Vintage Design Workshop: Knitting Techniques for Modern Style

With its thorough examination of vintage knitwear dating from 1900 through the 1960s, this impressive book is for the experienced knitter who is ready to take his or her knitting back in time. Warner, a British knitting guru, leads the reader through the often mystifying world of vintage knitting patterns, which have a language, symbols, tools, and materials all their own. But the true value of this book lies in Warner’s more-than-thorough description of how to find and update old knitting patterns. She shows knitters not only how to translate them, but also how to update them for contemporary wear by lengthening a waistline or by changing a collar, and by helping determine what contemporary fiber will best mimic a yarn no longer available. The written directions and drawn illustrations are spot-on: informative, clear, and concise. But the photographs of Warner’s finished, updated projects hit a wrong note in their use of dowdy, outdated styling, in a book about modernizing the old. And there are no patterns for complete projects in this book, something that would have been helpful in demonstrating the many steps Warner takes to transform outdated patterns into things she can wear now. Still, nothing can detract from the thorough treatment she gives the subject of making the old new again. (Feb.)