If your New Year’s resolution is to learn to knit and-or crochet, “Maran Illustrated Knitting and Crocheting” may be the only book you’ll need to move out confidently onto the Yellow Brick Road of needlework. There are several reasons for this. The book is set up like a textbook. Its aim is to show, step by step, how knitting and crocheting are done. This is not a coincidence. Maran is a publisher of professional, trade and reference books.

Close-up, full color photographs of real hands doing the real steps of knitting and the real steps of crochet are another reason the book will appeal to learners.

For knitters, the book shows the technique for casting on and moves on to the details of how to knit and purl stitches. Once those two stitches are mastered, the new knitter moves on to basic knit-and-purl patterns such as the seed stitch and moss stitch.

Predictably, the book offers a scarf as a first project, but that’s not a bad thing. Repetition, practicing stitches over and over for several feet, is one of the things that turn a novice into a tried and true knitter. A dishcloth and a bathmat are the other first projects in the book.

The book demystifies cables, lace and bobbles – those ball-shaped things that add texture and interest to the knitted surface.

Cable patterns, lace patterns and other decorative patterns offer the new knitter a means for practicing what is learned and help set goals for moving beyond scarves.

Each of the book’s designs is rated easy, intermediate or advanced, which allows the new knitter a challenge as skill grows.

A handy feature of the book is color-coded sections. Want knitting basics? Go to the yellow section. Want decorative touches? Go to the pink section.

Fully three-quarters of the book covers the ins and outs of knitting.

Although the crochet section is much smaller, it, too, is illustrated with photographs of real hands holding real hooks, engaged in the motions of crochet.

One especially helpful feature of the crochet section is its use of photos to show what to do when turning the work to begin another row after doing a series of single or double crochet stitches. Knowing where to place that first stitch after turning the work to begin another row keeps the crocheter from increasing a stitch, or decreasing one, without even knowing it. Being aware of where to place those stitches will prevent the new crocheter from creating something so oddly shaped it bears no resemblance to the square or rectangle in progress.

The small size of the crochet section is the book’s one drawback. Only two projects – scarves – are offered. I kept wishing for more.

On the whole, however, the book achieves what it sets out to do – to serve as a tutorial for knitting and crocheting, and as a reference book after one has mastered the basics and moved on to more advanced projects.

Visit your local bookstore to inquire about the book.

Snippets

. The Bangor Area Sewing Guild class, Sewing for Children, has been rescheduled to 9:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 21, at the Hampden Municipal Building. Call teacher Natalia Crockett, 848-3318, for information about supplies to bring to class.

. A reader from Dixmont has this suggestion: Those in the process of learning to knit can select a single skein of washable yarn and practice knitting new stitches and techniques by making rectangles that can be put together to make a small mat. Once completed, the mat, mistakes and all, can be donated to a local animal shelter to serve as a bed for a cat. Dropped stitches and other knitting boo-boos won’t bother the kitties, the reader writes. This is also a good way to use up odds and ends of yarn left from other projects.

. Visit www.greatwool.com to find a source for Rambouillet sheep roving, fleece and yarn.

. Visit www.woolworks.org to find many free knitting patterns.

Ardeana Hamlin may be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.