While I was away during the Christmas holidays, I got the opportunity to spend time with my teenaged granddaughter. She is an avid reader just like her noni and father. She asked me to take her to a local book store so that she could spend her gift money on books. She set a challenge for herself to read fifty books last year and she has a couple of new favorite authors that she follows.

I am a thrifty shopper, so I was comparing the prices for the books that she wanted to purchase with prices of the same books online. We were at a Barnes and Noble bookstore and their prices were not competitive with Amazon. My granddaughter told me that she ordered almost all of her books from online retailers but she wanted to hold a book and read it as opposed to reading from the Kindle app.

I could not disagree with her, because I like to have resource books in print as opposed to an online version myself. That brings me to my "book reviews". While I was waiting for my granddaughter to shop, I got the opportunity to browse knitting books. I picked up several books but ended up really wanting to purchase two books in particular.

The first book that I was really impressed with was written by Margaret Radcliffe in 2012. She emphasizes essential techniques to master knitting in the round and she includes detailed illustrations with a "how to" focus. This is very important for me because watching a video on Youtube is helpful, but I end up pausing and rewinding to pick up difficult techniques. Having a printed book with a detailed illustration solves that problem for me.

The other thing that I really liked about the book was the information about converting flat patterns to circular. There are bunches of free patterns online for many things, but most of them are for double pointed needles or traditional knitting needles. I prefer knitting with circular needles when my project is in the round and I have bought an entire set of circular knitting needles for that purpose. An experienced knitter can probably convert the patterns with no problems, but as I have mentioned. I am a novice at knitting.

Now to the other obstacle which is cost. The price for this book in the bookstore was the suggested retail pricee of $24.95 which was not in my budget. The price of the same book on Amazon is $19.59 for a new copy. I don't have to have a "new" book, I just want a printed copy. I found a copy of the same book on Amazon for $13.24 which included free delivery. There were other books that were in better or worse shape but I would have to pay shipping costs which defeats the purpose of being thrifty.

The second book that I fell in love with is titled "60 Quick Knits for Beginners." This book is a great resource for me because the patterns are listed from easy to advanced even for beginners and I don't have to dedicate weeks of my time to finish a project. That is important to me because I am currently involved with other arts and craft interests like my pottery and charcoal drawing.

I was able to buy this book from Amazon for $10.99 with free shipping even though the price at Barnes and Noble would have been $17.95. It pays to shop around and compare prices if you have more time than money the way that I do.

As I have mentioned before, I am better at crocheting than knitting so I have been buying knitting material and supplies as well as investing in knitting books. I hope that these books may serve as great resources for others in the needlework community that may need a little more help like I do. I really appreciate the great references given from other members as well. Tips received like the website https://www.ravelry.com which provides free patterns from others as well as patterns that can be purchased have been really helpful to me.

Finally, one good thing about Barnes and Noble was that they matched the prices of their online book store for my granddaughter but not Amazon. That price matching saved her $10.00 off of the price of one of her books.

Happy crafting.