AUGUST 2016 - AudioFile
KNITLANDIA is a collection of 17 essays reflecting on a decade’s worth of Parkes’s knitting-inspired road trips. She describes mills, sheep farms, yarn festivals, and shops around the world that you may want to add to your yarn bucket list. However, her delivery is merely competent, and a subtle change in her tone as she shares her interactions with the well-known and newbie knitters, weavers, dyers, and shopkeepers she meets in her travels seems somehow more gossipy than enlightening. If you’re looking for a listening experience that enthusiastically shares the pleasures of the world of yarn and knitting, this probably isn’t your best choice. Nonetheless, if you’re interested in the technical aspects of turning wool into yarn, you’ll be enlightened. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
The Washington Post online
A life entwined in yarn might mystify those who don’t knit, but anyone versed in the language of skeins and cables will sigh with envy over Clara Parkes’s new memoir, Knitlandia. Non-knitters will likely skip Parkes’s slender volume, thus missing a fresh view of destinations both exotic and ordinary. But those who pick up a copy for a knitting friend should dip into a chapter or two. They’ll soon wonder how quickly they can learn to wield needles and yarn, fashioning a shawlette or sweater that Clara Parkes would applaud.
Library Journal
05/01/2016
In her follow-up to 2013's The Yarn Whisperer, Parkes (The Knitter's Book of Yarn) brings knitters on a journey to some of the world's finest knitting destinations. As a sought instructor, Parkes has an insider's perspective on storied events such as the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival (known to fiber crafters as Rhinebeck), the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat, and New Hampshire's Squam Art Workshops. Parkes hobnobs with knitting luminaries, including Ysolda Teague, Luisa Gelenter, Eunny Jang, and Ann Budd; pets Icelandic sheep; films a class for Craftsy and episodes of Knitting Daily TV; and meets with Interweave editors, which doesn't go quite as expected. In lesser hands, these essays could seem relentlessly self-promoting, but the author's lighthearted tone and willingness to laugh at herself make for an entertaining read. Parkes got her start as a travel writer, and it shows—she captures both a sense of place and the excitement of being part of the booming knitting/fiber arts trend. VERDICT These brief, engaging essays will give knitters a feel for some of the craft's most popular locales.
AUGUST 2016 - AudioFile
KNITLANDIA is a collection of 17 essays reflecting on a decade’s worth of Parkes’s knitting-inspired road trips. She describes mills, sheep farms, yarn festivals, and shops around the world that you may want to add to your yarn bucket list. However, her delivery is merely competent, and a subtle change in her tone as she shares her interactions with the well-known and newbie knitters, weavers, dyers, and shopkeepers she meets in her travels seems somehow more gossipy than enlightening. If you’re looking for a listening experience that enthusiastically shares the pleasures of the world of yarn and knitting, this probably isn’t your best choice. Nonetheless, if you’re interested in the technical aspects of turning wool into yarn, you’ll be enlightened. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
