Storey Publishing provided a copy of Design Your Own Crochet Projects for my review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own. This page may contain affiliate links, which help support me, but don’t cost you anything extra.
If you’ve been following the blog tour for Design Your Own Crochet Projects, you’ve already heard from others about how Sara Delaney has made crochet design accessible. How she walks you through the process of using gauge swatches and plug-in templates, How she makes it easy to create your own crocheted accessories. How she provides a small stitch dictionary (cheering here!) to get you started.
Those things are all great and important, but did you hear about the Online Crochet Project Calculator? Read the book to learn about the design process, and move on over to the calculator, and let it do the math for you. You must check this out!
image (c)JSipe
If you have been designing by the seat of your pants (i.e., try this, rip it out, try something else, rip it out, try another thing, now it’s kind of OK), Design Your Own Crochet Projects is the book you need. It has templates for socks, scarves, cowls, hats, mittens and gloves.
I was lucky enough to see an early draft of the book, and was honored to be invited to write a back-cover blurb! I’m excited to see a good crochet design resource hit the market. I’m just sorry I didn’t think of writing it! Sara got to it first, and I’m happy for her.
Edie Eckman, Sara Delaney and Judith Durant
In October, I spent a couple of days at the Merritt Bookstore booth at the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck. And guess who was standing next to me all weekend? Designer/Author Sara Delaney! We didn’t have a lot of time to chat, but we did find a few minutes in a semi-quiet corner, where she could explain what makes Design Your Own Crochet Projects awesome. Watch the video for Sara’s low-down on stepping into crochet design.
Want to win a copy for yourself? Leave a comment below telling which part of crochet design you find the most challenging. One comment per person. A winner will be selected at random from the comments on November 20, 2017. U.S. and Canada residents only.
For other crochet design resources, check out this page.
Blog Tour Stops
Elk Studio Handcrafted Crochet Designs
Also by Sara Delaney
Giving myself permission to not follow a pattern or to experiment is the most challenging for me. Even when I’ve made something completely of my own design I find myself falling back on “simple” techniques. I’m hoping this book will help me break oht of my comfort zone.
Sadly, I also find the math a little intimidating, so being able to follow a formula is very helpful!
My challenge is taking different sized elements/stitches and putting them into a coherent whole without ending up with just a mess.
Guess I could use some help! 🙂
I find it challenging to understand how motifs get connected together in a lacy shawl, for example. I can deconstruct a motif and recreate it, but how to I make the motif appear AND be connected to the next one at the same time? I can crochet pineapples with a pattern, but it’s more of a challenge to create a pattern using pineapples and connect them.
Until my current project my biggest challenge had been getting the increases right. On this one it’s trying to get the shape I need without getting too complicated for a beginning-to-intermediate crocheter.
My biggest challenge is finishing the pattern writing process, which leaves me with many unfinished patterns that are hard to revisit to complete once I’ve moved on to another project. This book just might have the necessary tools to help me. Cheers Maggie
I find it challenging getting different stitches to work together but I don’t give up trying!
I think the hardest part is getting what I’m thinking in my geadand getting that transfered to the paper so I can go back and understand it and getting the right terms so other people can understand it also my fingers are crossed I could really use this book
Sizing is always a problem for me!