New Crochet Books

Yesterday, my crochet books from Overstock.com arrived! Oh, YAY! They are GOOD books, too. The first is 201 Crochet Motifs, Blocks, Projects and Ideas by Melody Griffiths. It has some great stuff in it. I really like the flower and lace sections. Plus there's a section on the crocheted alphabet that is kind of neat (though I don't know why I would ever need to crochet the alphabet). Maybe I could do a big "B" and sew it on a sweater like Laverne's big "L" on "Laverne and Shirley."


Of all the projects listed, I think my very favorite is a really cute siamese cat mini bag! Really not my style, but it's so dang cute, I'd carry it anyway! I wonder how hard it is to make? Another of the projects is a really cool belt made out of a chain of crocheted 2-color swirls. That is pretty nifty, and I'd love to make that, too.


Anyway, I started making 4" flowers out of my new "Cotton Ease" yarn this morning. I want to make a scarf out of them. The flower I'm making is the "Framed Flower" from page 23, but I'm not putting the frame around it; I'm just doing the flower instead. There's a picture of the framed flower on the cover of the book below (it's the one in the middle):




The second book is 200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws and Afghans by Jan Eaton. Love, love, love it! I bought this book because I wanted some other block choices for the 12" crochet-along that I'm participating in on Craftster.org. After I bought the book, I found a review that said the blocks were 8" square. I just thought I'd have to add some borders to get them up to 12". However, all of the blocks are 6" instead so I just have to sew 4 together to get 12" (or at least that's how big I hope they'll turn out--as tight as I crochet, though, they still may need a row or two added around the perimeters).


The blocks are all listed with hooks that demonstrate the difficult (i.e. 1 hook = easy/beginner; 2 hooks = medium/intermediate; 3 hooks = advanced/difficult). Most of the blocks are 2 hooks. I wonder if I'm ready for 2 hook blocks yet?


Anyway, I read another review that said to make sure to go to Interweave Press' website and print out the list of corrections. There are 7 blocks that have corrections. I think that's really nice that they publish the corrections. There's a note on the corrections page that says that some or all of the mistakes may have already been corrected--depending on which printing of the book I have. I haven't gone through it to see if mine is the lastest-updated version or not. Doesn't matter, I'll just put my printout inside the book.


Anyway, I'm anxious to start making some little 6" squares and sewing them together to make a 12" square! Fun! Fun! Fun!!!