Compendium of Crochet Techniques

Compendium of Crochet Techniques
By Jan Eaton
Published by Search Press
ISBN: 1844484017
Price: £12.99
Reviewed by Helen Jordan

The cover of this medium format book gives hints of the wide range of topics covered in the 160 pages.  It is lively and invites the user inside.  I say user rather than reader, as this is a reference book, rather than a sit down and read your way through every page epic.  The small size, 20cm x 25 cm (8” x 10”) makes it ideal to slip inside a project bag and keep to hand while devising and completing a project.  It is not a pattern book, nor a stitch dictionary, but it is a source book – and a valuable one at that.  I would not have classed the book as being suitable for an absolute novice crocheter, but anyone who has completed a couple of projects will find some fascinating insights within the pages.

The layout is very clear and the table of contents and index make it very easy to locate specific bits of information.  The colour schemes greatly enhance the content and the high quality photographs of fabric swatches, design features and the detailed ‘step by step’ sections are among the clearest and most helpful I have seen.  The frequent, extremely clear diagrams cover schematic garment section shapes, stitch symbol combinations, filet charts and more.

Many aspects of design are included, including yarn choice, the influence of hook size on the ‘drape’ or ‘handle’ of a fabric, Tension (gauge), the amount of ease, working with commercially produced patterns, gaining a ‘professional’ edge to shaping.

This book covers what it covers very well, with a few notable peculiarities.  Included are beading, felting and dyeing, all very useful, exciting additions to the craft of crochet, but I found it quite amazing that various aspects of crochet itself were omitted, namely Tunisian crochet, hairpin crochet and broomstick crochet.  Some elements of working in the round are not covered, for example flat circles are covered only with the right side facing and there are some design features that are interesting when the work is turned on each round.  One book production feature that is nice, the fold out flap showing hook sizes, like the matching page inside the book, would have been much more useful if the hooks had been shown life-size.

That said, this book is an extremely well-produced and encyclopaedic volume, well worth adding to any crocheter’s library.