Book Review: Mastering Color Knitting by Melissa Leapman

Mastering Color Knitting: Simple Instructions for Stranded, Intarsia, and Double Knitting by Melissa Leapman (available 11/09, Potter Craft)

Previously I've purchased all the books I've reviewed on my blog but I specifically asked for a review copy of this one. I'm thrilled there are more books available to help knitters learn the joy of knitting with more than one color.
 

One thing I keep learning from Ravelry's Stranded forum is that color knitters have about a million different ways to arrive at the same end result. I've linked before to Ixtab's unique method of knitting 2 or 3 strands inside out with the yarns tensioned around her neck. One of the Stranded forum's moderators, an advanced traditional Fair Isle knitter, prefers to (gasp!) knot her yarn ends. And I've heard from dozens of knitters who insist the traditional yarn dominance rules do not apply to them. (I talked about this previously HERE.)

If you are new to color knitting learning all the different methods can be overwhelming and most knitters will prefer to just learn one way to do things at first to get their feet wet. The section on stranding in Mastering Color Knitting is geared for beginners with simple instructions and includes many graphs and diagrams that are clear and easy to read.

The methods Melissa Leapman teaches in the book and in her knitting workshops involve weaving all floats over 1" long, securing her yarn ends as she knits, and avoiding using three colors per row. Personally I try to avoid weaving floats, I secure my yarn ends during finishing using reverse duplicate stitch, and I occasionally use 3 and 4 color rows (they're usually in Dale of Norway designs) but her advice is very helpful for beginners. The book has a nice reassuring tone for those who find color knitting daunting. She shows several different ways to hold the yarns and talks a lot about reading charts. She even includes a two-page section on designing stranded patterns.

Hat Pattern from the Stranded Section

My personal favorite parts of the book are her discussions on intarsia in the round (she offers three methods) and the section on various types of steeks. Mastering Color Knitting includes 12 projects along with the technique info.

Beautiful Intarsia Coat

I think this book shines in the third section on reversible two-color double knitting as frankly I haven't seen that many other books in print that discuss this fun technique other than the M'Lou Baber book which focuses on jackets and coats.

 

Double Knit Two-Color Hat

I especially recommend this book for beginners in any of the techniques as she does manage to keep the instructions simple as stated in the title. I was originally going to give the book away to a knitting student but I am keeping it so I can try some more two-color double knitting.

While I'm at it, I thought I'd list some other color knitting books I recommend.

Color by Kristin by Kristin Nicholas - I never reviewed this one but it is one of my faves. I think of her designs as exuberant and her passion for the subject is incredible. Plus she shows a new-to-me way of dealing with floats!

Elizabeth Lovick's Fair Isle Workbook - I love how she frequently emphasizes that there are no right or wrong ways to do Fair Isle knitting. Plus it is the only technique book I've ever seen that shows how to fix mistakes in stranding!. My review of this excellent ebook is HERE.

Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Knitting - I don't even do traditional Fair Isle knitting but I think this book is spectacular, especially the section where she takes nature photos and interprets them with her knitting. It has recently been reprinted so you have no excuse not to buy it.

Intarsia: A Workshop for Hand and Machine Knitting by Sherry and Keely Stuever - Rich in technique (and diagrams and photos), this self-published book (available at Elann I think) is a must-have if you're doing intarsia. Their method of dealing with the yarn ends to achieve beautiful stitches on the end of each block of color is pure genius. (I showed this method in the intarsia sock  photo on my blog post HERE.)

Sheila McGregor's Traditional Fair Isle Knitting and Traditional Scandinavian Knitting. These two Dover reprints have hands-down my favorite color design charts, all helpfully divided by stitch count/multiples.

Another Colorwork Book Review

Elizabeth Lovick's A Fair Isle Workbook is available in ebook form. I bought my copy HERE on Etsy for $20. (Also, for $32 you can buy her Knitting Fair Isle CD-rom which includes the Fair Isle Workbook and her pattern for the Upper Leogh jacket.)

