Colour Crochet Unlocked: The Ultimate How-to Guide

Description

This indispensable book is your go-to guide to colour crochet. It's packed with inspiration, including a comprehensive guide to choosing and using colour, a collection of 40 vibrant colour stitch patterns, a guide to Intarsia, Mosaic, Fair Isle and tapestry crochet, the authors' own innovative 'smart' charting method, shared here for the first time, PLUS 10 wonderful crochet projects. The book will take readers step by step through the stitch patterns and techniques using photos, charts and accessible text. Helpful hints and tips are given throughout the book. The 10 stunning projects include a bag, hat, blankets, mittens and baskets, which will give readers the opportunity to practice their newly-acquired skills.

Jane and Dawn met when they lived next door to each other in Wales. They quickly discovered that they were both crochet designers, but almost better than that was the fact that they got on like a house on fire. Jane now lives in Scotland, but visits often! Jane Howorth has been designing in knit and crochet since 2012 and her designs are extensively published in the UK and US. Her work has appeared in many magazines including Interweave Knitting, Knit.Wear, Inside Crochet, Crochet Now, etc. In particular, her ideas have been enthusiastically commissioned by Interweave Crochet magazine, and she has one or two designs featured in almost every issue since 2017. Jane's latest designs are for Knitpicks' new venture, WeCrochet, and a new ezine from Interweave; The Crochetist. She focuses on creating garments and accessories with a strong sense of style and a contemporary feel, and has around 90 third-party published designs, which can be seen on Ravelry. With a background as a Senior Lecturer in a university business school, she understands how to convey knowledge and understanding clearly. Jane also holds City and Guilds advanced certificates in Fashion Design. She uses this knowledge in her design work and in writing technical articles for a number of magazines, including Pompom and Interweave's Knit.Wear magazine. She has taught numerous knit and crochet classes at local yarn shops. A university graduate, Dawn Curran went on to pursue a demanding career in nursing before raising her family. Her journey into crochet design began when she worked for LoveCrafts as part of their customer service team. Here Dawn developed an understanding of the crochet market and saw an opportunity to develop her own designs. Her ideas often feature colour work, and she has carved out a niche for herself using intarsia crochet to create motifs. She designs crochet homewares, garments and accessories. Dawn sells her patterns on various platforms including Etsy. She has designed for Inside Crochet, Mollie Makes, LoveCrafts and Knit Picks' new crochet venture, WeCrochet. Dawn loves to interact with the crochet community on Instagram where she has had a number of viral posts and an engaged following of more than 8500.

Publishers Weekly 12/23/22 British designers Howorth and Curran debut with an arresting take on how to incorporate colorwork into crochet. The authors showcase 40 stitch patterns that provide a great starting place for beginners, with highlights including a net-like pattern punctuated by flowers and a wavy blue, green, and pink design. Upping the complexity, Howorth and Curran outline four crochet techniques that are more intricate with their colorwork: Fair Isle, intarsia, mosaic, and tapestry. The bulkiness of Fair Isle, they write, makes it well suited for cold weather while intarsia is ideal for creating images or words. Ten projects show the stitch patterns and techniques at work, as in the standout "trinity basket," which uses the tapestry technique to create triangular patterns, and the Fair Isle "Zahra hat" and mittens, which feature a design inspired by "flowers blooming in a well-planted garden." Howorth and Curran offer useful tips on how to pick colors and work with multiple strands of yarn ("alternate the turn direction" at the end of a row), but novices might find some of the techniques difficult to follow, especially the chart for mosaic, which operates differently than the standard charts. Intermediate to advanced crocheters will enjoy the vibrant patterns. (Feb.)