Knitting Pleats: Stunning Garments and Accessories Paperback – September 13, 2011

Primarily a pattern collection, this book offers many fresh ideas for using knitted-in pleats (tucks) to shape garments or embellish garments. My favorite designs are (1) "Shoulder Chic", a beaded, scoop neck, cutoff tee that uses pleats to pull the center front and center back upwards into graceful curves; (2) "Vested Interest", a little vest that uses pleats for a raised rib effect all over the back, and for shaping that pulls in the sides of the vest for a snug, flattering fit; (3) "Borderlines", an elegant, mostly sideways-knit jacket with vertical pleats at the center fronts, and horizontal pleats at the cuffs; and (4) "Long Way Back", a stylish pullover with elongated back and horizontal pleats at the lower edge, cuffs, and collar.There are clear technical instructions, with drawings, for knitting full-row, partial-row, and puffy pleats. For a pleat (often called a tuck), you pick up stitches from a previously knit row on a spare needle, and then knit together the stitches on the spare needle and the stitches on your working needle. If you can do a three-needle bind-off, you can do these pleats!Partial-row pleats are great for shaping garments, as an alternative to knitting short rows. Puffy pleats make the pleats really stand out, because the stitches in the rows between the knitted-together rows are doubled with increases, and then decreased back for the final knitted-together row.Because both the technique and the patterns are so simple, I rate this book at 4 stars ("I like it"). It's a book that is nice to have, and that should be a welcome gift for any serious knitter, knitting book collector, or knitter who loves one or more of the patterns. If what you are interested in is just knowing how to knit these pleats, the technique is also explained (under "pull-up stitch") in my favorite general knitting reference book,  Knitter's Handbook : A Comprehensive Guide to the Principles and Techniques of Handknitting .

I am excited to get started on this technique. I can already see the design potential. The directions seem clear and easy to follow. I would recommend this to anyone looking to add this technique to their knitting skills.

I like this book, but it definitely has a market. It is useful to me because I can adapt to my own patterns. I might try one of the patterns for myself, but it's not an everyday knitting book.

This book has some of the most unusual and gorgeous garments in it and the instructions for making them see to be very well presented. I am eager to try one of them soon as soon as I get my current projects done. Lovely photographs inspire you to want to get those needles going quickly.

Interesting approach to knitting pleats. Haven't tried them yet, but will when the opportunity arises.

most interesting history of Olga..designs Besutiful and patterns clear. Photograph amazing from all angles..great representation of designs! love love kt

If you want to challenge yourself and improve your knitting skills with unique designs, this is the book for you.

Beautiful ideas! Easy to understand directions.

Very inspiring book. Just love the patterns but might make a few modifications to my taste. Love the technique and doesn't look too complicated.

Fantastic book clear instructions and plenty of new ideas for garments. If you want to make something unusual really recommend

To my knowledge there is not another book about knitting pleats in English. So this gives Pobedinskaya the merit of being original to say the least. The concept is not difficult to grasp, and is described with enough illustrations and explanations to be rather easy to understand, even for an intermediary knitter, maybe even an enterprising beginner, although almost all of them require seaming up.The patterns are as follows: a beaded top (that looks a bit like a cross between a bolero and a shrug, but looks cuter than what that sounds), a hat with puffy pleats, a puffy pleats scarf, a pleated beret, two types of pleated bags, a pleated collar (it looks like a bow tie!), a pleated t-shirt, a pleated neck bolero, a pleated shawl that looks a little like a sideways obi, the three-fan shawl (on the cover), a pleated trim jacket, an horizontally pleated pullover, an elongated back pullover (it looks like there is a cut-off scoop section in front), a top with vertical pleats, a short row pleats pullover, a pleated back vest. Some of the designs are very attractive, but on the other hand some I found, personal taste, to not be nice at all, and I thought some would be really unflattering on a real person, not a model striking the best possible pose.All of the designs are clever, but in some places it's as though the cleverness of the pattern is not in synch with the use of the garment. I'm thinking of a sweater that has great pleat work, and the idea is quite interesting, unfortunately the pleats don't work well on the figure of the model. (Also, they don't look all that great in a clashing shade of variegated yarn). It's just too bad the good in book makes you disappointed for what isn't so good.Still even the less attractive designs serve a purpose as inspiration as to what one can do with the technique, without attempting to replicate, kind of as a starting point. As such the book is great, because it has ideas that I'm sure will inspire other designers.

Una delle cose belle per chi ha un hobby è che si può sempre imparare cose nuove, si può sempre andare un po' più in là. Questo libro è stato una bella sorpresa, una tecnica nuova appunto, semplice e con potenzialità. Olga Pobedinskaya offre una carrellata di modelli affascinanti e molto originali: il bello è che una volta iniziato con tale tecnica, supportati dalla varietà di filati in commercio, è facile immaginare e creare cose nuove.il libro è ben fatto: le spiegazioni semplici e dettagliate, le foto e gli schemi che mostrano il modello nella sua completezza aiutano a realizzare in maniera facile ogni cosa. Cosa desiderare di più?