Record the beauty, emotions, and experiences of everyday life — not in your journal but with your knitting needles! Author Lea Redmond offers 32 enchanting projects that will inspire you to create beautiful finished pieces full of personal meaning and memories. Stock up on shades of blue, gray, and white and knit one strip of a scarf each day for a year, using the color that matches the sky on that day. When you’re done, you’ll have a unique memento of your year better than anything you can keep in a scrapbook. Or when you’re traveling, knit postcard-size swatches at each place you visit, using the colors you see around you. When the trip is over, piece the swatches together into a throw or scarf that will remind you of your journey every time you use it. Or knit a height-chart scarf for a beloved baby, starting with her length at birth and adding inches each year until you have the perfect gift for her 18th birthday. These are knitting projects like no other, resulting in one-of-a-kind heirlooms that tell a story only you can tell. Redmond provides instructions for all the stitches and techniques you need, as well as required patterns.

Nikki Van De Car spent the months before her daughter's birth knitting constantly to keep her hands busy and to help the time before her arrival pass more quickly. She knitted everything from sweaters and hats to burp cloths and stuffed animals. Over the course of the following year, she learned which items were actually useful, and which sat in a drawer, never to be worn. The 28 patterns collected in 'What to Knit When You're Expecting', for babies aged from 0 to 12 months, are the best of these, and include booties, mittens, bibs and blankets, as well as sweaters, hats and cardigans. All are relatively simple, so can be knit while your mind is elsewhere, and all are immensely practical. This title is organized according to where you are in your pregnancy, the patterns for the first trimester reflect the fact there is still plenty of time to finish a longer project; those for the second, when many women learn the sex of their baby, focus on clothes for girls and boys; and projects for the third are quick and easy.

A knitting adventure with projects, patterns, rituals, yoga, creative inspiration, numerology, knitting experts, astrology, community, and more. Vickie Howell, the DIY channel’s popular queen of fiber, pens a love letter to knitting with The Knit Vibe—a book like no other—with interviews, patterns, and an in-depth look at the knitting community and the creative potential of knitting. Dive into a special section on the health benefits of the craft, catch a glimpse of knitting’s superstars in conversation with Howell, or try your hand at loads of how-tos and projects from the likes of Bristol Ivy, Kaffe Fassett, Diva Zappa, Amy Small, and many more. “Pick up some yarn, start where you are, get creative” is the message Howell weaves through the book and her online series, The Knit Show. Gathering inspiration from all facets of the knitting universe, the book offers chapters on The Makings (go-to knitted gifts), The Surroundings (cool projects for your knitting space), and The Intention (vibe-y rituals, yoga, and self-care all every knitter—and would-be knitter—craves). “From inspirational interviews with kniteratti including Kaffe Fassett, Erika Knight, former Vogue Knitting editor Trisha Malcolm, Diva Zappa, and Siedah Garrett to yoga poses, vitamins, and rituals for stitcher-specific self care, The Knit Vibe is like your coolest, Palo Santo-burning girlfriend who also knows her way around two-color brioche.” —Vogue Knitting “Not like anything you’ve seen in a knitting book before.” —CraftGossip “The chapters on intentions and community enhance the stitch-by-stitch joy that all makers know.” —Yarn Market News

Traditional knot and interlace patterns, combined to form uniquely striking contemporary designs. Ever since her ground-breaking book Viking Patterns for Knitting was published, Elsebeth Lavold has been recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on cabling. It was within the pages of her international bestseller—described as “an indispensable milestone in 20th century knitting literature”—that Lavold first introduced the world to her own innovation: using lifted increases to create interlace patterns, and bringing new life to the ornamental heritage of the Vikings as adornment on modern knitwear. In the years since, Lavold has sought new ideas and “design cousins” to Viking patterns to explore with her needles, and has undertaken a fascinating journey through archives, museums, libraries, and the internet. In more than a decade of continued research, she has studied cultures from all over the globe in search of similar types of ornamental expression, creating the foundation for this exciting new book: a glorious collection rich in imagery, history, patterns, and designs. Dozens of different sources of inspiration, catalogued and placed within their cultural and historical context, from all around the world. Complete, step-by-step instructions for an abundance of fresh and stunningly beautiful knit designs, presented in the book with full-color photographs. Lavold’s own painstaking analysis of a huge number of interlace motif types, displayed in both swatch and chart form, to allow you to compose your own patterns based on her research.

Originally published: New Zealand: David Bateman, 2012.