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Picture Perfect Knits
Just what the heck is intarsia anyway? One of the most overlooked knitting techniques, intarsia allows knitters to add graphicsthink argyle diamonds or mod motifsto their knits. There's no tricky double stranding and knitters can incorporate intarsia into almost any projectbe it a cozy blanket or tiny mittens. This handy guide includes instructions to make 12 projects plus more than 50 intarsia graphs that can be used to customize almost any knit. Clear instructions, helpful illustrations, and finished project photos make it simple to learn the basics. There are even some blank charts so knitters can invent their own patterns. It's easy. It's fun. And the results are totally picture perfect!
Special guest designers include: Lena Corwin, Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching, Sarah Neuberger of Small Object, Shannon Okey of Knitgrrl, Denyse Schmidt, and more!
Special guest designers include: Lena Corwin, Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching, Sarah Neuberger of Small Object, Shannon Okey of Knitgrrl, Denyse Schmidt, and more!
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 10, 2014
An adequate basic introduction to intarsia, but not very thorough. I found the tone condescending at many points, and the author seems ignorant about techniques other than intarsia.
I've tried a bit of intarsia before, and read a few tutorials and a few overviews in general knitting books. Even so, I encountered very little in the way of new ideas and information. I even recognized several points that were glossed over or ignored entirely. For instance, the section on working intarsia in the round? It says this can't be done properly, and the reader can go search the web if s/he really wants to try. Gosh, how helpful. There's also no mention of color changes where twisting strands together isn't really required--which would have been an interesting thing to note.
My big complaint, though, is the condescending tone throughout the technique section. The author seems to think that the reader is foolishly terrified to try intarsia. Now, for any technique, there certainly are knitters who are nervous about trying it--and encouraging them is a good thing. But here, it sounds more like the author looks down on you if you're unsure of yourself.
This tone is at its worst in the section on stranded knitting. The author seems downright bigoted against stranded colorwork, and ignorant to boot. First, she uses "fair isle" to mean all stranded colorwork, when that is but one style of many. I probably wouldn't harp on that, since it's not uncommon to conflate the two--but terminology was just the tip of the iceberg. After the section heading and the explanation of how "fair isle" is done, the author goes on to snark about various perceived problems with stranded knitting. Some are matters of taste--floats making the wrong side look like a "mess". Some are matters of application--sure stranded fabric is thicker, but that's good if you want a warmer item. Others are a matter of techniques that the author seems not to have bothered to investigate--you can use more than two colors in the same row, or go more than four stitches between color changes. . . . It's fine if you don't enjoy stranded knitting. And I hardly expect a book on intarsia to go into great detail about stranded knitting techniques. But there's no need to be so negative about other techniques as if it was a political race--and the complaints were dubious at best.
I've tried a bit of intarsia before, and read a few tutorials and a few overviews in general knitting books. Even so, I encountered very little in the way of new ideas and information. I even recognized several points that were glossed over or ignored entirely. For instance, the section on working intarsia in the round? It says this can't be done properly, and the reader can go search the web if s/he really wants to try. Gosh, how helpful. There's also no mention of color changes where twisting strands together isn't really required--which would have been an interesting thing to note.
My big complaint, though, is the condescending tone throughout the technique section. The author seems to think that the reader is foolishly terrified to try intarsia. Now, for any technique, there certainly are knitters who are nervous about trying it--and encouraging them is a good thing. But here, it sounds more like the author looks down on you if you're unsure of yourself.
This tone is at its worst in the section on stranded knitting. The author seems downright bigoted against stranded colorwork, and ignorant to boot. First, she uses "fair isle" to mean all stranded colorwork, when that is but one style of many. I probably wouldn't harp on that, since it's not uncommon to conflate the two--but terminology was just the tip of the iceberg. After the section heading and the explanation of how "fair isle" is done, the author goes on to snark about various perceived problems with stranded knitting. Some are matters of taste--floats making the wrong side look like a "mess". Some are matters of application--sure stranded fabric is thicker, but that's good if you want a warmer item. Others are a matter of techniques that the author seems not to have bothered to investigate--you can use more than two colors in the same row, or go more than four stitches between color changes. . . . It's fine if you don't enjoy stranded knitting. And I hardly expect a book on intarsia to go into great detail about stranded knitting techniques. But there's no need to be so negative about other techniques as if it was a political race--and the complaints were dubious at best.
