I feel my star system works better for novels. If Middlemarch is a 5, it's hard to give Gossamer Webs more than a 3, but at the same time this is very likely to be the best available book on Orenburg Lace Shawls, period! I can imagine a hypothetical unwritten book (about Orenburg Lace shawls) that is so compelling and moving that not only do I rush home from work to read on, but I urge it into the hands of non-knitters because it's such a good book they too will be changed by it--and this isn't that.

This is simply a good, clear book about both the cultural milieu that produces the shawls, and the strategies for making your own (I appreciate that it's not just pattern, pattern, pattern--I'm so tired of so-called knitting "books" that turn out to be just patterns. Those aren't books! They're bound instructions, but that's not a book!)

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). ( )

In addition to a book that teaches you how to plan and knit gorgeous lace shawls (usually with symmetrical repeats), this book covers the history of Orenberg lace knitting -- a form of knitting that was historically performed by the knitters of Orenberg, before and after the rise of the Soviet Union. (It's interesting to see that despite the "requirements" ordered by the government, knitters could also sell certain shawls at the free market in Orenberg, and that a deliberate decision was made *not* to close down those free markets for fear of allowing the black market to preference people less involved with the actual construction of the shawls.) ( )

There are 4 books in this series - all very beautiful. ( )