My birthday’s coming up and my husband has started asking for gift suggestions. One of the things I’m considering is a really good stitch dictionary. What is your favorite? The Barbara Walker Treasury of Knitting Patterns looks good and I love Barbara Walker. Does anyone have this book, and if so, how do you like it? Are there any others you would recommend? Thanks . . .
I have Barbara W. first book, and several other knit stitchionary’s. I like them all. I like the Vogue Knit and Purl and the Harmony Guide ones as well. They pretty much have the same stitches in them with the difference inhow they are arranged in the book, the way they are photographed, like are they in black and white, or in color. Some of the books like Barbara’s will give hints as to type of project will best show case a particular stitch.
I love the Harmony guides too. I don’t have the Barbara W books.
The Barbara Walker treasuries are actually four books, each a little different. [B]If I could have only one, I’d get the Second Treasury. [/B] It’s almost twice the size of #1 and I think there’s much more variety, especially in the lace stitches. The directions for each stitch are written out, not charted, if that’s a problem for you. The third Treasury is all charted. The fourth, to me, is the least valuable; only get it if you want to round out the collection. It seems to have a lot of miscellany and afterthoughts.
This is an interesting site on which volunteers are posting full-color swatches of Walker’s stitch patterns to make up for the one big complaint some people have about her books: the black-and-white pictures. http://thewalkertreasury.wordpress.com/
Elizabeth Zimmerman’s the Knitting Almanac. Some of the patterns in there are almost iconic and its pretty cheap.
Any EZ book is great! But for a stitch dictionary, I definitely recommend Barbara Walker’s ( I have the first one) Treasuries. I love the way she writes out the pattern and has comments about many of them, as to their best uses. It just makes it more fun to read, and like someone is there with you telling you about why this is a great stitch. I can’t wait to get them all!
knitasha, thanks so much for this info!! Very helpful-I will definitely see about getting the second treasury next.
Thanks for the link as well!