I absolutely love this book; it is like going on a tour of the world of Fair Isle knitting with frequent stops to meet some of the famous commercial and hobby knitters of the area. The ebook is 124 pages jam-packed with 350 great color photos. Elizabeth runs the Northern Lace web site where she sells her patterns, ebooks, and hand-dyed yarn from sheep on Orkney Island. She can be found as northernlace on Ravelry and she also hosts spinning, dying and knitting workshops from her home and studio on the island of South Ronaldsy . Elizabeth is certainly working overtime to teach us about the fiber traditions of her part of the world.

Although the term Fair Isle is used now to mean pretty much anything and everything (I once saw a print ad that used the term for a one-color per row striped sweater), traditional Fair Isle is a specific type of stranded color knitting. Usually Shetland wool yarn is used although Elizabeth tells us that the earliest known sample of Fair Isle knitting was actually done in silk. Silk!!!! Now I won't rest until I try using silk for colorwork. In her list of web and print references, she reviews most of the known resources and states her For and Against opinions of most books on the subject. I found a couple of things she had to say in her reviews of the books very interesting indeed. Also interesting is that she maintains steeks were NOT used by any of the Shetland knitters she interviewed and that the knitters stated that their mothers and grandmothers never used them either. So steeks are used now in Fair Isle sweaters but she doesn't think they are traditional.

The book includes a wealth of technique information, including a great section on fixing mistakes, a section on choosing colors, and probably the best history of Fair Isle knitting I've ever read (and I own most of the Fair Isle books in her bibliography). She distinguishes between "Shetland Fair Isle" (larger patterns and influences from Norwegian star designs) and "Fair Isle Fair Isle"(smaller patterns usually of the XOXO variety) and "Orkney Fair Isle" (a
combo of both). The section on commercial Fair Isle knitting today shows several knitters with the items they knit and sell. The book includes a 144 st Master Class that can be used for various hand-knit items,  a pattern for small Fair Isle bags knit in fingering weight yarn, and a pattern for a Fair Isle Ha'af Cap and Beanie.

Throughout the book she repeats the mantra, "Do what you are comfortable with. Take notice of what others do only when it suits you. There are no knitting police." If you are at all interested in real Fair Isle and the traditions, check out this book. And if you are lucky enough to be planning a fiber trip to the area, definitely purchase it.

Colorwork Book Review

NORWEGIAN PATTERNS FOR KNITTING: Classic Sweaters, Hats, Vests, and Mittens, by Mette N. Handberg

(NOTE: I'm loading larger photos into Blogger now so if you would like to see larger versions of any of these photos, just click on the photo. )

If you are familiar with Dale of Norway's stranded knitting patterns, you are probably familiar with Mette N. Handberg's work. She designed the famous Dale polar bear sweater and also the foxes sweater. She is truly a colorwork goddess. To see some of her previous designs on Ravelry, go HERE. I knit a lovely Dale cardigan designed by her.

The book includes sweaters and vests for men and women plus some hats and mittens and wristwarmers. Each pattern is rated for difficulty. The back cover say there are techniques from Bergen, Trondheim, West Norway and Selbu. The author is a native of West Norway and the hat and wrist warmers shown above use embellishment techniques common in that area.

There is a short section on techniques where she discusses sweater construction and a separate section on correcting small problems and mistakes. There might be a bit of a language barrier here as I'm not always sure what she means. For instance, in the "patterns don't match at the sides" entry she says "The yarn is twisted and the piece biases as you knit. It is not good enough to lay the garment flat, machine-stitch, and cut. Make sure the side stitches match precisely." I guess she is talking about the stitches not matching up in a steeked cardigan front??

This moose sweater is my favorite pattern in the book.

She occasionally uses some low-contrast yarns in the book which I haven't encountered that much in Nordic designs - check out this sweater. I didn't even realize it was stranded all over on first glance. I do love all the red she uses in this book.

I'm so happy I bought this book. I wish there were more stranded designs (there are also some simple stockinette and textured designs) but the ones that are included are really beautiful. I have to make the pop-up glove/mittens seen below.

ETA: An eagle-eyed knitter on Ravelry's Dale of Norway group noticed that four of the charts in this book extend over the center page fold. There might be issues with  photocopying or enlarging or even reading the charts accurately without harming the book's spine.