Magnificent Mittens & Socks: The Beauty of Warm Hands and Feet

by Anna Zilboorg, Alexis Xenakis (Photographer)

The new, revised edition of Magnificent Mittens & Socks includes directions for working socks. Anna's toe-up, free-sole sock design works with all those beautiful color patterns: stranded patterning on the top of the foot and a reinforced sole. This practical approach avoids the inelasticity of most stranded, color-patterned socks and solves the problem of too much work for too little wear. Now your socks can be as magnificent as your mittens!

Genres: Knitting, Crafts, Nonfiction, How To

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Born and reared in New York City; educated at Harvard; taught at MIT. Fled from the madding crowd's ignoble strife until I found myself in Big Stone Gap, VA. Got religion. Returned to my childhood love of knitting; became a hermit.

(From the interview Knitting Universe did with her, on the release of her book, 'Magnificient Mittens . . . ')

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The long awaited reprint of Magnificent Mittens by Anna Zilboorg has finally arrived and it is as marvelous as anyone would expect from this author and photographer. Subtitled "The beauty of warm hands and feet", this is a collection of 42 bold and beautiful mitten patterns that can be adapted to socks.

The construction of the mittens in this book is as important as the lovely blending of color. You are sure to skip over the first chapters in your haste to admire the beautiful photography of Alexis Xenakis (some shots were taken in Iceland), but go back and read these chapters carefully. There's an entire primer in knitting design and the practical design elements of the mittens included in this book, including the reasons for the intriguing and colorful cuffs and other aspects of the designs. Later chapters discuss adapting the patterns for socks and give some examples of edging, how to line the mittens and other techniques.

There are mittens with small designs, large designs, huge gauntlets (one design reminds me of something Shakespeare might have admired) and smaller cuffs. There are even some ordinary-looking shaped mittens that are far from ordinary. Each design is charted with directions. I'm new to color work myself so I'm looking forward to making the "beginner's mittens" from Chapter two. Ms. Zilboorg assures us that if you can make this mitten you can tackle any mitten in her book.

I heard a podcaster the other day make the statement that Anna Zilboorg's Knitting for Anarchists is the only book a knitter needs. She may be right but I think that Magnificent Mittens & Socks is a joy to own and to look at, and I know I'm going to learn a lot about knitting as well as mittens as I work my way through the patterns!

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great news! I won the drawing at my Local Yarn shop for this book. I read the article that was done on her recently and was waiting for my library to get it so I could check it out. How cool that I will have it for my very own! Life is sweet.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a reprint and soft cover. I own the original first print that is a hard cover.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly beautiful mitten patterns. I look forward to knitting many of the designs. Anna Zilboorg's descriptions of her techniques are clearly written.