Once you’ve learned the basics of knitting, you find out fast how hard it is to get your hands on really hip patterns. Sure, you can find cute beanies and scarves — but how many do you need here in sunny L.A.? If you’re a sweater girl, most of the patterns can only be called frumpy — though if you love teddy bears on your chest, you’re ?in luck.

L.A. designer Ashley Paige decided to take matters into her own hands and created sexy knit bikinis that she sold at her Hollywood shop. If you’ve seen leggy models, starlets and rock stars wearing barely-there knits in a fashion or celebrity mag, you’ve seen Paige’s work. Now you can knit many of Paige’s designs for yourself. Earlier this year she came out with Sexy Little Knits, packed with pictures and instructions for making her most popular designs.

It all came about when a literary agent and her boyfriend walked past Paige’s store. “Why don’t you knit something like that?” the agent’s boyfriend asked. The agent contacted Paige the next day.

“Six years ago,” Paige says, “I went to Barnes & Noble to find a knitting book that had sexy designs or a book on knit bikinis. There weren’t any.” So at the encouragement of the agent, she went to work translating her designs for knitters, and writing about growing up on the beach and the time she spent with her grandmother, the person who taught her how to knit.

The book is divided into three sections: Peace, Love and Bikinis, filled with all sorts of one- and two-piece waterside stunners; Sunshine Good Vibes, featuring dresses and tops and short shorts; and Cozy Homebodies, with plenty of lounge-around-the-house-wear like cozy chenille robes and angora teddies. You can choose your own colors, decide just how much skin you want to show, or turn a tank into a sundress. But this isn’t a how-to-knit book; it’s for people who have a basic knowledge of knitting.

I had Paige’s book out on my desk for the longest time, and I finally had to hide it ’cause every time my boyfriend saw it, he’d freak out. The cover features a pair of hot knit boy shorts worn very well by a model with just enough junk in her trunk. Proof was in his widening eyes and goofy smile that this collection of patterns wasn’t made for or by your granny. And yeah, I’m knitting those shorts for myself right now.

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