55 Christmas balls to knit Colorful festive ornaments, tree decorations, centerpieces, wreaths, window dressings

Norwegian knitwear designers Arne & Carlos have adapted a popular sideline of their business into patterns for hand knits. Their book includes short stories and images to provide snippets about Christmas and winter in Scandinavian countries, in addition to a charted dictionary of knitting motifs. There is basically one knitting pattern, the basic ball, and then variations on the designs. A mix of Fair Isle and duplicate stitch techniques, the motifs run the gamut of scenes of everyday life, abstracts, nature, and Christmas-specific. The charted patterns for the motifs could easily be adapted to other projects such as mittens. Recommended for advanced beginners comfortable with Fair Isle up to expert knitters, especially those curious about holiday traditions in other countries. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.