February 19, 2019
Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
Picture Perfect Knits is a technique primer for knitters looking to try their needles on intarsia.
I do a lot of volunteer/charity knitting. The patterns for the charity projects are very very basic because the organizers want them to be as inclusive of all knitters, even non-knitters (we'll teach you!) as possible. That means that after the 500th article one knits, there tends to be a sameness and since one is using the same yarn for many projects, one has a growing stash of incomplete skeins of the same yarns. Because one of the main charities I knit things for is crisis premature babies, the articles can't have any dangly color floats to catch small fingers or the tubes to which the babies are attached. I love bright colors (and in my heart, I believe that bright contrast is good for babies' visual development). Enter intarsia.
I checked this book out as a source for intarsia patterns for small blankets and snuggies and other flat articles. The book does include some projects and charts. There were none which really appealed much to me personally. I also admittedly found the author's writing style a bit off-putting. I really feel like it was intended to be encouraging but read to me as somewhat condescending. I also felt like this was an 'all or nothing' technique book. 'Intarsia is what's been missing in your life all along'! I like to think of it as a tool in the knitter's toolbox, along with other techniques for colorwork. Except duplicate stitching. That's the devil in my opinion.
There are 10 complete tutorials included.
Part three (following the intro/technique chapter and complete projects) are stand-alone charts by 17 (by my count) different designers. They are a mixed bunch, but there are several which I will be incorporating into some of my preemie blankets in the coming months.
Final thoughts - a mixed bag. There are definitely some usable takeaways, but I wouldn't recommend it as the only intarsia book in the knitter's library.
Three stars.
Picture Perfect Knits is a technique primer for knitters looking to try their needles on intarsia.
I do a lot of volunteer/charity knitting. The patterns for the charity projects are very very basic because the organizers want them to be as inclusive of all knitters, even non-knitters (we'll teach you!) as possible. That means that after the 500th article one knits, there tends to be a sameness and since one is using the same yarn for many projects, one has a growing stash of incomplete skeins of the same yarns. Because one of the main charities I knit things for is crisis premature babies, the articles can't have any dangly color floats to catch small fingers or the tubes to which the babies are attached. I love bright colors (and in my heart, I believe that bright contrast is good for babies' visual development). Enter intarsia.
I checked this book out as a source for intarsia patterns for small blankets and snuggies and other flat articles. The book does include some projects and charts. There were none which really appealed much to me personally. I also admittedly found the author's writing style a bit off-putting. I really feel like it was intended to be encouraging but read to me as somewhat condescending. I also felt like this was an 'all or nothing' technique book. 'Intarsia is what's been missing in your life all along'! I like to think of it as a tool in the knitter's toolbox, along with other techniques for colorwork. Except duplicate stitching. That's the devil in my opinion.
There are 10 complete tutorials included.
Part three (following the intro/technique chapter and complete projects) are stand-alone charts by 17 (by my count) different designers. They are a mixed bunch, but there are several which I will be incorporating into some of my preemie blankets in the coming months.
Final thoughts - a mixed bag. There are definitely some usable takeaways, but I wouldn't recommend it as the only intarsia book in the knitter's library.
Three stars.
August 1, 2022
For knitters who want to learn to do intarsia colorwork, or get some tips or practice in regard to it. I will use this book again when I'm ready to do some practice swatches. I've done a whole project, a cardigan that involved intarsia colorwork, some 20 years ago, but at the time I felt that it wasn't quite right and that I needed to learn more. That was years ago, in the days before the plethora of knitting resources available now on the internet, and I don't recall that there were many books out there either, that covered this technique. This is a good one, and has some tips I know I'll revisit later.
