Christmas Crochet!

When I want a crochet fix, I tend to pull out the Edie Eckman books. My copies of Around the Corner Crochet Borders and Beyond the Square Crochet Motifs are pretty dog-eared from the thumbing through they get on those occasions.

Thanks to Storey Publishing, I recently found a review copy of her newest book: Christmas Crochet for Hearth, Home & Tree in my mailbox!

This is hip holiday stitchery with a fun, modern point of view. I was intrigued by the variety of trendy  stitch patterns such as stripes, polka-dots and chevrons.  There’s no shortage of cute designs for stockings, ornaments and holiday home decor here. Eighteen patterns in all.

When I approach small projects like these, I want to pull out my  partial skeins and do some stash busting. I appreciate how this book empowers you to do that by providing the yarn weight classification for each project (and a key to remind yourself which is which), along with plenty of color ideas to get your color scheme wheels turning.

I couldn’t resist stitching up the little bird ornament – Bird Trio by Andee Graves.  Sweet not only for the holidays, but all year, really.  I found the symbol charts and key helpful, (I’d love to learn to use those exclusively), and was pretty impressed with the super smart addition of  instructions for lefties.

I do wish this book was spiral bound. I like a pattern book to lie flat when I use it ,

and I’ll be using this one plenty. After filling the tree, I’ll need a whole flock of nesting birdies for my yarn cakes!