Let’s talk about Tom… (Ad)
First things first, I want to clarify two things.
1. Crafting is for everybody who wants to craft, regardless of their gender, age, race, physical characteristics, or, indeed, ability. It belongs to us all and isn’t that a wonderful thing?
2. Tom Daley’s new book, Made With Love: Get Hooked with 30 Knitting and Crochet Patterns (London, 2022) was kindly sent to me for consideration by the book’s publisher, Harper Collins. I’m therefore going to start this article with a review of the book, before moving onto a broader conversation about the book and what it represents within the crafting community.
The book itself: the positives
I think this book is fine. Would I have purchased it? No. Do I have a use for it in my collection of knitting books? No. But I don’t think that I am its target market. This is for a variety of reasons, which I will go into over the course of the article, and none of these reasons mean that it’s a bad book in and of itself.
Let’s start with the positives, of which there are many. I’m primarily a knitter and so I’m going to focus my review on the first half of the book which covers knitting. Much of my commentary would probably also apply to the crochet section.
The book is very accessible for newer knitters (and, presumably, crocheters). It has good information about reading patterns, checking tension, gathering supplies, and blocking, all of which is good to see. The execution isn’t perfect - more on which later - but it’s better than a lot of books pitched towards beginners. I would always recommend Vogue Knitting The Ultimate Knitting Book: Revised and Updated (New York, 2018) for information about knitting techniques as it is, I think, the best on the market but even I would acknowledge that isn’t the most accessible text, in no small part because it is so thorough. I think Made With Love strikes a good balance between providing the information you need to know when you’re first starting to knit without overwhelming the reader with technical information. The book also explains the differences between UK and US terminology well. I remember finding this confusing when I first learnt so I’m pleased to see this issue addressed here.
There are patterns for a wide range of technical abilities from new knitters to advanced knitters. Patterns are worked both flat and in the round, which is always good to see. Thinking back to when I learnt to knit a few years ago, I think some of the patterns might be overwhelming for totally new knitters. The patterns range in difficulty from a long scarf with stripes all the way through to a cabled sweater worked in two-colour rib with intarsia, with most of the patterns falling somewhere in between the difficulty levels of these two extremes. This is to say that whilst the technical writing seems to be geared towards new knitters, the patterns themselves seem to have been written for very confident beginners and intermediate-level knitters.
As for the patterns, I like some of them. I wouldn’t make them because, in all honesty, I don’t have time to knit my friends’ patterns or patterns that have been languishing in my Ravelry queue since I starting knitting in 2019, let alone a pattern from this book. But there’s an intarsia vest (see cover image) which I quite like in addition to the aforementioned cable sweater and a crochet polo shirt that I think is really cool and clever. The Balloon Sleeve Cardigan is also very nice and wearable. A lot of knitting-book basics are covered, like ribbed socks and leg warmers, but there are also some trendier patterns like a ribbed balaclava and a dog hat, which are very fun. Further, a lot of the patterns are genderless, which is also good to see.
On a more thematic note, Made With Love has a good discussion of the mental and physical health benefits of crafting with a positive ‘you can do it’ message that I really like and which I think is important. There is also a community focus which is always good to see. I think that Tom is a great ambassador for crafting; it’s brilliant that he challenges what society expects of knitters and crocheters and so I’m pleased to see that he is using his platform to promote the crafting community and local yarn shops. I have a lot more to say on the topic of Tom as an ambassador for crafting, however, but I’ll save that discussion for the second half of this article.
Lastly, and this is perhaps a bit of a nerdy thing on which to comment, but the print quality really is excellent. The book is well designed with a clear layout and high quality images throughout (with a few exceptions – more on which below). I like the way that “Masterclasses” on certain techniques, like short rows, cabling, and working with multiple strands, are integrated through the patterns. It makes learning about these techniques less overwhelming and the explanations are clearly written, which can be very tricky to do. I also like that the book covers both knitting and crochet in one volume and it’s refreshing to see both crafts covered in one book.
And now for the negatives
There is no information on recommended ease in the garments and the sizing is very inconsistent. Some patterns only offer S/M and M/L sizing (173-213 cm/68-83.75 in), whilst others cover XS, S, M, L/XL, and XXL (71-158 cm/28-62 in), and others still cover XS, S/M, L/XL, XXL, XXXL, and XXXXL (109.5-172.5 cm/43-68 in). Some of this is linked to the nature of the pattern. The S/M - M/L pattern in question is hooded poncho, so I wouldn’t necessarily expect this to be graded to a full size range. My issue is more that none of the patterns offer information about the recommended ease which makes it very difficult to pick a size. I tend to be somewhere between a size S and M and I know how much ease I usually like around my chest. I’ve also been knitting garments for three years and designing them for two but, even so, I would struggle to know which size I should make based on the sizing information given for each pattern. This isn’t a unique issue to this book – again, more on which shortly - but considering that finding the right amount of ease can make or break a knitting project and that care has clearly been taken to offer good technical explanations elsewhere in the book, it’s a shame to not see this discussed in more depth.
