Melissa Leapman is an amazing influence in the knitting word. She has published multiple books and breaks down construction in a way that helps you feel confident in making your own. Melissa Leapman is a national teacher for knitting and crochet. Her latest book, Knitting Modular, walks us through designing your own shawl piece by piece.
Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman:
Shawls are one of those go to knits that are great for a travel project, giving as gifts or making for yourself. They are an accessory that can be worn multiple seasons and can be as complicated or as simple as you feel up to.
Inside this book you will find a mix of instructions of how to make your own shawl as well as a stich dictionary to get you started. Each of the ‘patterns’ in this book start with a wedge shape.
Melissa outlines 7 steps to creating your own shawl. Working through these steps you will finish with a beautiful shawl. Along the way you can pick from a variety of options so that you get the look and feel that you want for your particular shawl.
Why You Should Get a Copy:
Although Melissa breaks down the construction of the shawl to start with a wedge there are so many possibilities. In step one you will select your silhouette. Looking through this section of the book you will realize how many different ways you can put together the traditional wedge.
Mixing and matching stitch patterns is half the fun of making your own shawl. Through out the main part of the book you will find a stich dictionary of patterns to use for your wedges. Unlike other stich dictionaries you will find that the swatches are all done in wedges. Traditionally you would find squares to demonstrate the stitch. Since you will be working in wedges, Melissa shows you a sample in wedges.
Because each stitch pattern is both written and charted you will be able to add increases to your own design. Sprinkled through out the book you will also find samples of shawls that Melissa designed using that stitch pattern. Through these samples you can see how color change can impact your choices.
The only downfall that I find with this book is that I would have loved it to be spiral bound. Although it is traditionally bound they did do a great job of making the spin easy to open and use as you design. I hope that you will check out this amazing book and share with us what shawls you make from it.
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