The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques [Hardcover]

Margaret Radcliffe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2008

Imagine a softly striped crib blanket knit in the comforting colors of the nursery. Or a sophisticated cashmere wrap featuring rich jewel tones that set off a favorite black dress. Knitting teacher and author Margaret Radcliffe presents a world of color techniques in a single comprehensive reference that you'll consult every time two or more yarn colors are in play. Stitchers of every ability level will love the color-combining methods and professional secrets revealed in The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques.

Multicolor knitting techniques are explained with step-by-step illustrations and photographs accompanied by instructive text. Complete chapters on stripes, stitch effects, knitting with multicolor yarns, stranded knitting, and intarsia cover the theory and how-to behind each method as well as offering creative solutions for handling tangled yarn, estimating yarn quantities of each color, tips on how to handle all those ends, and stunning finishing techniques. An additional chapter describes more unusual techniques, such as helix, shadow, mosaic, and modular knitting.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Putting Color To Work

Imagine a softly striped crib blanket knit in the comforting colors of baby's nursery. Or a sophisticated cashmere wrap featuring rich jewel tones that set off a favorite black dress. How about a comfy-cozy pair of socks, knit in school colors for your college-student daughter?

Margaret Radcliffe unravels the intricacies of combining two or more yarn colors, explaining all the techniques that transform simple knitted items into fabulous, colorful masterpieces. From the easy trick of working with multicolor yarn to the intricate details of stranding and intarsia, here are all the beautiful possibilities for playing with color in knitting. With Radcliffe's clear instructions as a reliable road map, every knitter will discover her inner color designer.

Throughout, knitters will find creative solutions for handling life's little stitching difficulties. Tight stitches, loose stitches, curled edges, messy ends, and twisted yarns --- Radcliffe helps knitters put them all in the past with practical tips and tricks that bring out the best in every project.

Every time two or more yarn colors are in play, knitters will turn to this easy-to-use reference for questions large and small.

About the Author

Margaret Radcliffe is the author of Circular Knitting Workshop, The Knitting Answer Book, and The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques. She lives in Virginia and teaches knitting workshops across North America, promoting creativity and independence in all knitters. Her own designs are published in the Maggie’s Rags line of knitting patterns (www.maggiesrags.com).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603420401
• ISBN-13: 978-1603420402
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #54 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Crafts & Hobbies > Needlecrafts & Textile Crafts > Needlework

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

174 of 174 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The title says it all December 25, 2008

By abt1950

Format:Hardcover

I'm not given to superlatives in writing reviews, but this is the best overall book on color knitting techniques that I've seen. There are a lot of good books on various types of colorwork, and most general knitting references give basic instructions. But I haven't seen anything before that covers the range of color techniques as well as this one does. Basic color theory, Fair Isle (stranded) knitting, intarsia, stripes, slip stitch knitting, shadow knitting, entrelac, twined knitting,and more--it's all here, plus stitch patterns and even a few designs. Radcliffe's explanations are great, and the many illustrations make them even better.

But this technical information is only part of what makes "The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques" so good. Knowing how to combine color, yarn, and design does not come easily to all knitters--some, myself included, hardly know where to start. Radcliffe tries to demystify the process by showing the kinds of effects that can be achieved by using different stitches and different yarn combinations. She varies the yarns she uses throughout the book, but within each grouping she keeps them the same. This makes it very easy to see the interplay of color, yarn and stitch, and how changes in one changes the effect of the knitting. She provides an excellent discussion of the multicolor yarns that are currently popular, complete with pictures of how the same yarns look when worked up in different ways. The last sections of the book include information on how to work color into various kinds of edges and finishes and a general discussion of design.

105 of 105 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding and beautiful knitting resource January 17, 2009

By mtk3

Format:Hardcover

Wow. This book was even better than I expected. I received a promo on it last summer and I've been eagerly awaiting it ever since.
To begin with, The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques is an amazing reference on more types of knitting in color than I knew existed. I expected something on stranded (Fair Isle), Intarsia and Mosaic knitting because these were featured in the promo, and if they were all that were covered I would have been happy. But those techniques don't account for even half of what is packed into this book.
Margaret Radcliffe begins this hardback, beautifully photographed tome with a chapter on "Color Basics," a yarn-oriented color theory that I can't wait to investigate thoroughly. The next chapter addresses stripes: not just your humble stripe but patterns and approaches that open up a world of possibilities.
The third chapter features pattern stitches using more than one color, and the fourth focuses on the pleasures and challenges of using multicolor yarns. Margaret investigates and explains stranded knitting in Chapter Five and Intarsia in Chapter six. "Other Techniques,"(Chapter seven) deals with Helix, Shadow, Mosaic, Twined, Double, Modular, and Enterlac Knitting, each covered briefly but thoroughly and documented with lots of photos.
But, wait, we're not finished. In Chapter Eight, Margaret gives us a bounty of "Finishing Touches" including edging and I-cords techniques. Chapter Nine adds ideas on designing to start you off on your own creations, and the book is capped off with an appendix with a nice graphic glossary of techniques, tips on using charts, sizing guidelines, and something I always appreciate, a nice bibliography of further books to explore on each chapter.
As stated in the title, this is a technique book, but most chapters include a pattern or two with simple construction that allows the color technique to take center stage.
This book would be valuable to the beginner and advanced knitter alike. Packed with information, beautiful to look at, clearly and well written and a good value. What more can you want? Kudos to Margaret Radcliffe and to everyone who helped with this book.

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The essentials plus the rest January 29, 2009

By Eleanor Cavin

Format:Hardcover

This book is true to its title. I have rarely opened a knitting book that combines the basics in written and photographic form as clearly and completely as this book. Every time I thought, "I wonder if she covers this [thing]," that it was on a soon-following page. And not only are simple clothing patterns included using the color ideas and theory, but also the techniques clearly illustrated to effect them. This means: basics, color theory, stitch patterns, geometry, solid and multi-color yarns, flat and circular knitting (and implications), modular knitting and finishing. Even an overview of garment design, double knitting and embellishes. And she includes a deep bibliography, so if one thinks hers is a beginner course, she presents the keys to go deeper. [And right from the beginning she culls the theory-idea basics from among Itten to Melville and Menz.]

I recommend this book as a good addition to a knitting and design bookshelf.