Barbara Walker is one of the giants in American knitting history. In the 1960s and 70s, she wrote five knitting stitch encyclopedias that are "must haves" for serious knitters. Mosaic Knitting is the fourth of these books, and it features slip stitch patterns – a technique Walker invented that allows the knitter to create multi-color garments while only working with one color per row. I've really fallen for this technique because it allows you to create cool geometric patterns with a lot of texture. It's an easy color technique for a beginning knitter (like myself).

This book contains hundreds of slip stitch patterns, with easy to follow charted instructions and knit samples of every stitch. These patterns are not suited for something that would be viewed from two sides (like a scarf or throw) but work very well on items with only one public side (like a hat or an afghan).

Walker is no longer publishing knitting books, but she is an active writer. Her current work focuses on feminism, mythology and folklore. As far as I can determine, Walker is an independent scholar, not affiliated with a University – but I can't find very much biographic information on her at all, so I'm not sure about that.