, fiber content and appearance (color) to educate the reader about yarn in general, and then she provides a range of simple but appealing pattern designs with which she offers specific options for yarn substitutions, and explains why each of these options may or may not be successful. The photographs of swatches for each option are very helpful and the photography throughout the book will please any yarn lover. I particularly love her use of the word facets to describe the way plied yarns reflect light and shadow to help create stitch definition. I have been knitting for 45 years and teaching knitting and other fiber arts for 25 years; I am delighted to be able to recommend this book to my students as a terrific resource.

This is a great book to learn about how yarn is made, what it is made from, and how to make good decisions as to whether the yarn you want to use will result in the kind of outcome you expect when it’s turned into a garment. The prose is well-written, there are lots of pictures illustrating the author’s points, and I am fairly sure it saved me money right off the bat as I realized the yarn I wanted to use for my summer knitting project was about to cause a knitting disaster. Instead, I learned what yarn I SHOULD use and why. I will keep this reference around to avert future yarn failures (really pilot error) and better match the yarns I love to their best uses. I highly recommend this to anyone who knits and wants to use yarns other than the one the pattern calls for.

A simply amazing book for yarnaholics who want to learn how to substitute that perfect skien of yarn in the SABLE stash!!! Carol takes you through the aspects of yarn construction and further provides explanations of how yarn behaves when knitted. But, WAIT, there’s more. Carol also provides examples through the clever use of a few patterns at the end of the book. These examples are by far the coolest way to show knitters how different yarns behave when knitted. The Yarn Goddess explains the pros and cons through an easy green, yellow, red method to show case why or why not you would want to use different yarns. These informative explanations guide knitters on a journey to select the perfect yarn based on article construction and yarn composition. This is a must need in all knitters libraries.

I loved the book and how it was organized (The Big Three, Fiber Content, Yarn Construction, Visual Effects, Classification, substitution process, selecting, and Patterns for Practice), but I couldn't help wishing there was more information in the Fiber Content section and more fiber types covered. I ended up ordering Book of Yarn, in the hopes that I would get what I wanted. (Deets on yarn fibers, the pros and cons, and what functions they excel at.) Still waiting for the new book to arrive, but this felt like a really good start.

In Carol J. Sulcoski's seventh book, she brings her immense knowledge of yarn and how it behaves to the topic of how to choose a different yarn than the one specified in the pattern. In the first section, "Yarn Fundamentals," she tackles huge topics that have had whole books written on them and distills out what you need to know about yarn behavior, content, weight, construction, and visual dye effects. The second section guides you through choosing a substitute yarn for a pattern based on the characteristics of the yarn specified for the piece, with an eye toward getting a similar result. (She specifically states that this book is not about how to rewrite a pattern to suit a different weight yarn.) The third section offers deliberately simple patterns, each chosen to highlight a yarn characteristic (one requires very elastic yarn, another a very drapey yarn, another requires a yarn with excellent stitch definition, etc). Each of these patterns is written for a specific yarn, and then Sulcoski shows you good, workable, and poor swaps for each one, and why they are good substitutions or not. This book is valuable to anyone who doesn't always choose to purchase the yarn specified in a pattern. It's written in a very readable, almost conversational style. I found that, having been a knitter for over 25 years (ouch!), I realized that I already understood a lot of this information, but in a more intuitive way. I probably couldn't have articulated it well, and certainly not as well as this author, with her years of experience teaching. I also tend to stick to certain corners of the knitting world. Give me some hand-dyed merino and I won't bother anyone until my tea goes cold. This book's information is still useful to me. For instance: that cardigan was written for a camel/silk/yak blend - can I get away with merino? What about merino/silk? My only nitpick is that I found a couple of typos. They likely will be fixed in the next printing, and do not detract from the information presented.

Love this book and the level of “clean reading”, meaning, I found it easy to absorb and understand. After getting the wrong guidance too frequently when making a purchase at an LYS, and from my solo selection voyages ending in disaster, this book caught my interest. I feel like I’m taking a course and impactfully increasing my yarn knowledge. Thank you to the author!

Tolles Buch, bin super happy! zuerst war ich etwas besorgt weil nur 2 kleine Kapitel um den substitution process gehen. Jedoch war die sorge komplett unbegründet, weil die vorherigen Kapitel das wissen aufbauen welches man braucht um ein die Substitutions meistern zu können. Es baut sich also aufeinander auf. Das Buch gibt einem gutes allgemein wissen mit über Garne, ohne dabei zu tief in die tiefe zu gehen ( was man ja auch der Seitenanzahl entnehmen kann) Man lernt was man wissen muss. kleines feedback: Beim substitutions Prozess wäre eine check liste toll gewesen, schreibe diese halt selber. Zum Schluss sind noch einige tolle Anleitungen dabei- wobei für jeden was dabei sein sollte( nicht für Anfänger geeignet, meiner Meinung nach). Dabei wird das Wissen auch in praktischen bsp gleich aufgezeigt. Auch hier muss ich wieder betonen, dass das Buch ganz klar auf English ist! Man sollte die Sprache also beherschen ( es ist einfaches english) und sonst nicht reklamieren - man sollte halt kein Buch in einer Fremdsprache kaufen wenn man die Sprache nicht kann! ( nerve mich immer wieder über solche dumme Bewertungen) Mit etwas gedult kann man sich das Buch auch gebraucht zu einem Snäpchen Preis kaufen- dann lohnt es sich erst recht. Ich empfehle das Buch für alle die ein gut gebündeltes wissen über Garne und den Substitutionsprozess suchen. Wenn man jedoch schon viele Bücher über Garne hat- ist das Buch nichts und schaut lieber ein paar youtube videos- da man das meiste wissen dazu schon hat und nur noch ein Schritt fehlt.

Ce livre est très complet. Les schémas sont compréhensibles. Il est en anglais mais reste compréhensible avec un peu d'attention.

This is a brilliant book for any knitter or anyone that crochet. Very informative in simple terms a must have in your library.

I’m thinking this is going to end up being my go to knitting reference book. I’ve been knitting off and on for sixty years, and now those gaps of information have been filled. Going to check out her other books.

Easy to read and so valuable. Wish I’d had it years ago.