Knitting Out of Africa

Beautiful and historic African carpets, baskets, and other textiles provide the design inspiration for these 16 sophisticated knitted cardigans, pullovers, and sweater vests. Intended for seasoned knitters, these projects use domino, double knitting, entrelac, intarsia, and stranded two-color techniques worked in fingering-weight yarns. The Shoowa Vest, the African Domino Pullover, and the Arrowheads Cropped Pullover show off fancy stitching, while other designs feature colors borrowed from the mud-dried fabrics of Mali, the block patterns of Ghana, or motifs from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Zaire, and Zimbabwe. African animals decorate the Giraffe Vest and Zebra Cardigan, and elsewhere leaping antelope and birds in flight are used in repeating patterns.