Essential Techniques for Serious Knitters
New Publication by Peg Arnoldussen

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"Essential Techniques for Serious Knitters" is precisely what its title says. Personally, my favorite knitting reference book is "Mary Thomas's Knitting Book," which is extremely thorough in its approach. However, there are many highly useful techniques, scattered all about, that Mary Thomas doesn't cover, nor have I found them in a single publication. If I had found them compiled somewhere, I would have bought the book. I did not find them, so I wrote up my head-knowledge for my knitting classes.

Originally, I had compiled them in three separate publications written over several years as needs arose: "Knitted Elegance," "Knitting Beautiful Scandinavians," and "Conquering the Elusive Button Band." With the exception of Button Band, these were typed on real paper with a typewritter, and illustrated by hand. For several years I'd thought about converting them to computer files, and finally did it--a huge project, as they needed to be rewritten, rather than scanned and converted with OCR.

I've redrawn several of the illustrations, or parts of them, as computer graphics, added other computer graphics for clarification, and also added some photos. I've edited the original text for better clarification, added in some other techniques I consider useful, and put it all together into this new single publication. The new booklet is 8.5 inches by 5.5 inches, with 30 pages of content. 26 of those pages are instructional.

Contents of the book are as follows:

• Complete instructions on a variety of button band approaches, including attachment options and buttonhole placement.
• Cable cast-on instructions.
• Design equations for creating original sweaters without using patterns.
• Design measurements for accurately proportioning a garment.
• Double cast-on start illustration of correct positioning for making unraveling possible.
• French hem instructions for even and odd count cast-ons.
• Garter seam illustration/instructions for seaming garter and reverse stockinette stitch.
• Intarsia yarn-lock illustrations/instructions.
• Intarsia in the round explained for working intarsia on circular needles.
• Invisible bind-off instructions for eliminating abrupt bind off rows.
• Invisible cast-on illustrations/instructions for quick-release unraveling of cast-on row.
• Invisible short rows for creating slopes without holes.
• Jogless stripes in the round explanation of how to get rid of color change jogs in circular knitting.
• Kitchener stitch explained in a way that does not cause the knitter to lose his/her place while working it.
• Knit and bind-off shoulder seam instructions for creating a clean, firm seam that does not droop and looks great.
• Knitted cord instruction for working a fun little circular cord.
• Knitted-on band instructions for quick as-you-knit attachment of cardigan bands.
• Mattress seam illustration/instructions for the perfect invisible seam in stockinette knitting.
• One row buttonhole instructions for creating a very sturdy but nearly invisible buttonhole.
• Scandinavian cut tube sweater construction explained in great detail, utilizing all the tricks I've found and developed for turning out a perfect multicolor Norwegian-type sweater, any style, every time.
• Tips of essential dos and do-nots that I wish someone had told me before I experienced disaster.