January 28, 2023
these are not the projects you’re looking for…
2.8 / 5.0
This book is very skeletal. It has short instructions, very few photos or diagrams, and the patterns aren’t engaging. It’s juvenile, I guess, but intarsia is a pretty focused technique. I would recommend finding a higher rated book or even looking online for videos, Annatarsia on YT comes to mind, and watching or reading something that’s going to be more detailed in explanation and project scope.
Until Next Time,
MC
2.8 / 5.0
This book is very skeletal. It has short instructions, very few photos or diagrams, and the patterns aren’t engaging. It’s juvenile, I guess, but intarsia is a pretty focused technique. I would recommend finding a higher rated book or even looking online for videos, Annatarsia on YT comes to mind, and watching or reading something that’s going to be more detailed in explanation and project scope.
Until Next Time,
MC
June 4, 2018
This book contains a lot of nice charts for intarsia knitting.
August 29, 2020
Unfortunately not inspirational enough for me. I was looking for how intarsia could be exploited.
October 6, 2022
That was…not at all helpful.
March 24, 2024
Nice introduction to intarsia. Has some useful charts.
November 19, 2013
The book is a bit of a shame. The introduction to Intarsia is quite excellent--it is written plainly and has lots of illustrations to help you understand what you are supposed to to. The patterns are mostly non existent--there are only 5-10 patterns for projects, several of which have only 1 size listed. The rest of the supposedly "over 75" patterns are simple Intarsia charts, which are...very hum-drum in appearance. Basically, they are really lame. I think these patterns would appeal to normie-homemaker types who envision themselves as "young and hip" since they've decided to knit fingerless gloves that say "love and hate" on the knuckles, or a scarf with a pocket and a (poorly done) skull image on it.
There are better, cooler, newer, neater looking patterns out there.
There are better, cooler, newer, neater looking patterns out there.
January 2, 2009
The format for this book is quite picturesque and pleasing. I liked the beginning couple pages that gave you all the basic information. And the patterns in this book were pretty cool and fun. I also thought it was cool how they had a whole bunch of graph patterns in the back of the book, leaving your mind wide open to imagination and inspiration. I'd recommend this book.
*Taken from my book reviews blog: http://reviewsatmse.blogspot.com/2009...
*Taken from my book reviews blog: http://reviewsatmse.blogspot.com/2009...
August 29, 2013
I received this book as a gift and have used it as a reference and intarsia teaching tool. The instructions are clear and helpful, but I've never made any of the patterns in the book. There are some cute patterns, but they aren't really to my taste. But that should not dissuade anyone who is interested in learning/trying intarsia from picking up this book. It's written in a conversational style that makes learning a new technique easy and fun.
September 5, 2016
This pattern book is filled with lots of images and variation on twelve patterns.
It could be good if you're a beginner looking to take the first steps into making your own designs and modifications, but not for an advanced knitter.
I would recommend anyone interested to check it out at the library before buying.
128 pages and borrowed from the library
3 stars
It could be good if you're a beginner looking to take the first steps into making your own designs and modifications, but not for an advanced knitter.
I would recommend anyone interested to check it out at the library before buying.
128 pages and borrowed from the library
3 stars
December 4, 2014
Nice job of introducing some of the basics, however, having tried this before, I didn't find much to help me out on the knitting end. As for patterns, it's not different than reading a cross-stitch pattern. There aren't a lot of patterns or options.
January 19, 2009
The intarsia instruction section was good, but the pattern section was OK.
September 30, 2009
Some nice Intarsia patterns
Want to Read
April 17, 2010I want the scull and crossbones scarf & will maybe make the cupcake cushion for my sis the Mistress of Cupcakes. $5.99 at Tuesday Morning
February 15, 2014
Good instructions, pics, and projects...but I'm not skilled enough for any of them. *Sigh* one day.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews