Louisa Harding - Knitting in the Details: Charming Designs to Knit and Embellish

In my studio, I have an evergrowing collection of boxes, tins, baskets, and jars that contain my many treasures. Instead of rubies and diamonds, my riches include such things as an unruly tangle of ribbons that grows like an overflowing porridge pot in a childrens fairy tale.

My desire to collect all things that sparkle or glisten is insatiable. I love anything that looks as if it has a hidden story, such as a vintage brooch at the thrift shop, a jar of old belt buckles in the dusty corner of my local haberdashery shop, and my mothers jewelry boxes filled with broken trinkets. I am compelled to collect and surround myself with these castoffs, waiting for a flash of inspiration to give these once-loved items a continuing story.

Not all my treasures are found objects, however. Some are quite new. During a trip to Paris a few years ago, I visited La Drogueriea store devoted to buttons, beads, ribbons, feathers, and all sorts of enticing gems. I spent hours picking out velvet ribbon, a frenzy of feathers, and beautifully handcrafted artisan buttons. This store fueled my lust for embellishments with every one of the thousands of items displayed with love in glass jars and on wooden reels. Haberdashery shops are not always easy to find, hidden away like little gems, but they are always staffed with wonderful people knowledgeable about thousands of products.

This book, Knitting in the Details, is the beginning of the story I want to tell about using beautiful embellishments for knitted projects. Knitting is a wonderfully creative pursuit that is both meditative and relaxing, and while there are many patterns and yarns for fantastic projects, I believe that a bit of personal history or added creativity enhances each piece. For me, embellishment is about adding buttons from an old shirt to the edging of a scarf or the charms from a broken bracelet to the flounce on a purse. It is about rediscovering techniques that my grandmothers generation used to add decoration to their workembroidery, beading, and appliquall skills that make a project unique. In our world of availability and mass production, it is comforting to revisit these techniques to make appealing projects.

There is a Chinese proverb that says Patience and the mulberry leaf make a silk purse. Many of the knitted projects in this book are simple and quick to knit. The love is in the embellishmenttaking the time to add a special detail, a finishing touch, a unique quality. This love prolongs the story and the history of each piece to create heirlooms of the future. I hope that the projects contained in these pages will inspire you to add your personal history into your own unique projects.

Embroidery is one of the most delightful methods of enhancing a knitted project. , illustrating a couple of ways to use this stitch.