Saturday 12 January 2013

Bergere de France Knit & Stitch Volume 1 review


Yes, I have poor impulse control when it comes to buying this sort of thing.  I usually buy at least issue 1.  This is the latest offering from Eaglemoss as a part-work.  Now I hope Eaglemoss have improved their deliveries because the last few times I subscribed to something from them it resulted in blood-pressure heightening phone calls to try to sort out issues about missing shipments.

The bumpf does mention free shipping in the UK but doesn't mention what the cost would be to Ireland (or Eire as they style it).  This issue is 1.99 (UK 99p) the second will be 3.99 (UK £2.50) and subsequent issues will be 6.99 (UK 4.50), this price works out pretty well to Eason's current 7.49 for a £4.99 magazine.  You might think about using something like Parcel Motel to ship to Belfast if that would work out cheaper, you get the magazines in lots of 4. So you will be waiting anyway.

yarn from new magIssue 1 comes with two balls of acrylic yarn, Bergere de France's Barisienne, issue 2 will be offering the same, issue 3 will be Eclair yarn.  Now somehow I don't think you'll be getting some of the Alpaca yarn mentioned in the guide to yarns used in this collection but I could be proven wrong.

It also comes with some 3.5mm needles, the recommended size for the yarn, a how-to-knit DVD and the magazine, along with the guide to the yarns, which I would carefully store for substitution purposes, as well as a lot of bumpf on the series.

knit & stitch coverThis part-work promises to cover not only knitting and crochet but also tapestry, crewelwork and felting.  They say that there will be needles and crochet hooks with the series and binders along the way.
Part 1 starts off with how to cast-on, using the thumb or long-tail cast-on.
A plain garter stitch is the first square, using one of the balls, the squares are 20cm each and while tension isn't terribly important, it is a good thing to practice how to achieve tension on.  Cleverly they suggest labelling the square with an ID number.
There's also a fringed shawl knit project, using a slightly fuzzy yarn, an increase on the rs row until x number of stitches are achieved and then decrease back down to the original number of stitches, unhelpfully it's not diagrammed.

The next project is a cuddly teddy, crocheted using the other ball of yarn, this does have a schematic.

A Classic V-necked jumper for kids from 4-16 is next, schematic included, this is knit in pieces and has a simple rolled neck edge.  A good plain jumper.

A squared cushion is a tapestry piece inset into a cushion.  

Next up is a know-how piece on reading a pattern card and what their measurments are for each size etc.  Seeing as they use the French and European number sizing this is going to be useful if you're going to use this series at all.  They also include a list of reference abbreviations, I'd be inclined to get this laminated, or buy a second copy to do up a laminated version of this one and have it at the front of the collection.

Crochet basics are done as well, right-handed of course.  To round out the magazine there's a basic guide on Tapestry basic half-cross stitch and tent stitch. Both of which look the same on the front but there's a bit of a difference on the back.

So will I be buying it? The jury is still out, I'll probably buy the first three to see what happens, and to have the binder in case I impulse buy some more.  I do like the idea of one ball for the throw and one for another project.  This could be an interesting series to watch.

6 comments:

  1. By the way, what weight do you think the wool is? DK? 4-ply? Their website doesn't give the weights for their wools.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Issue 1's cheat sheet says that the Barisienne is a DK, they recommend 3.5mm needles, so it's a light dk

      The other yarn supplied so far has been Eclair which is a chunky yarn with a recommended needle size of 5mm

      Delete
  2. Have you had any more experience wih the bergere de france yarn? I want to try it out but if its not worth it i might as well save my money.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've only used a few but they were pretty standard workhorse yarns, I bought about 6 issues of this and they all came with yarn. I wouldn't go out of my way to buy them but would pick them up if I happened on them and they suited a project.

    ReplyDelete