Fabulous inspiration for our fibre & mixed media inspired jewellery Whiplash competitions - last day to enter 15 November.

Crochet Jewelry: 40 Beautiful and Unique Designs by Waejong Kim and Anna Pulvermakher, published by Interweave Press (October 28, 2007)

Interweave books tend to follow a formula that means you know what you are getting beforehand. They are always very strong on technique with detailed information on tools and materials, and within the projects themselves there is lots of detailed pictures and illustrations of technique. This book follows this same formula and because jewelry is very material intensive with lots of bits and pieces they have a very detailed section on what all the findings and notions are actually for. And because crochet is the main medium - there is a very good pictorial how-to crochet, with basic stitches, shaping techniques and cables and rounds.

The projects themselves are incredible varied. Many of them utilise advanced jewelry and/or crochet techniques and are quite challenging, but there is an equal amount of simple and quick projects. While most of the projects in the book utilise fibre to create bright chunky style jewelry, however I learnt that crochet does not have to mean chunky - there is some very fine wire crochet used as well to create light and delicate pieces. Each chapter concentrates on necklaces or bracelets or rings or earings etc.

Caption: Loop’n-’link bracelet – for beginners, and is infinitely adjustable—make as many links as you like and work a necklace or belt to match.

My favourite projects are the chunky bright and fun designs like crochet covered beaded necklace, and the felted french knot rings. I think that the simple beaded crochet glasses keeper is very clever, the mixed media gemstone lariat with crochet motives attached is lovely, the organic bracelet is perhaps too chunky for me, but I like the idea behind the freestyle crochet then felted cuff with beads attached to it. There are many projects in here which I really don’t like - not my style at all - but there is enough different projects in here to suit most people.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 4:41 am and is filed under felting+fibre+needlework, reviews+literature+media. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.