Viking Knits & Ancient Ornaments by Elsebeth Lavold

It has been a long wait for a new knitting book by Swedish designer Elsebeth Lavold, since she published the international bestseller Viking Knits in 1998. Her approach as well as use of Viking ornaments is ground breaking. Lavold invented a lifted increase to create interlace patterns rather than just to shape garments and also let the cables do the shaping to a certain degree. I admit I have a special interest, due to my own Norwegian ancestry as well as my love for cables. She has continued to research and work with the ornamental treasures and discovered how multifaceted they are. The book is beautifully photographed and richly illustrated with drawings by her partner Anders Rydell. The book contains 21 patterns; mainly sweaters and jackets for women, accessories, a few children’s garments and only one sweater for men, to some knitters disappointment see the Elsebeth Lavold Fans Group on Ravelry. All the garments are knitted in her own yarn, Elsebeth Lavold Designer’s Choice Yarns, see ingenkonst.se, which she was asked to create after her book success, distributed in the USA by Knitting Fever. And no, I have neither seen nor tested any of them but know them by reputation, especially the Silky Wool which seem to have a large group of admirers. Each chapter covers a group of Viking ornamentation with its history and location of a specific photographed item, in addition to how you would cable it e.g. loops, shown with charts as well as swatches. Not only are the knitting patterns interesting to study, so is all the history, photos, and drawings in this marvelous book. You can have a peak inside the book here: amazon.com. I found my copy at adlibris.com.