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Thursday, September 17, 2015

Customize Your Crochet

One of the perks to having a long standing blog with a bit of a following is that I am sometimes asked to share new books with you. "Customize Your Crochet", by Margaret Hubert, arrived today. Usually I have a chance to accept or decline such offers, but I only received notice of this one after it had been shipped, ahem! 



Although I'm not a big fan of crocheted cardigans and pullovers (in my opinion such garments usually look and drape better when they are knit rather than crocheted), the "Customize the Fit" section of this book could be of benefit to those who want to adapt existing crochet patterns to better fit their unique figure or to alter the design line of the 'not quite perfect' pattern.

Because I don't have an extensive crochet technique library, and not a lot of experience with crocheted garments, the "Finish Like a Pro" section had some interest. Notable was the explanation of various seaming techniques for crochet.

The final section, "Embellish for Personal Flair" has a number of motifs and edgings that may be of use even if I never crochet a garment. Adding pockets, buttonholes, and zippers are covered as well as crocheting shoulder pads and creating self covered buttons if that should ever interest you.

I noticed a few BLOOPERS in this publication, one of them was quite amusing. Throughout the book 4 images of the standard body types are used. I'm sure you've seen the idea online and in other publications -- the rectangle, triangle, inverted triangle, and hourglass figure types? In this publication the line drawing for the "triangle" figure type is consistently used under the hourglass image and the line drawing for the "hourglass" figure is shown under the triangle image.

The other blooper was also a layout mistake. In the section on pockets two of the three images are upside down, with the opening for the pocket at the bottom.

I hope the patterns are error free, but that is something I'll not be able to comment on. As I said I don't care for the look or drape of most crocheted clothing, so these are patterns I'll never use.




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