Knits of Tomorrow: Toys and Accessories for Your Retro-Future Needs

If you can't have fun when you're knitting, when can you have fun? That seems to be the premise behind this delightful, tongue-in-cheek collection of knitting patterns inspired by outdated, geeky technology from English knitwear designer Culligan. Here, the knitter will find beginner and intermediate patterns for toys, bags, scarves, laptop covers, and other accessories adorned with graphic renditions of retro-tech icons -- cassette tapes, reel-to-reel machines, Sputnik-like satellites, flying saucers, and robots that look like they stepped out of 1950s sci-fi movies. Long on cheek and charm, the book is a bit short on instructions when it comes to some of the more difficult techniques - intarsia, fair isle and double knitting each get barely more than a single paragraph of description. But that's no reason not to buy the book - the knitting technogentsia this book is aimed at are Internet-fluent and can seek out additional explanations online. (Jan.)