Wrapped in Crochet Review

Book Depository Link Ravelry Link


Types of patterns: Scarves, Wraps & Shawls

Number of Patterns: 18: Scarf: 6; Wrap: 4; Ruana: 1; Shawls: 7

Split of patterns: Women

Size Range: One size pretty much fits all for most of these; 30-42" for the garments that need sizing, though they don't require much sizing.

Colour/Black & White: Colour, diagrams enhanced with colour for clarity

Schematics: Yes for those that require it, several patterns also have extra diagrams for clarity of construction

Target Audience: Intermediate to advanced. You'd need to have some idea of following crochet diagrams but there's nothing terribly complicated.

How to Crochet guide: The standard guide as usually provided in Interweave Crochet Magazine

Experimental/Classical/Modern: It's not all that experimental some are fairly classic.

Comments: I did want to like this book. Some of the ideas intrigued me and made me want to try things out but it seems to fall a bit flat. Don't get me wrong, there were several patterns that made me pause but nothing really begged me to reach for my crochet hook. The photographs don't always show the items in enough detail to make an educated guess about how they would look (I read a review online that suggested looking at Ravelry for better photographs, while I would do that as a matter of course, that's not the point, the photographs are not good enough). Sometimes the finishing isn't quite what I'd expect from a professional publication.

All pattern links below are to Ravelry
It's divided into three sections, Scarves, Wraps and Shawls.

Scarves
Labyrinth opens the book, a scarf, this kinda bugged me, it didn't look quite finished, it's a log cabin motif one and sewn together.


Blaze is a row of corkscrews linked together at intervals to keep it stable. Includes notes on variations to make it larger.

Heidi - a woven and braided scarf - this is interesting, cables formed by weaving crocheted ribbons in two contrast colours into a mesh of a background colour. You could create all sorts of knotwork with this.

Starlet - Boa Scarf - large yarn, large hook, loops.

Ivy - Standard chevron pattern, nice yarn, repeat until you have several feet of it.

Tressa is an interesting hairpin lace scarf. Three strips linked in chevrons this is one of the few that attracted me as I have some beautiful ribbon yarn looking for a pattern.

Wraps

Gali - infinity motif wrap - case in point about photographs, in no picture do you get to see the infinity motif in it's full glory, it sounded interesting but it let me down

Zeena - Tunisian Ruana - looks interesting - one of the few I looked at with interest and thought about doing, I do plan to learn Tunisian Crochet at some stage and this would be a piece I would seriously attempt.

Ayla - Circular Wrap with sleeves - a sprial wraps it's way around the back and then it's finished off with a hem, bell sleeves and a collar, lots of extra yarn flaring around your waist would need the right person to pull this off, and I'm not the right person for this.

Prima Ballerina - Lacy Cardi Wrap - again I'm let down by the pictures, I would never wear something with a knot tied in front and there is a suggestion of wearing it open but apart from some pictures with the model clutching at it from the front and a side picture, there's nothing to show how it would look or drape.

Geisha - Wrap with tiered edging - openwork mesh with tiers of edging at the ends.

Shawls

Guinevere - broomstitch lace centres this piece and then it's edged with regular openwork. The only photograph of the back is a half-shot that doesn't really show how it looks, the broomstitch is supposed to be the pivot of this piece.

Maya - Medallion Triangular Shawl - plain shawl with medalions edging it, not a bad piece but it looks like it could do with some sort of patterning occasionally to break up the double/treble crochet.

Stella Circular Shawl - circular motif edged with mesh - this resembles an enlarged doily and while quite interesting just didn't grab me.

He Loves me He loves me not - Shawl with flower petal tiers- crochet a fairly basic shawl, add in fru-fru edging every few rows, not my style.

Farrah - Lacy Shawl with fringe - spiderweb shawl in a bamboo tape yarn it's fairly standard fare

Mother Nature - Triangle Square Shawl - it's pretty much a Granny square shawl, with triangles instead of squares joined togher with a black yarn into something that looks like it came from the 70's. Vastly underwhelmed by it, the finishing didn't impress either, it looked like it needed severe blocking and even then I don't think some of it's problems would have been solved.

Hypnotize - Spiral Shawl - again this didn't really impress, it starts out as a spiral and then splits at the bottom so it can be wrapped, it's not a bad piece, it just doesn't make me reach for a crochet hook, the pattern jars instead of flowing and it just didn't appeal.

Now I'm not completely unimpressed with the book, just underwhelmed, I expected better and more from the designer and the book failed to provide. Designers are under a lot of pressure to provide better than free on the web and I don't think that this book does that.

Buy/Borrow: Borrow it first to see if you want to crochet them, use Ravelry to see how they work with other crocheters but this isn't going on my wishlist. This is the second time through my hands, in many ways I wanted it to be better but it just didn't do anything for me.

Where found: Dublin City Public Libraries has a few copies in stock.