Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59277 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback

From Library Journal
The three volumes comprising Walker's knitting treasuries, published in 1968-72 by Scribner, have long been out of print. They have recently been reissued by Schoolhouse Press and should be seriously considered for purchase by large public libraries and textile collections.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Charted Knitting Designs
This book is excellent. I bought this book at my local library's book sale last year for a dollar. It has the most amazing and unusual patterns in it and well worth the money. This is a must have for any serious knitter. The more challenging the patterns, the more I like the book.

This has a lot of unusual knitting patterns that you typically do not see in recently published knitting books. There are 350 different stitches, many of which Barbara G. Walker devised herself.

Chapter 1: Textured Fabrics
Chapter 2: Twist Stitch Patterns
Chapter 3: Cables
Chapter 4: Closed-Ring Designs in Cabling (very unusual stitches)
Chapter 5: Cable-Stitch Patterns
Chapter 6: Lace
Chapter 7: Lace Panels
Chapter 8: Mosaic Patterns
Chapter 9: Color Patterns
Chapter 10: Uncharted Miscellany
Chapter 11: Knitting Directions for Illustrated Samples

Charted patterns are SOMETIMES best
I purchased this book thinking it would be similar to the first two Treasuries, but ended up being a bit disappointed. There are plenty of new patterns, of course, but much less than I'd hoped for, and many of them are (in my opinion) unattractive and unusable. Many of the cable patterns fall into this category, and some of the novelty patterns are just weird. The spider is wonderfully life-like, but I just don't know of anyone who wants a big, lifelike, textured spider knitted into their garments.

This was my introduction (and a good one, I believe) to charted patterns. My current obsession is cables, and many (though not all) cabled patterns work VERY well when charted in this way. They make much more sense to me than the written instructions using codes such as FC, FPC, SBC, etc. I've been taking many other cable patterns and charting them on graph paper using the patterns in this book as guidelines.

Bottom line - worth getting, but not nearly as indispensible as the first two.

Charted design + photo of the knitted design
Charted knitting Designs is divided into the following sections: textured fabrics, twist stitch pattern, cables, closed ring designs in cabling, cable-stitch patterns, lace panels, mosaic patterns, color patterns, uncharted miscellany and knitting directions for illustrated samples. The last chapter showcases a few simple projects that use patterns found in the book. All other chapter include a photo of the finished knitted texture and a chart (or row by row directions in the non-charted section) of the pattern. This makes visualizing a finished product so much easier and makes it easy to thumb through and look at textures. The photos cover a big enough section of fabric to really get a feel for them.

The patterns show all kinds. My favorite was one called "The Mask" in the uncharted section. It allows you to knit a theater mask into a piece of fabric. You increase and then decrease for the nose, so it sticks out for a 3-D mask.

This book is hardly a must-have (because there are so many knitting books out there), but it is very good for visualizing what a finished product will look like.