I received a lovely book to review, the Step-by-Step Guide to 200 Crochet Stitches. It looks great, but I'm not a crocheter. So I asked my friend Ellen - who is wonderful crocheter, and knitter - to do it for me. Genius, right?
By the way, she has a great blog that you should check out.
Here is her review:
“The Step-by-Step Guide to
200 Crochet Stitches” by Tracey Todhunter
Interweave, 2019
I’ve been crocheting most of my life. I knit too, but prefer
crochet. While crocheting, you can really SEE your stitches, you only use one
hook not two needles, so mistakes are easier to correct. Also, crocheting is
faster than knitting. One row of double crochet stitches equals about 5 rows of
stockinette knitting. I’m impatient and like to see my project take shape
quickly. Crocheting a project offers almost instant gratification.
Once I mastered the single and double crochet stitches, I was on
my way. However, soon after learning the basics of crochet I started to crave
slightly more difficult challenges as well as wanting to have a larger variety
of crochet patterns and designs to choose from. I started buying crochet stitch
dictionaries.
“The Step-by-Step Guide to 200 Crochet Stitches” by Tracey Todhunter is packed with plenty of new
techniques to master. This in an amazing source of inspiration. Paging through
this book is like exploring a whole new world of possibilities! This collection
includes both written instructions and a chart for each pattern. I love being
able to see the chart and how the pattern comes together at a glance.
Every pattern includes a clear photo with yarn as well as the
chart and written instructions. The
patterns are broken into sections to make them easy to find and there’s even a
visual table of contents at the beginning of the book.
There aren’t any projects in the book, but suggestions are given
as to what each stitch would be suitable for. There are recommendations of yarn
weights, colors or yarn types that would work for the different stitch
patterns.
There are sections on Tunisian crochet and also edge stitches.
Crochet basics are at the end of the book with a section on symbols and
abbreviations.
I am an extremely visual person and I need pictures. “200 Crochet
Stitches” gives me a general idea of how the stitch looks once worked. There
are so many wonderful stitch patterns included in this book. I already have
sticky notes on about 50 of the ones I want to try.
Ellen Bloom
L.A. Is My Beat
I’m “ellblo” on Ravelry
Thanks Ellen, for the great review. Enjoy experimenting with the new stitches!
