Gradients are all the rage in knitting these days, and this book contains 19 lovely patterns that help you to expand your gradient wardrobe, as well as brief tutorial on how to form your own gradients in patterns.

The patterns are about evenly broken up into shawls/scarves/cowls, pullovers, and other accessories, and each uses a different method of fading from one yarn or color to the next. Most of the yarns recommended are long color repeats (think Freia Handpaints) or mini skein sets, but the methods for getting the most out of these vary widely, from simple stripes, to slip stitches and colorwork, to intarsia. There’s plenty of variety in experience levels throughout the patterns as well allowing the technique to be accessible to all ranges of knitters.

The brief tutorial on how to make your own gradient, which focuses mainly on choosing the right color range of yarns and demonstrating a few methods of striping to create a nice fade, wasn’t really to comprehensive. They chose 5 colors to demonstrate a nice gradient that plays and grows off of speckles contained in the previous yarn, but never did they show all 5 colors striped together! Exach example used 4 or fewer of the example colors and they all had points that looked too abrupt in their color change. While I understand this was to show a successful and not so successful fade in one swatch, it just didn’t seem to be a cohesive lesson in making your own fade.

Other than that, it’s a fun book of patterns, with lots of bright colors and patterns used to catch your eye. Even if you don’t knit the exact pattern given, the methods used for blending colors are certainly worth a look through.

I loved the cover of this book, i think that would have got me to pick the book up, I could see the technique working well on shawls and blankets, I did try out a two-toned shawl/scarf and after some careful study, i was able to work out how to work the pattern and it looked pretty. However, you can buy yarn that is already dyed to create the same effects. As for the patterns, they were somewhat outdated, but you could use the same technique on your favourite pattern. I would knit Ombre eyelet shawl, which is the one that i tried on a smaller scale.
There is a great introduction and an interesting explanation about how to use a colour wheel and which tones would work best together. At the end of the book, the stitches are explained, with drawings.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley.com and the publisher Interweave/F.W.

A beautifully photographed and illustrated book with clear, concise instructions. Perfect for the intermediate and advanced knitter, might be a bit daunting for the inexperienced.

I may never knit an item in a solid color again!!