My quest for the unusual and beautiful doesn't begin and end with foreign books, although it might seem like it at times. There are several books that were published here in the USA that qualify for my, um, reviewer's touch. *
*To qualify, a book needs to be both unique and interesting. And there's little point in my reviewing books that have been done to death by zillions of others, unless my viewpoint is swimming against the majority flow, as it were.
One of my favorites is a book called Decorative Knitting, by Kate Haxell and Luise Roberts. It was published in 2005. I found a single copy in the local bookstore and then never saw or heard about it since.
What a shame! It's gorgeous!
There are a bunch of elegant projects inside, but the meat of the book is all about ways to embellish your knitting with unique stitches, additional yarns, embroidery, beads, and trimmings. Each page is crammed with ideas for turning a plain old knitted object into a unique creation.
You can buy the book here at a huge discount (I saw one copy for five bucks.)
On Another Note
I often get queries from folks who don't leave any way for me to contact them. If you post a question and don't hear from me, it's probably because you don't seem to have a blog, email address, or cannot hear me telepathically when I try to beam my thoughts at at you.
So Susan, to answer your question, nope, I haven't had any time to fiddle with superimposed knitting. I'd love to see what you did, but you'll need to post a blog address or something so we can all go take a peek.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Decorative Knitting
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
Peanut Butter? Check
Coffee? Check
Cobweb wt. yarn for Harry? Check
Laptop? Oh, no! What does Laptop get? Little blue pills for separation anxiety? Or do you get those?
Have a safe journey. Tell Harry to get knittin' on his next masterpiece. His public awaits...
Actually, we are doing the peanut butter and coffee run this weekend. The cobweb lace, which Harry ordered dyed a rich, dark blue, should be here next week. He's SO particular!
Alas, Laptop only gets my bathrobe, liberally sprinkled with my favorite perfume. Don't remind me that I have to leave her here (sniff).
I'm afraid I'm blogless, and cameraless at the moment.
In short, the technique is similar to, but different from, double knitting. For the shell motif I cast on 15sts using a strand of both yarns. Purl 5 using both strands, then the fiddly bit.
Separate the yarns for the next 5 stitches. Put the colour to be patterned on a dpn at the front, and the pattern background sts onto the left needle. Then, using the pattern colour and right needle, pattern across the 5 stitches.
Drop the pattern yarn, pick up the background yarn and using a dpn work the 5 background stitches, pick up the other yarn and work the remaining reverse ststs with both yarns.
So, you need 3 needles, or two longs circs (but I hate circs). It becomes obvious pretty quickly when to change yarns and needles.
When you need to incorporate one of the edge sts into the pattern you just separate the strands (ie row 3), or knit two together with two strands when you need to decrease the pattern number (ie row 9).
Working more than one motif across the row is a bigger pain. You really need to use 2 circs, as there is very little flexibility when using straights. I put all the pattern background onto one needle at the back, and the patterns and reverse stst on the front needle. Lots of fiddle working across the row - needles and yarn all over the place. But the finished product looked good.
susansb3-commentsATyahooDOTcomDOTau
You are right!! I've never heard of that book and I check out all the new books, either via the web or at the library!!! I've looked through over 550! Well, now I have one more to look for! Thanks.
I wish everyone would leave an email address. Sometimes, their blog doesn't have their email address either.
Every time I see beads worked into a knitted piece, I feel like doing the V-8 move...why don't I do that? Maybe on a pair of socks?
V8 move? Anyone know what the means?
V8 move--something to do with auto engines? the healthy (?) veggie drink? (Perhaps something out of a commercial? In which case, I gots nothing. I don't own a TV.)
Or something outta' the Kama Sutra? I hope it's the latter, as would make for an interesting follow-up.
Interesting book! I missed that one. As for seperation anxiety I'd bring a nice knitting project to console yourself. Harry will just have to contain himself until his dark blue cobweb weight yarn arrives. He can protect the laptop!
Just an FYI--"Decorative Knitting" is on clearance over at KnitPicks. If not for this post, I wudda bounced right over that one. Thanks, Fleegle!
See, I completely misunderstood what that book was. I saw it on a shelf when I was in a hurry and thought, oh, look, another knitting stuff around the house book. But now that I know what it is...
I want it!
Post a Comment