Category Archives: starmore stalking

It seems like there’s an unstoppable flow of Alice Starmore books being reprinted. Amazon now have Charts for Color Knitting: New and Expanded Edition available for pre-order, for publication in October this year. Although that will most likely change..!

One of my favourite reference books is Traditional Fair Isle Knitting by Sheila McGregor because of the library of fair isle pattern charts in the book. I play with the charts a lot and might actually use them in a pattern at some point! There is a similar selection in Alice Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle Knitting as well, but this “new” book might be a bit more detailed.

And Tudor Roses for 2012, then?

Because it’s more accurate to say that I was actually rolling around on the floor with a book clutched to my bosom and possibly squealing and making poor Rose worry about her mother’s sanity (again).

Why so happy?

IT CAME.

No hanging around waiting for Amazon to sort themselves out with the shipping date for this book, which has changed umpteen times. I registered on the Dover Publications website to get an email when Aran Knitting was published. Last Wednesday, that email arrived, the book was ordered and arrived this morning, which was amazingly fast.

It’s a gorgeous book. I won’t have the time to read it properly until a certain person is tucked up in bed, as there’s a huge amount of historical information at the beginning, as well as swatches and charts for dozens of cable patterns. And the sweaters are beautiful, of course. There’s one new design, a jacket called Eala Bhan:

which I love. Not just because it’s purple, honestly. But my heart is set on a St Brigid. Maybe not the £100 version using Alice Starmore’s yarn, but something a bit less “on my god I can’t wear this £100 sweater in case it gets baby gunk on it” from New Lanark.

I am even happier about this book than last year’s Fair Isle Knitting. Partly because that one came when I had a new baby and wasn’t really in the right frame of mind for colourwork, but also because I have adored the St Brigid pattern for what seems like forever and I can finally knit it for myself.

I’d forgotten I’d asked for more information about the reprint of Fisherman’s Sweaters. So it was a nice surprise to get the following email yesterday:

Dear Kate,

Thank you for your email and please accept my apologies for the delay in replying.

We have now confirmed with Alice that the only change necessary is to replace the yarn information on the last 3 pages, which explains how to substitute the yarns in the patterns for Alice’s current yarns. It will also be resized and we have designed a more modern cover.

I hope you will look forward to seeing it in the shops in September.

With best wishes,

Caroline King

This is very interesting indeed. *strokes chin* It would seem that if you already have the book, then you’re not going to get much out of it by buying the newer version other than the substitute information – which many seasoned knitters can do themselves, anyway. But it *does* have a shiny new cover and will be a different size and they’re good enough reasons for me to buy a copy.

Aran Knitting, the New and Expanded Edition, is available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk. Form an orderly queue, now, and no pushing or using pointy sticks.

You know, not all Alice Starmore books require you to re-mortgage your house or sell your children in order to buy them. I feel somewhat smug about this, but last week I managed to find a copy of The Celtic Collection on eBay for the thoroughly respectable price of £4.18 and free postage.

The patterns are beautiful, of course, and I’m very tempted by Cromarty as an alternative to St Brigid, but I think it’s a bit boxy for a person with a giant bosom such as me. I *will* look like a cube on legs, which is not a good plan!

(Post title to be sung a la Harry Hill.)

I have had a reply from Sarah Benians of Anova Books!

Yes this title [Fishermen's Sweaters] is due to be reprinted and will be republished in September. A few changes are being made to bring it up to date but it will essentially be the same book.

I have emailed back to ask her if she can share what the changes are (my money is still on updated yarns), but ’tis Good News! I’m not imagining things!

This is beginning to become a regular feature. It might need a theme tune. Perhaps a quartet of sheep bleating the “News At Ten” theme.

So, no sign of Aran Knitting on Amazon UK, but proof it’s on the way does exist, at least in Canada. September is still five months away, so time for them to get organised and put it up. I may have to email them, even if it does make me seem slightly unhinged.

Because there’s news of a possible reprint of another Starmore book. I came across this while looking for AK:

According to the Amazon page, it’s a hardback reprint of Fishermen’s Sweaters, due about the same time as AK.

The idea that this book is being reprinted – which is one of the few Starmore books that is easy to find and doesn’t mean re-mortgaging your house in order to buy it – isn’t that exciting when compared to, say, the news that Tudor Roses is now available and comes with free yarn. But Fishermen’s Sweaters does use many discontinued Rowan yarns, so I’m hoping that this new version will be updated with current yarns. I’ve emailed the publisher, Collins & Brown, so will of course share any reply they send with you all here.

Following on from yesterday’s post about Aran Knitting being reprinted, and more evidence of how having a baby means I appear to have been living under a rock for the past six months, today I have made a further Starmore-related discovery.

As I said before, I don’t buy many knitting magazines and none of the UK ones, and around September last year I really wasn’t interested in them, anyway. So I missed issue 10 of The Knitter:

Had I not been living under the rock, I’d have known that it contained one of the Starmore patterns I really want to knit, Elizabeth I from Tudor Roses. That issue of magazine is OOP now, but is available as a digital download so within ten minutes of my discovery, I had the pattern in my hot little hands. (Would have been even quicker if the site took Maestro cards; it’s not as if I’m trying to pay with magic beans, people!)

Now once I’ve chosen the yarn colour, I just need to lose the ginormoboobs so that I can actually fit into it.