A Treasury of Knitting Patterns [Paperback]

Barbara Walker first turned me on to knitting in her invaluable primer for beginners, "America's Knitting Book", now sadly out of print. Once you get past casting on and the basic knit and purl stitches, it's fun to start designing your own projects, and the "Treasury" makes this simple.

It was the "Treasury" that turned me into a dyed-in-the-wool "knitwit". It's mind-blowing to think that so many hundreds of patterns are varieties of just two fundamental stitches, the knit stitch and the purl stitch. Let your imagination loose; there's no limit on what you can make. The "Treasury" is organized into basic pattern groups, starting with simple knit-purl combinations, and advancing through ribbing, color-change patterns, slip stitch, twist stitch, and many more, all the way through lace and cable stitch patterns. The directions are very clear and concise, and the photographs are excellent. Walker doesn't give instructions for making different garments in this book, but she does explain how the patterns can be adapted to making just about anything.

One of the best (for this reviewer) chapters was the one on cable stitch knitting; here Walker tells how to design and make your own original fisherman's sweater, using any number of different cable stitch patterns. It sounded like so much fun that I decided to try it, and it came out so great that I promptly made another one, this time casting on from top to bottom and knitting the sweater sideways, so all the cables run horizontal. Talk about an original! This book really lets your creative genius loose. Use it, enjoy it, and have a lot of fun.

Judy Lind

I wrote a review for Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns and would like to add more of my comments about this scholarly knitting trilogy. Previously, I had commented that only professional knitters really needed to own these books, but I am beginning to rethink that position. I was attempting to teach myself "linen stitch" which is a simple slip stitch pattern recommended for knitting with chenille to keep it from biasing and "worming" (loops of yarn coming out all over the place). I attempted to follow the directions in "Knitting with Novelty Yarns". After wrestling all evening and failing, I went to bed with a headache. In the morning it occurred to me that I could look up the pattern in Barbara Walker's Treasuries. I found it (under a totally different name) and discovered that a crucial "P1" had been left out of the directions! Probably a typo, but still! I now have more respect for the Treasuries and for the unbelievable amount of scholarly work and patience that went into compiling all those patterns. Just the proof-reading alone for accuracy must have taken years! I think that if you are at an intermediate level and are interested in learning new techniques and stitch patterns, you really should own Walker's Treasuries. There is nothing available like them - they are the knitter's Encyclopedia. The only reason I gave four stars instead of five is that, unfortunately, the photographs that accompany the patterns are small, poorly done black-and-white, very difficult to see anything, very dated. What a shame that the books could not be reprinted with updated photos - but what a job that would be!

I first came across Barbara Walker's knitting pattern treasuries in the late 1970s when I found them in the local library which was subsequently sadly destroyed in a fire. So I was absolutely delighted to find them available for sale again and hope they remain in print.

I regard this volume as second only to Volume 2 of the set by Barbara Walker. It contains an enormous range of patterns and although the photos are quite small they are very crisp and clear and every stitch can be seen. The layout and pattern writing is clear and coherent and I have always enjoyed picking up the book and browsing through it looking at all the different stitches. The accompanying commentary and introductions to each section provide a lot of extra detail and entertaining reading which will be helpful when applying the patterns to a garment.

In short, this is a must have for your collection of knitting patterns, regardless of your level of expertise.