Over time I’ve been collecting quite a library of stitchionary books for knitting and crochet stitches. While looking on Amazon recently, I came across a used copy of “Vogue Knitting Stitchionary 3 – Volume 3 Color Knitting – The Ultimate Stitch Dictionary from the Editors of Vogue Knitting Magazine”. Since I haven’t really dabbled much in colorwork (and this book was offered for only $4 through ThriftBooks, so why not order it?), I decided this would be a great addition to my library for color knitting.
(Side note: Since I’m not an Amazon affiliate, I don’t have any affiliate links for this book. I just thought I’d share my experience with you with an honest, unbiased opinion.)
Let’s dive in and take a look
- This book is a hard copy, full color, measures 11.25” x 9” and has 188 pages
- It has beautiful, color photographs to show each of the stitch patterns
- The book includes 205 stitch patterns printed on lovely, high quality paper
- This book was published in 2006; even though it’s now 16 years old, it still looks and feels pretty modern
Beginning of the book
Typically, I prefer to have written directions for everything. However, they provide charts for some stitches and as an addition when written directions are provided. In this book they cover two-color, fair isle / multicolor, intarsia / motifs, adding texture and slip stitches. There’s a great variety of options available from your first try at color knitting to more advanced techniques.
At the beginning of the book, there is a section titled “How to use this book”. I highly recommend reading that section before proceeding to the stitches section. It very clearly breaks down how to use the book so that it makes sense. This is only one page, so that part is a pretty quick read.
I also appreciate how in the beginning of the book the authors state that they encourage you to “use your imagination and creativity,” as well as to change the color schemes to suit your own tastes. This book feels like it could be a friend sitting at my side helping me to learn color knitting.
Formatting
For the first 3 sections (two-color, fair isle / multicolor, intarsia / motifs) only charts are provided. In the “Adding Texture and Slip Stitch” sections, there are charts, as well as written directions. In some sections there aren’t charts, instead it’s only written directions.
I’m pretty happy with the written directions. The directions are clearly written with a font large enough that I can actually read them without needing a magnifier. They’re also written as such that I feel like I could tackle just about any of these techniques.
Most pages have only 1 stitch pattern per page, and a handful show 2 stitch patterns on a page, which is wonderful. By formatting the book this way, the charts and swatches are nice and large. This way you can really see how the stitch pattern works up and the pages have a clean layout, so it’s easier on the eyes.
Most of the yarn that they chose has a pretty high contrast. My only complaint is that some of the colors that they chose to work with don’t have enough contrast – there’s a few where the colors used together are green and orange. Maybe my eyes play tricks on me, but to me, the colors seem to blend together. But, that’s okay – when I try the technique, I’ll just use different colors.
Let’s give it a try…
For my first swatch, I decided to give the stitch #173 Bargello in the “Slip Stitch” chapter a try. Instead of going with 4 colors, as they recommend, I went with only 2. And, I like how it’s coming along. The directions are very clear on how to achieve the look of the stitch and I think that I may give it a go with 4 colors next time.
Although the book isn’t meant to be a full course on colorwork, it’s a wonderful reference to help you learn new colorwork techniques and to help spark imagination. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone looking to expand their knitting knowledge.
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