New Knitting Books for Fall 2024
What better way to kick off the harvest season than with a fresh crop of knitting books? And this time the bookshelves are practically bursting at the seams! Make a cuppa and settle in: let's have a look at the new titles coming out in the next few months as fall knitting ramps up.
Doodling with Colorwork
Colorwork knitting continues to appeal to knitters and book publishers are certainly staying on top of the trend. This season's new colorwork books encourage knitters to mix and match colorwork into sweaters, cardigans, socks, and other accessories.
Jamie Lomax of Pacific Knit Co. has become known for her various doodle patterns, designs that feature small colorwork motifs all centered around a common theme, such as the Autumn Doodle Cowl or Desert Doodle Cowl. In The Doodle Knit Directory, she opens up a treasure trove of colorwork motifs, offering 200 charted designs ready to be combined and reimagined into nine different project types.
The book invites you to come up with unique combinations to spice up your knitting, experiment with motifs, switch colorways, and add your own creative touches to your knits. In addition to the doodle charts, it also walks you through working with charts, choosing colors, and offers tips for better colorwork such as color dominance and catching floats.
The doodle motifs are arranged by the four seasons of the year and also include a few abstract ones. There are nine base accessory patterns to choose from: two types of cowls, scarf, hat, headband, mittens, fingerless mitts, and socks in two weights (fingering and DK). All charts have the same stitch count and are worked using only two colors per round, making it straightforward to combine motifs while also keeping them easy to knit.
The Doodle Knit Directory hits the bookshops on October 8, 2024.
Charlotte Stone's first colorwork sock book, Charming Colorwork Socks, came out in fall 2022. Now she's back with more in Joyful Colorwork Socks, to be released on November 19.
This book, intended for sock knitters who want to wear their quirk on their sleeves, er, socks, offers 25 unique patterns that range from playful to downright eccentric. With themes like "Apple Picking" and "Kiss a Frog", the collection covers everything from food and cute animals to hobbies such as board games. The book also makes stranded colorwork accessible, making it easy to tackle socks that are as fun to knit as they are to wear.
Combine Joyful Colorwork Socks with The Doodle Knit Directory and you've got oodles of cute colorwork motifs to choose from!
The next two books take colorwork from the cutesy to more traditional Nordic designs. Anna-Sofia Vintersol's Knit Wild: 21 Sweaters with Nature-Inspired Motifs in Insulating Yarns is a sweater lover's dream, packed with nature-themed motifs that bring the great outdoors into your wardrobe.
The designs include colorwork yokes inspired by wildlife from the Arctic Circle — wolves, foxes, bears, whales, and paw prints — like the fan-favorite Warg Polaris. Designed with hardy wool yarns in mind, these sweaters are ideal for outdoor adventures but can also be knitted in lighter yarns for indoor wear. The designs are also gender and size inclusive: they're all unisex and graded for sizes from 2XS to 4XL.
While we're on the subject of doodles, the standout pattern in Knit Wild is Kitulo, a choose-your-own-adventure type of sweater that can be endlessly customized with a myriad of mix-and-match charts. Knit Wild is already in the wild: it was released on September 17, 2024.
Maja Karlsson is knitwear designer who's currently working as the Head of Design at the Swedish yarn company Järbo Garn. Did you know that Helene Magnussen's awe-inspiring Maja Cardigan was named after her?
Karlsson's succinctly-named Cardigans, originally published in Swedish as Koftor, is a collection of 20 versatile cardigan patterns inspired by traditional Nordic designs. The book takes you through a variety of cardigan styles tailored to suit different moods and weathers. The designs in the book are categorized by the four seasons, ranging from a lightweight, stylish cardigan for a breezy summer evening to a thick, cozy piece fit for a cold winter’s day.
The patterns feature everything from vibrant multicolored designs to single-color classics with techniques such as cables, lace, and colorwork. All knits in the book are done using wool or wool-mix yarns, and are graded for a wide range of sizes from XS to 4XL.
Cardigans: 20 Patterns for Every Season comes out on November 7, 2024.
Fantastic Fandoms
Fandom pattern collections such as Knitting the Galaxy or The Fellowship of the Knits have been hugely popular in recent years. Fall 2024 brings lots more to this array of knitting books that pay tribute to popular culture.
Knit your way through Stars Hollow! Gilmore Girls: The Official Knitting Book, edited by Tanis Gray (who else) offers more than 25 patterns inspired by the heartwarming show’s characters, locations, and iconic scenes.
The patterns are categorized into five project types: hats, cowls and scarves, mitts and socks, garments, and home décor. From Lorelai’s stranded colorwork hat to a cabled tunic inspired by Rory's debutante ball gown, the patterns designed by various indie designers celebrate the quirky charm of the WB hit series that ran between 2000 and 2007.
Complete with beautiful photography and quotes from the show, this book is a must-have for any true fan looking to bring a piece of the Stars Hollow charm into their own life. Smell the snow with Gilmore Girls: The Official Knitting Book on October 22, 2024.
