Japanese Knitting
A couple of months ago I saw the review of Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible book at Knitted Bliss. Julie presented it in such an alluring way that I immediately ordered the book! First of all, it is just beautiful to look at. I am so judging it by the cover, because it is stunning - intricate textured stitch pattern in neutral shade just makes you open it and browse for more. The content didn't disappoint me either - 250+ unique stitch patterns presented in minimalist format.
Hitomi Shida created absolutely magical stitch patterns, from lace to cables - each of them is a small masterpiece. What I also like about them is that each pattern consists of several elements and you can easily "break it down" and use just a part of a pattern if it seems too busy for this or that particular project. I did something similar when designing Journey sweater a couple of years ago - browsing through a huge collection of stitch patterns and "filtering out" the elements that appealed to be and then putting the puzzle together. Now I have a great resource that I am sure I will come back to again and again.
Actually one of the elements in a beautiful stitch pattern caught my attention and I can't wait to "draw" it on this merino fabric. 
It is worth mentioning that Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible doesn't provide any step-be-step written instructions - only charts! All the symbols are explained in a detailed and clear way and some techniques are showed in the tutorials at the end of the book. Personally, being a visual knitter and always knitting from a chart, I love this approach - it allows to fit in more information in a less cluttered way, but if you prefer knitting from the written instructions, you might find it challenging at first to use this book.
I hope you are having a great weekend!
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