Last-Minute Knitted Gifts »

Knitwear designer Joelle Hoverson is the owner of Purl, an upscale knitting supply store in New York City's trendy SoHo neighborhood. Since opening in 2002, Purl has been featured in Oprah Winfrey's O magazine, Lucky, and Time Out, as well as on Martha Stewart's syndicated television show. From 1996 to 2000, Hoverson worked as a senior style editor for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. She holds a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.

Anna Williams is a freelance photographer based in New York City. Her work appears frequently in Martha Stewart Living, Oprah Winfrey's O magazine, Food & Wine, Gourmet, Real Simple, In Style, Elle Decor, and other national publications.

Today's knitters are chic, smart-and busy. Although they love to knit and enjoy making gifts for family and friends, they're constantly faced with the challenge of finding enough time to actually finish what they've started. Last-Minute Knitted Gifts solves this problem. Joelle Hoverson, owner of Purl, the hip knitting supply store in downtown Manhattan, has designed more than 30 fun, fresh, beautiful patterns, most of which can be made in less than ten hours-some in as little as two!

Known for her keen sense of color, Hoverson includes instructions for classic gifts like baby booties and bonnets, sweaters, and scarves, plus imaginative options like a cashmere tea cozy, a felted yoga mat bag, floor cushions, and a poncho-surely something for everyone on the gift list. And to make each present extra-special, Hoverson offers easy tips on how to incorporate knitting and other yarn embellishments into the gift wrap.

Library Journal

Hoverson, the owner of Purls, a yarn store in New York's Soho neighborhood, has collected more than 30 patterns suitable for hand-knitted gifts and has organized them by how long it takes to knit them, from fewer than two hours (e.g., felted potholders and Angora baby booties) to more than ten (e.g., a gem of a cabled bag with attached knitted lining). Readers will want to use the number of hours as rough guidelines and would be well advised, for example, not to start that beautiful superfine mohair lace scarf in the "two- to four-hours" section the night before Christmas and expect to have it done in four hours. Excellent closeup photography leaves no doubt as to how the finished piece will look, and the designs are classic enough that they will not appear dated before the items wear out. Recommended for large public libraries and knitting collections. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.