BOOK REVIEWS
This exploration of ’80s handknit style includes iconic patterns from the era, plus a guide to designing your own sweaters
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SANDY BLACK was one of the pioneers of a revolution in fashion knitwear design in the 1970s and ’80s, alongside the likes of Kaffe Fassett, Patricia Roberts and Sasha Kagan. Today, Sandy is Professor of Fashion and Textile Design at the London College of Fashion, and in her new book she looks back to the handknit design innovations of the 1980s, and revisits iconic knitting patterns from her own portfolio.
Sandy explores the history of the ‘knitwear revolution’, and its influences on 21st century design. Her own signature design style was typified by inventive, colourful, fun and oversized knits, and she shares her own approach to design, offering in-depth guidance on creating your own patterns. This includes finding visual inspiration for intarsia and stranded colourwork motifs, combining colour with texture, experimenting with colour palettes, and charting graphic imagery.
In the second part of the book, Sandy presents 24 of her most iconic knitting patterns, remade in contemporary yarns.
The designs are unmistakably of the 1980s, with their exuberant colourwork and playful details, yet are all completely wearable and fashionable today. Each pattern is accompanied by original ’80s photography, as well as modern pictures.
Projects include the ‘Zig-Zag Cable Sweater’, which appeared in the first-ever
Rowan Knitting Book back in 1986. Elegant textures inspired by scrolls and grapevines decorate the long ‘Travelling Vine’ tunic, which has been reworked in an aran wool from West Yorkshire Spinners.
Breathtaking colourwork abounds in this collection, such as the floral intarsia of the ‘Trailing Roses’ sweater, and a Persian-inspired patterned tunic. Sandy has always loved heraldic motifs, and dramatic examples appear on the ‘Shield Cardigan’ and ‘Lion and Unicorn Sweater’.
Quirky designs include the ‘Fairisle Fun Sweater’ - the front and back are knitted as two triangles. There’s a chic dogtooth jacket, and a dark cardigan brightened with a grid pattern of rainbow bobbles.
This fascinating book will delight those of us who were keen knitters in the 1980s, and also younger generations who admire the joyful, inventive styles of this era.