This knitting book is doubly useful. You can learn to knit socks from the toe up. Normally, socks in Western European countries and the Americas are knitting from the cuff down. But you can knit a sock starting at the toe, increasing until the foot width is sufficient, and go on from there. The heel can be inset a number of ways, but is not turned as in cuff-down socks. The instructions Anna Zilboorg provides are about the best I have seen for doing toe-up designs. It isn't easy at first to negotiate the 4 needles and the few stitches on them, but it is worth learning because it is a fun and useful technique.
Eastern European socks are mostly knitted toe up. So this is something new for many knitters. Turkish designs are also something new; they have the property of balancing the "positive" and "negative" parts of the design, meaning that the design and background colors are about equal in importance. The repetitive nature of the Turkish patterns makes it rather easy to create some pretty complex looking designs. They lend themselves to gorgeous colors, as in this book. Designer Anna Zilboorg is particularly well-known for her color work and she dyes her own wools to get some of the striking color combinations.
Even if you are not a sock knitter, the Turkish patterns are very useful for adding to vests, sweaters and afghans. They are very pretty and fun to knit. So if you decide you don't want to make socks, you can use the color and patterns to spice up some other types of garments.
This book is reprinted from "Fancy Feet" which went out of print and looks very spiffy in its new cover design.