From early aughts to the swinging sixties. All You Knit Is Love, edited by Caroline Smith, is the ultimate knitting guide for all fans of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. This unique collection offers patterns for adult sweaters, cardigans, accessories, children's wear, and home décor, each embodying the Beatles' unmistakable style.
Seven different designers contributed patterns to the book. Designs such as the Sgt. Pepper's Band Sweater, the Yellow Submarine Onesie, or the Hey Jude Shawl are primarily done in large-scale intarsia, also known as picture knitting, which will put your color managements skills to the test. But there are also some designs with less-advanced techniques, such as stripes.
In addition to the knitting patterns the book also contains exclusive, officially-licensed Beatles photos, graphics, and album art from the archives. All You Knit Is Love: The Official Beatles Knitting Book was released on September 3, 2024.
Stepping back in time even further, this next book offers a very different take on fandom. Published in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Knitting Van Gogh by Krista Ann merges the worlds of art and craft.
The book offers knitters the chance to bring Vincent van Gogh’s iconic paintings to life through 20 different projects: 13 patterns for wearables ranging from sweaters to shawls and 7 home décor items such as the stunning Sunflower Cushion.
Each pattern is accompanied by the original artwork that inspired it, skill level rating, van Gogh quotes, and easy-to-follow instructions. No need to cut off your ear: Knitting Van Gogh: Knit Your Own Masterpiece was published on September 17.
The last book in this lot is not strictly-speaking based on a fandom... although I know there are a lot of gnome fans out there!
Sarah Schira's charming gnome mystery knit-alongs have been a massive hit ever since Never Not Gnoming was released in fall 2017. In her first book, The Gnomes of Grimblewood, Schira presents eight brand-new charming gnome characters, such as Gnorri the gardener, Gnoddy the tea-loving gnome, and many more.
Each gnome comes with options for two different yarn weights (fingering or DK), hat styles, outfits, hair, or beard which offers lots of customization possibilities to make your gnomes truly unique. In addition to the gnomish patterns, the book also contains detailed instructions for assembling and finishing the little dudes. The book is suitable for "confident knitters", meaning that the techniques included in the gnomes require some skill and prior knitting experience
Get your gnome on! The Gnomes of Grimblewood: Enchanting Friends to Knit, Full of Magic & Mischief hit the shelves on September 17.
Getting Technical
For knitters ready to take their skills to the next level, this last batch of books focuses on advanced techniques, such as intarsia and brioche, and upping your knitting game with practical exercises.
Intarsia is enjoying a bit of a resurgence thanks to modern patterns such as Wool & Pine's Spicebloom, Katryn Seeburger's Heirloom Quilt Cardigan, or the aforementioned Beatles knitting book. German textile designer Anna Husemann’s Intarsia Knits provides 12 bold, colorful designs that showcase the versatility of this multicolored, multi-yarn knitting technique.
From garments to accessories, each pattern in the book offers a fresh take on multicolored knitting. The garment patterns are size inclusive, graded for sizes US 0 to 30. The book contains full-color charts along with detailed instructions, delves into the differences between intarsia and stranded colorwork, and offers tips for combining intarsia with other techniques.
Intarsia knitting is not for the faint of heart: the book is intended for intermediate knitters looking for new challenges. Intarsia Knits: 12 Colourful Knitwear Designs to Make Your Own comes out on October 29.
If brioche knitting has ever intimidated you, Lavanya Patricella’s Brioche Knitting Workshop will guide you through every step of this technique that creates bouncy, reversible fabric in one or two colors.
This comprehensive book first walks you through the basics like brioche abbreviations, how to cast on, and how to swatch in brioche. It then gradually introduces increasingly complex techniques, such as two-color brioche, increases and decreases, and variations of the brioche stitch. Even more valuable is the section on troubleshooting and fixing mistakes.
Brioche Knitting Workshop contains 15 patterns on which to practice your new-found skills. They're mostly accessories, such as cowls and scarves, but there's one garment pattern for a one-size-fits-all poncho. The book also features a foreword written by the Prince of Brioche, Stephen West.
Brioche Knitting Workshop: Build Your Brioche Knitting Skills with This Beginner's Guide will be launched on November 19, 2024.
And finally, knitting expert Patty Lyons invites you to fine-tune your knitting skills with her hands-on workbook, designed as a companion to the popular Knitting Bag of Tricks released last year. To get most out of the workbook it's recommended to have the original textbook at your side as you work through the pages.
The spiral-bound workbook contains exercises, lessons, and questions about different knitting techniques along with space for your notes, samples, swatches, and observations. Like the textbook, the workbook also features cute illustrations (and stickers!) by the inimitable Franklin Habit. Additional video content can be accessed via QR codes within the book.
The goal of the book is to knit a series of swatches and, along the way, improve your knitting, try out new techniques, and learn to fix knitting mistakes. A "Year of Skill Building" project planner will serve as the backbone for your learning: which patterns would you like to knit and what skills do you need to learn to tackle them.
Patty Lyons' Knitting Bag of Tricks: The Official Workbook will be available next week, on October 1.
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