Stitch Dictionaries

A knitted square is the foundation of all knitting. The first thing off most of our needles was a simple square. It might have been garter stitch, it might have been stockinette. It might have been intended to be a scarf, but chances are, the first thing you knitted was some variation on a rectangle. There’s something comforting about knitting squares. There’s no shaping involved, nothing it has to “fit,” and it brings us back to the beginning. Except, in Nicky Epstein’s hands, that simple square is anything but simple.

So, there I was, thinking about what kind of border I wanted to put on the afghan I was making. I had an idea in mind, but needed a stitch pattern, and since it was for an edge treatment, I automatically pulled all three of Nicky Epstein’s books off the shelves and sat down to flip through them. I didn’t even pause at the Barbara Walker collections, or any of the other stitch dictionaries. I went right for these.