Book Review: Colorwork Knitting from Head to Toe

Carmen Jorissen’s Colorwork Knitting for Head to Toe encourages people who’ve never tried colorwork knitting to get started and has patterns that might still be fun for someone more skilled at colorwork.

The book includes 20 patterns — five each for hats, cowls, mittens and socks — and each kind of garment includes the same colorwork patterns as all the others so you can knit a matched set if you like.

Three of the motifs are suggested as easier than the other two, and the designer says the patterns are in skill level order. The options are Wessem, a kind of wave pattern; Halen, with is three-color plaid; Leiden, a diamond pattern; Herlen, which looks like stems with little flower buds; a Urmond, which has a leaf shape.

There are three sizes offered for the hat patterns (though she says they are all adult sizes), while the cowls have two length options, the mittens have two widths (and are only measured by rounds; it doesn’t say how long they should be), and the socks have six adult sizes.

None of the shaping on any of the projects is done in pattern, so these would be good beginner colorwork projects if you don’t want to have to deal with shaping in pattern (the socks have striped gussets and the colorwork continues on the bottom of the foot).

The book includes one page on choosing colors and has some knitting instructions in the back such as long tail, German twisted and Judy’s magic cast on; grafting and half mattress stitch; a twisted bind off; knitting, purling and basic increases and decreases; and tutorials for German short rows and working magic loop, which is her preferred method for all of the projects. There are QR codes in the book that lead to videos for some of the techniques.

There’s also a section at the very end about reading charts and handling yarn for colorwork. Since this book feels like a beginner colorwork book to me, I might have liked to see that at the beginning rather than the end, but that’s a minor issue.

I wouldn’t say anything really grabbed me in this book, though I do like the plaid pattern (the plaid socks in particular are really cute). I try not to be too hard on colorwork knitting books because I knit one, but it does feel to me like there could have been more motifs or project styles or something to make it feel like you’re not just getting five patterns.

Still, if you like the motifs (you can see most of the patterns in the scroll on the publisher’s website) and want to make a whole matchy-matchy set, they are pretty patterns that will give you a good grounding in the basics of colorwork knitting done with two colors at a time.

About the book: 176 pages, paperback. Published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

Have you read?