I am not an expert knitter, but I am also not a novice and do lots of spinning, knitting and weaving. This book is very complicated to understand, even though the stitches are only knit and purl. All of the designs are basically the same with only slight variation. I would have found it a bit more helpful to have a line-by-line description of a basic one rather than having to translate the charts. It took me quite a while to figure out how many stitches to cast on, let alone get started with the knitting. I think there are better ways to introduce someone to this type of knitting. That being said, the pictures are lovely and enticing but many folks will get totally bogged down figuring out how to begin. It's not for the faint of heart. With the price of yarn being what it is, I'm not sure that the money spent on it will produce what I was hoping for.