Title: Jaeger Handknits: Natural Fleece (No. JB14) Author: Martin Storey Publisher: Jaeger Handknits ISBN: 0-9532497-9-4 I bought this book after visiting my LYS and getting a chance to fondle some Jaeger Natural Fleece. I loved he soft springy texture and the natural neutral colors. I was looking for a bulky yarn project to give me some short term gratification and a warm winter sweater that was also stylish. This book contains 6 pullover sweaters (3 of which are essentially unisex), 1 sleeveless sweater top, 3 jacket-style cardigans, 2 longer cardigans (one duster style) and 2 scarves with matching hats. I do like the designs in the book, and I knitted two of them: Gormley (for me) and Deacon (for my husband). I liked the fact that several of the sweaters had been designed for men or women and that most of the styles have different options so that you can customize the sweater to your tastes. Usually the customization is at the collar, but at least one of the womens' sweaters comes with or without a loopy fringe. But I think it is fair warning to say that while these designs all are scaled for a size 32" to size 46" chest, their styling is mostly fairly trim and not all may be flattering to a more "ample" knitter. Most of the shapes are very simple, however, so a creative person could probably configure them to be relatively flattering for almost any form. On the overall, the patterns are well designed and easy to follow, and I was pleased with the results of my knitting efforts, but I do have a couple of complaints: The first is that all the projects that have sleeves have "set in" sleeves. This would not be so bad if the instructions for attaching them were not "Join sleeve seams and insert sleeves". I chose to join the shoulder seams and then join the sleeve caps to the sleeve opening before seaming the sleeves and I think this is a much better strategy than their instructions. The second complaint is that for some reason they assumed that knitting in the round is too difficult for the average knitter using bulky yarn. All the collars are knit flat and then joined. Maybe some people don't mind seems in their necklines, but I have a very picky husband who abhors seams almost anywhere and this would have been a real source of irritation to him. I understand that they wanted to keep things simple, but if you're going to make me pick up stitches anyway, I don't thing knitting in the round is going to cause me distress. (And if they are worried that people won't be able to afford the cost of an extra pair of knitting needles, then apparently they aren't aware of the list price of the yarn, which is $13-15/skein here in the US). Finally, I think simple patterns are the best place to teach people about design elements that make your knitted garment look more professionally done. Almost all the shaping is done at the edge of the piece being worked on. This makes for ragged edges that are not always easy to seam up. I don't think it's too challenging for people to decrease two stitches in instead of at the edge, and it makes for a much cleaner edge to work with when the garmet is finished. I do think the money I spent on this book was money well spent and I will be keeping it in my library. However, I also think it likely that many of the "loopy" designs (of which there are several) will be rather outdated by next season. But if you are looking for a book of simple shapes that can be adapted to almost any bulky yarn, you will probably be happy with what you find