When I was a kid, one of my great-grandmothers had some fancy velvet pillows in her living room.   They appeared to be woven of strips of velvet, though they weren’t.  They were charmingly mysterious in their construction, and on and off over the years I have wondered how on earth they were made.

Well, Tracy Purtscher’s grandmother had some similar pillows, and her wondering led her to not only discover the mysteries behind those pillows, but to adapt the technique to knitting.  In doing so, she has invented a whole new method of creating surface texture, dimensional tuck knitting!

In her new book, published a little earlier this year, she outlines her discovery and the steps she took to develop her new technique.  In her development phase, she came up with quite a few different stitch patterns that take advantage of the technique.  This book gives you not only how-to of the technique, but also a stitch dictionary, and also a selection of patterns utilizing it to get you started.

The technique itself (which I am not going to give away here) is not difficult, and can be used in a variety of interesting ways.  This books is a must-read for anyone interested in surface texture in their knitting.  I can’t wait to get started experimenting!