I love books. I especially love knitting books. Here are 10 books that have been indispensible to me in my knitting life:
- Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman
- A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker
- A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker
- and … you guessed it A Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker
- Mary Thomas’s Knitting Book
- Mary Thomas’s Book of Knitting Patterns
- Knitting from the Netherlands, Traditional Dutch Fishermen’s Sweaters by Henriette Van Der Klift-Tellegen
- Vogue Knitting Book
- The New Knitting Stitch Library by Leslie Stanfield
- Pingouin Stitch Dictionary
I’ll fill in some of the whys and hows during this next week.
16 comments
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January 21, 2008 at 9:02 pm
jeni
What temptation – as if I need an excuse to buy more knitting books.
January 21, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Gudrun
Thanks for sharing…what’s the yellow one on the top “Pattern Design”?
January 21, 2008 at 9:47 pm
norahgaughan
Pattern Design by Lewis F. Day (Dover) – a great reference book
January 21, 2008 at 10:22 pm
skrillaknits
I’m a big Maggie Rhigetti fan, she’s so sassy!
January 22, 2008 at 12:55 am
Rachel
Hi Norah. As of a couple of days ago, Knitting Nature is one of my favorites. Call me sycophantic, but your patterns are some of the most interesting and cool that I have seen. Also, I loved the Currer, Acton and Ellis reference, works well for the pattern. I’m kind of a novice knitter (but not a novice reader!) and looking forward to seeing more of your patterns!
January 22, 2008 at 3:13 am
michele
great list. nice to see your Knitting Nature here. i love this book and keeping thinking about doing the Honeycomb Henley. can’t say how many times i’ve checked B. Walker’s second treasury of knitting patterns out of the library, really should order this one.
January 22, 2008 at 5:21 am
tina
My ex (who I’ve been grousing about in the blog recently) not only got custody of my vacuum cleaner but my really great knitting references didn’t come back to me. If that isn’t the definition of evil, well I just don’t know what IS!!!!!
Your list makes me sigh. I haven’t replaced *most* of them, and the oldies, well they are hard to replace.
January 22, 2008 at 5:31 am
Vivian
Thank you for sharing the list. I thought Knitting Nature was going to be part of the list
It’s a great book.
Haven’t seen Knitting from the Netherlands before. Guess it’s hard to find now.
January 22, 2008 at 11:00 am
Cristiana
Top of my list, together with E.Zimmermann’s books, ia your Knitting Nature!
Thank you for your work!
January 22, 2008 at 6:05 pm
kay
Have you seen Barbara Walker’s Fourth Treasury? It is really something! I’m pretty sure one of the patterns was the basis for Martin Storey’s blue pullover in the Holiday issue of VK.
January 25, 2008 at 4:21 pm
kathy freeland
like the top ten list
a favorite of mine is ‘No Idle Hands’, social history of American Knitting by Anne Macdonald, there is a brand new updated printing now available at
Amazon.com.
It lifts my spirits and makes us knitters pieces of a much larger world.
Knitting is done for fun and frolic now; in the past knitting was a necessary part of housekeeping and MUST be done for the socks for the family.
kathy
January 30, 2008 at 11:35 am
Emma in France
The Lesley Stanfield sitch dictionary is wonderful, isn’t it. I think it’s exactly how a stitch dictionary should be done. I particularly like the thumbnail index of each stitch pattern.
One of my favourite inspiration books is Unexpected Knitting by Debbie New. Just five minutes with that book leaves my head swirling with ideas.
I also loved Knitting Nature, I think I’ve queued more patterns from that on Ravelry than any other book.
February 5, 2008 at 11:18 pm
michaela
Like others before me, Knitting Nature is my favourite knitting book ever. If I had to get rid of all my books, this would be the last one to go. I have made loads from it and still want to do more.
February 8, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Jane
Don’t know what I’d do without Barbara Walker, but I also would really recommend The Knitter’s Book of Finishing Techniques by Nancie M. Wiseman.
March 22, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Mary Jo Stone
Where can I find Barbare Walkers Knitting books? I used to have one of hers and is lost. I`am a knitter of some years ago. So possibly, I had her first book out . I knit alot of items for my greatgrandchildren.Mary Jo
July 30, 2009 at 1:41 am
Amy
Hi Norah, thanks for the great list… do you have an ISBN for the Pingouin book? I couldn’t find it after a casual search… I’ve already added several others to my library list.