Explore a new approach to knitting! Knitting Outside the Swatch is an exploration of non-traditional construction techniques for creating and joining flowers, motifs, and various geometric shapes to create inventive and dimensional fabrics. Kristin Omdahl presents a library of 40 original and innovative stitch motifs and shows how joining one or more motifs can create trims or whole fabrics. She demonstrates methods for center-out, top-down, and side-to-side construction. Enjoy 10 project patterns including shawls, cowls, scarves, and sweaters. Kristin illustrates how to interchange various motifs in these patterns and encourages you to incorporate motifs into other designs. Learn how to integrate these motifs into the body of a garment and how to decorate or embellish other knitwear by using motifs as edgings, bands, cuffs, and more. Think outside the box with this must-have knitting book!

Boys love to be knitted for, too! With the designs in this book, you will have fun creating stylish knits that the boys in your life will be excited to wear.

Enjoy a fresh new approach to sock knitting! Stephanie van der Linden is a master knitter and shows her technical skills to great effect in Op-Art Socks. A collector of op-art ceramics, she was inspired to translate graphic optical illusions into knitted patterns for socks, replicating their eye-popping effects. Op-Art Socks contains 19 projects. Explore graphic colorwork, textured knitting (knit and purl), shadow knitting, and shifting ribbing to create optical illusions. The book includes black and white swatches of all patterns so that you can readily perceive the op-art illusions in each piece. Op-Art Socks is truly unique in theme and designs. Go beyond ordinary sock knitting into new territory!

Knit, stitch, and paint your way to a more colorful and happy home with color expert and crafter Kristin Nicholas. Learn how to make your home sing through handmade crafts and a bold use of color. Kristin Nicholas, color expert and all-around master crafter, shares her secrets to selecting colors and patterns and explores the variety of crafts and decorating touches that have made her home so unique. Going room by room, Kristin uses her own 1751 farmhouse as a leaping-off point for craft projects perfect for every space. You'll find a range of step-by-step projects to make your home cozy and bright, including knit pillows, embroidered curtains, crocheted blankets, and painted lampshades. Along the way, Kristin also shares DIY techniques on refinishing furniture, faux finishing walls, mural painting, and recycling wool clothes. Full of inspiration, and with vibrant photographs throughout, this is a complete guide to creating a home that reflects your own handmade style.

If you're tired of making sweaters with sleeves that are the wrong length, necklines that droop, armholes that are too tight, and an overall look that's not quite right, then let Seater Design in Plain English come to your rescue. In clear, straightforward terms, Maggie Righettie shares her knitting know-how and good fashion sense so that, no matter what your knitting level, you can overcome the fear of failure, avoid costly mistakes, adapt already-existing patterns, and plan and create sweaters that really fit and look terrific-sweaters that will be worn for many years to come. Topics and techniques include: -Understanding the nature of yarn and pattern stitches -Choosing the most flattering color and design for the wearer -Taking accurate body measurements -Estimating the amount of yarn you'll need -How to tell whether or not a sweater will look good on you-before you start to knit -How to alter printed patterns so they really fit -How to understand the mathematics of gauge and pattern design -Plus start-to-finish instructions for thirteen classic sweaters Each technique is illustrated with clear diagrams, sketches, or photographs. Complete with conversion charts and a personal-measurements record-keeping section, Sweater Design in Plain English takes the guesswork out of every creative knitting effort.

Knitting is a combination of skill, determination, and adaptability. Whether you’re looking for a suitable substitute yarn, trying to modify a pattern, or fixing a mistake, Margaret Radcliffe offers proven advice that will help you solve all of your knitting quandaries. With this definitive guide, you’ll not only learn how to adjust armholes and shape collars, but why certain techniques work best in different situations. Radcliffe gives you the confidence and inspiration that will help you become a better, happier, and more confident knitter.

A new angle on knitting! Emerging knitwear designer Mathew Gnagy presents a fresh collection of fifteen projects for women and men with Knitting Off the Axis. The projects are both classic and stylish, incorporating clever combinations of textured stitches and design details. Each of the fifteen patterns is designed in a one-of-a-kind way, focusing on knitting sideways or in an untraditional direction rather than the usual top-down or bottom-up construction. Knitting at different angles gives the projects unique shaping and fashion-forward silhouettes. Learn new techniques for knitting sideways and every-which-way and make fifteen contemporary, wearable patterns with Knitting Off the Axis.