Knits at Home: Rustic Designs for the Modern Nest

by Ruth Cross

Dive into a must-have for handknitting and interior design enthusiasts. Makes a perfect gift, too! Add personality and interest to any room with beautifully designed and handcrafted knitted pieces from Ruth Cross's Knits at Home . You'll enjoy exploring different handknit patterns--from throws to fitted covers, elegant wall hangings to floor rugs that have a beautiful, organic feel. Starting with the very basics of simple knitting and purling and progressing to add further texture and embellishment, Ruth guides you through a range of stitch patterns and techniques that can be adapted to different shapes and sizes. Ruth not only offers elegant and appealing home decor projects; she also gives you the techniques to design organic and freeform home items of your own. Taking an experimental approach, Ruth combines traditional stitches with new stitches she has devised herself, with unexpected and striking results. With help from Knits at Home , you'll create completely personal pieces that will light up any room.

Genres: Knitting, Nonfiction, Crafts, Reference

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2013

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Mary Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes me wish I could knit. Great interior design ideas as well. Highly recommended for knitters who are looking for something new.

[Ligaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reminds me of those by Erika Knight, except these are a bit more lush with the liberal use of very chunky yarn (Rowan Big Wool) on several pieces, or very large cables, or sometimes both. I am a garment knitter and have never knit an afghan in my life, but this book shows me that maybe I should! Beautiful photography in quiet, minimalist spaces that have me jealous. But the knitting... The author stresses that there is no right way to knit, but, as someone who has taught beginning knitting classes, it helps that everyone understands how to do the basics "correctly." Some of the projects are lovely, some are meh (Seascape Wall Hanging, Door Stop). I think some could be better designed to be more useful—I'd love to see the reverse side of the Intarsia Blanket to see how those fat yarn ends were woven in! I can't speak to the correctness of the patterns but there are no charts for cables.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gorgeous natural palette yarns and finished products. Lovely photos of the knit objects and interior design through. Documented on Ravelry the items I love the look of, but will need to search out notes and comments from knitters that have already struggled with the absence if enough direction or detail in the patterns. A good book for getting some ideas about the design vision.

[Tilden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very nice knitting projects for the home. Upscale looking. Photos are in a modern home that make the knitted pieces look fabulous. You could make a lot of these wonderful patterns that would make your home look homey but sophisticated.

You could even get some very good ideas on how to decorate your home, not just with the knitted pieces.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting ideas and patterns. Unfortunately, everything is done in monochromatic colors which are lackluster in the photos. Good instructions and hints answer questions. I’m sure someone who prefers modern and minimalist decorating would enjoy this book very much.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had some beautiful pieces. It was an interesting combination of design patterns and ways to make things your own. It was enjoyable as a whole.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great-looking items for the home, but the book is poorly edited and the patterns have problems. So far I've mostly studied the 'round pouffe' pattern, and the instructions leave a LOT to be desired. It says you need circular needles but it doesn't say whether you'll be knitting circularly, or back and forth. Are we starting at the top or the bottom? It doesn't say. There's not even a diagram for the construction, so we're supposed to just sail into this large project with very little info. I design my own patterns and will probably use this one as a jumping-off point, but not everyone is comfortable doing that.

Also, the round section at center top appears to be very open and see-through, which to me looks very tacky on a warm chunky cabled pouf. That's the part I'm going to see most? Why not use decreases as for the crown of a hat?

I recommend that you use this as an idea book and find your detailed patterns elsewhere.

[Helen]

This is a beautiful book to look at, but even more, I liked her philosophy/attitude about knitting. It's an innovative way to look at knitting projects.

While I wouldn't probably make any of her patterns/designs, I liked that she discussed various techniques that will make knitting more interesting when designing for the home: simple stripes using combos of knit/purl, creating texture by using knit/purl in the same row, making cables, lace and basket stitches, combining patterns, using intarsia, and decreases/increases to create texture. She also talks about writing your own patterns, ways to combine different stitch patterns and converting shaped drawings to knit instructions. She also briefly discusses some finishing techniques.

The books is well photographed and designed.

[Carole Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books for helping you choose knitting patterns for home projects. There are many patterns shown that can be converted into many home projects like pillows and afghans. The illustrations in the book show how these projects would look in a living room, bedroom, on a chair or on a sofa. This book is definitely one to go back to many times for ideas and projects to complete. I've knitted many of the patterns to make dishcloths.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm looking forward to trying these ideas out in my own projects, but there are a lot of misspellings and grammar problems. Spellcheck should have caught many of the errors, so I'm not sure how they could have slipped through.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two interesting patterns favorited. Nicely done book.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some interesting patterns, but not many I would actually do.

[Chris]

The book itself is beautiful but I found it odd that her knit stitches are actually ktbls.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for inspiration, as I didn't test any of the instructions in this beautiful book. It has me aching to try out some ideas to snazz up my space, however, and I can't wait to get started!