The technical photos aren’t great. These are really hard to shoot. I’ve tried it myself in the past and it’s surprisingly difficult to demonstrate something as simple as holding your yarn, let alone working stitches, but there’s a lot of room for improvement here. For instance, the knit stitch demonstration uses yellow yarn on beige needles over four fairly small photos, making it difficult to see what is being done in each photo. Further, and I know this is nit-picky but… some of the swatches are quite messy which bothers me a bit. Worse still, although the pages on swatching are good, there’s no mention of blocking your swatches which offends me on a personal level. This is pedantic, I know, but I feel that it’s setting new crafters up for a bad time.
My next point is subjective, but a lot of the patterns are, frankly, a bit weird or would be very impractical to wear. I can’t imagine the Fringe Sweater, for instance, wearing well at all. The sentiment behind the Patchwork Blanket (“Gather your friends together and each knit one patch to make a shared memory blanket or set yourself a goal to make a patch a week whilst taking some time out for you.”) is very sweet, but it’s still one of the strangest looking patterns I’ve ever seen. The less said about the crochet Motif Vest, the better. Again: I know this is subjective and it’s okay if you like these designs! But, for me, it’s once again a question of setting new knitters up for success. A chunky sweater with roving fringe will be very expensive to knit and just won’t wear well, which could be enough to put someone off using natural fibres or knitting altogether, which would be a massive shame.
Made with love… But for whom?
Building on this last point, I find that this book suffers from a lot of the same issues I have with knitting books more broadly. This issue is audience. I can’t tell you who this book is for. As good as the technical information is, I don’t think the easy patterns in this book would set you up to be able to knit the advanced patterns. Moreover, if you’re already a competent knitter, I don’t know that you’d be inclined to make the easy patterns and you’d probably be more likely to find an individual pattern on, say, Ravelry rather than work from a book in the first place (though I may be projecting my own personal experience and the experience of my friends, all of whom are Very Online Knitters, here). Personally, I tend to prefer books about knitting more broadly, as opposed to pattern books like this.
Comparison with Lærke Bagger’s Close Knit: 15 Patterns and 45 Techniques from Beginner to Advanced from Europe’s Coolest Knitter (Munich, London, and New York, 2022) is helpful here. The books have a lot of similarities. They both cover everything from casting on to really quite difficult techniques. They both have bold designs that won’t be to everyone’s taste; I can’t say with my hand on my heart that I’m likely to knit the patterns in Close Knit either, for what it’s worth. Above all, both books are built on the star power and personality of their respective authors. (And, to follow up from my earlier comment, the patterns in Close Knit also lack any information about recommended ease, which makes me think that this is perhaps a publishing trend – albeit a not great one.)
Spotted at my local WH Smith bookshop. Note the lack of other knitting books…
It’s the differences between the two books, however, that sets them apart for me and which makes Close Knit worth buying, regardless of your ability as a knitter, and Made With Love harder to recommend. Close Knit is a book for knitters who want to learn more about Lærke’s art style and approach to knitting. It is much more heavily focused on Lærke’s own journey as an artist and knitwear designer and her design process, which makes for very interesting reading. As such, the book is about knitting in general as much as it is about knitting the specific patterns included in the book. Made With Love is, I think it’s fair to say, pitched at a much broader audience who are invested in Tom Daley as a personality rather than people who have an active and existing interest in crafting. This is largely reflective of Lærke and Tom’s respective positions as Knitting Celebrities.
For me, at least, this boils down to one simple point. Even if I never make a pattern or follow a technique covered in Close Knit, I will continue to refer to it as a source of inspiration whereas I will likely never look at Made With Love again once I have written this review. Again, I think this comes down to the question of audience. As I said at the start of this article, I am not the target market for Made With Love because a) whilst I like Tom Daley well enough, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a fan of his; b) I’m not someone who tends to follow knitting patterns and, when I do, I tend to support independent designers I like and respect; and c) I already have other resources for technical knowledge that are more suited to my needs as a knitter and designer (see again: Vogue Knitting).
I had the same thoughts when Tom launched his Made With Love knitting kits last year. The pricing made me think that they were aimed at people who were already very invested in knitting but the patterns themselves were clearly aimed more at a new-to-knitting market. I am just not sure who his audience is, but I know it isn’t me or my knitting friends. In fact, I was pretty surprised when Harper Collins reached out to me about receiving a copy of this book precisely because I don’t think I - and, by extension, you, dear reader - am the target demographic here.
Made with love… But by whom?
This brings me to my main meta-critique of Made With Love and my thoughts on Tom Daley’s place within the crafting community more broadly.
I’m not sure how much of this book was written by Tom himself and I wouldn’t want to make claims about this either way. But if you flick to the very last page, you’ll see the credits for the project design, pattern grading, technical editing, and the actual production of the sample garments. It just so happens that all of the people credited here are women (or, at least, have female-presenting names). To be clear: I have no issue with this in theory and I would always assume that most celebrity authors outsource some writing in one form or another. Such is the nature of the publishing industry. Further, grading patterns is a specialist skill and it is very normal for designers to outsource grading. I’d be a hypocrite if I were to knock points off for this having used pattern graders in the past. The same goes for editing. My issue is as follows.
Much has been made of the fact that Tom Daley is a Man Who Knits – and who knits in public, no less! This is great. Anything or anyone that raises the profile of handcrafts is a good thing in my books, especially when they challenge the stereotypes around knitting that can be patronising at best (if I had a penny for each time someone told me “I thought it was only nanas who knit!”, I’d be a very wealthy woman indeed) and actively harmful at worst (there are many examples of gatekeeping within crafting circles, but I would point you towards the racist comments directed towards Michelle Obama’s Vogue Knitting Magazine cover as a particularly egregious example of such gatekeeping). There’s even the so-called “Tom Daley effect”, which saw an increased level of interest in knitting and crochet after he was spotted knitting poolside at the Tokyo Olympics.[1]
However, this book challenges the authenticity of Tom’s role as an ambassador for crafting – especially for male knitters – precisely because much of the work that went into its production was carried out by women/people with female-presenting names. For me, this makes Tom’s career in knitting an interesting case study of the so-called glass escalator effect, in which men – especially straight, white, cis-men – are fast-tracked into positions of authority in industries traditionally dominated by female workers, such as teaching and nursing.[2] It is, of course, important to note that Tom is a part of the LGBTQ+ community, that knitting was historically a much less gendered activity than it is today, and also that this is a societal issue and not the fault of one man. Indeed, I’ve even seen men complaining about being subject to this effect, as they just want to get on with their crafting rather than being forced into being a ‘poster boy’ for their respective craft(s), as one Redditor put it.[3] Further, there are other factors at play here, such as Tom’s status as a household name, all of which complicates the picture somewhat.
Even so, I think we have an example of a man being celebrated for doing something that many women (and, of course, other men and non-binary people) have been quietly getting on with for ages, thank you very much. If I look at the gendered breakdown of my Instagram following, for instance, I can see that 97.9% of my audience identifies as female. Moreover, whilst the Tom Daley effect may have contributed to interest levels in crafting, these interest levels were already relatively high thanks to the crafting boom which occurred around 2020 which – ironically, enough – is when Tom himself started to knit.[4] As such, I can’t help but feel that this book is an attempt to exploit the on-going commercial boom in the crafting space. I think it’s great that men working within the crafting industry are celebrated, but not at the expense of the women who also do this work to much less fanfare. Were I to look at this issue from an intersectional perspective, I’m sure the analysis would be much harsher still. In the interest of keeping this under 3,000 words, though, I’m going to leave that discussion for another time.
To draw this article to a close, I want to return to the first point that I made. Crafting is for everybody who wants to craft, regardless of their gender, age, race, physical characteristics, or, indeed, ability. It belongs to us all and isn’t that a wonderful thing? I have no issue whatsoever with the fact that Tom happens to be a man with a large platform who is building his brand around crafting. Were I in his shoes, I would do the exact same thing. However, I find that there is a degree of inauthenticity to this book and a lack of clarity about its intended audience that sits poorly with me.
If I knew someone who was just getting into knitting and crochet and who also happened to be a big fan of Tom’s, I would get this book for them in a heartbeat. I think they would love it. And if the book gives people the knowledge and confidence they need to start knitting and to start exploring the indie market, then I think that’s brilliant, too. These things aside, I’m not so sure I can recommend Made With Love.
Made With Love: Get Hooked with 30 Knitting and Crochet Patterns (London, 2022) is available from Harper Collins Publishers Ltd for an RRP of £28. Many thanks to Harper Collins for sending me a copy for review.
References
[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3096961. I would also highly recommend listening to this Very Pink Knits podcast episode, which discusses the glass escalator phenomenon in relation to the crafting space in great detail: https://verypink.com/2017/10/18/podcast-episode-69-men-knit/
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/comments/y389s3/its_so_amazing_that_you_knit/
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/09/tom-daley-effect-spurs-men-to-take-up-knitting-amid-home-crafting-boom#:~:text=The%20home%20knit%20is%20having,to%20create%20%E2%80%9Cslow%E2%80%9D%20fashion.