This is an enthusiastic, inspirational, and humorous celebration of the knitting lifestyle through narrative, instruction, and 30 patterns, to guide knitters of all ages to tap into their own creative genius, all from the Car Talk of the knitting world, the authors of the wildly popular knitting blog, masondixonknitting.com. Through their common love of knitting and life, Ann Meador Shayne and Kay Gardiner, two women who had never met, started on a two-year correspondence and happened upon a magical thing: knitting freedom. Although it may not sound revolutionary, the idea that one can conjure a concept for an object and just make it without a pattern is blasphemy. For most, knitting begins as a paint-by-numbers process of following pattern after pattern after pattern and buying book after book. The possibility of ending up with a hand knit that has the mark of one's own imagination on it is a powerful and delicious thing, and that's what the authors deliver. In a chatty and personal way, the authors share their wondrous discoveries and creations on the road trip through Knitopia: pillows with fingerprints knitted on them, a knitted portrait of Virginia Woolf, and the flat-out whimsy and genius of the designers. There are more than 30 patterns in this book, most of which are the epitome of ease. Readers can choose to make them as easy, or as complicated as they can bear. The intention is to leave room for one to expand on a specific concept or technique, which will be explored in further detail.

About the Author

Kay Gardiner learned to knit as a child, but put aside her needles for twenty years to obtain a law degree from Columbia, become an Assistant United States Attorney in Manhattan, and start a family. Lucky for us, she returned to knitting with a vengeance. After stints in the New York publishing world, Ann Meador Shayne returned to her hometown of Nashville to edit BookPage. She has since chosen to devote her time to her family, and knitting. Kay and Ann met on an online knitting message board two years ago and their correspondence has grown into a close-knit community of more than 10,000 who regularly log on to www.masondixonknitting.com.

Reviews

""Mason-Dixon Knitting" is one of those books that makes a home in the heart of knitters. Like a couple of favorite aunts ushering you into a sunny kitchen for tastes of cookie dough and the sharing of secrets, the authors comfort, inspire, amuse, and brighten the life of the lucky reader who steps into their world. I fell in love right away with the book's colors, playful approach, and designs... Ann and Kay's friendly repartee and wry senses of humor, genuine friendship, and the steady rhythm of cheerful and obsessive knitting interwoven with the pulsing music of family life make this a book to curl up on the couch with as well as to knit from." --Cat Bordhi, author of "A Magical Treasury of Knitting"
"Receiving a pre-publication review copy of this sparkling new book is one of the happiest things that's happened to me in good long while. To read "Mason-Dixon Knitting" is to find yourself surrounded by a world of smiles; it is to remember what's really important in this world (hin