The Almanac of Crocheting

Considering that I am an expert in crocheting, who has crochet hundreds of projects I was surprised about two things:a) I learned new stuff, andb) how "complete" this book is.Born in Austria, I learned to crochet in Austria (reading German instructions); when I moved to the United States I relearned the US terms to be able to follow instructions how to crochet the one or other piece. However, I was unaware that there are different terms for certain stitches in American and British English.Considering how many crappy books are published these days, this is a surprisingly solid, excellent book!!I really picked it up because I wanted to check out "what's new." Though the book contains fewer projects than I thought, I was impressed with the excellent design of the book, the absolutely fabulous pictures, and the excellent bibliographies. As an author myself I really appreciate it when other authors do their homework and name all sources.The color illustrations showing how the various stitches are done are probably the best I have ever seen, much better than in many well known magazines I have read.From illustrations how to store the yard, how to read instructions, fillet graphs, to pictures that show the crochet needle running through the work piece and picking up the yard on the other side author Dorothy Wilks does it all.If you want to know how "complete" and fabulously illustrated this book is, here is proof:At the end of this book the author explains "blocking," the process of giving a completed piece the desired shape. She uses a shawl as an example and shows picture of the finished piece, explains that it has to be sprayed with water, pulled into the correct shape, then use blocking pins to keep in that shape and weigh it down until it is completely dry. She then shows a picture of the same piece - finished. Even though I have been reading books about knitting and crocheting for more than forty years I have never seen pictures showing both states; "before and after" blocking.Love this book - highly recommended.Gisela Hausmann, author & blogger

This is an impressive collection of crochet guides. As a beginner in crochet, I learned a lot especially the basics of crocheting, symbols and learning different patterns such as for hats, blankets, scarves which is my main purpose of learning is to make this a hobby and improve a lot more. I think crocheting is an underrated hobby, it definitely soothes your mind and it's not tiring. After reading this guide I have learned that it's important to know the symbols so you can understand the patterns better. I don't have any complaints about this guide since it had so many illustrations and figures to help me understand the stitching techniques.

The formatting is a little weird, but it is a useful book. I wish there had been one full table of contents at the beginning, but other than that it is nice. It is multiple books, and it has the table of contents for the book you're on at the beginning of that book, and there aren't any links to the separate books at the start. That is really my only issue with this book. I am a bit more advanced than the stuff I've looked over so far, but it would be great for beginners.

I really love this set of 10 books, it is perfect for beginners and anyone who knows how to crochet but wants to learn more advanced stitches.I love the pictures since I am one who can't learn from just words. If you want to learn to crochet you won't go wrong with this set. I included a few snaps but wanted to include more since the pictures are so good to help the learning process. The original price for the set is $74.87, I got it free from Pubabook. Definitely worth the time to do an honest review! Need I say more.

This bundle was, I assume, published previously as separate books. Yes, there is some repeated info from one book to the next, but that info is relevant to each book. There is some good, basic info in the bundle. The pull-out menu on the left is really hard to activate for some reason. The first couple of times I looked through these, I thought there wasn't one. When you do get the menu to pull out, it is very hard to tell where each book starts because the book titles look just like the chapter titles. There is no differentiation in font or typeface. No italics, no bolding, no chapter numbers. I finally realized that to find the beginning of the books, I had to look for the attributions that come at the end of each book. That little trick makes it much easier, but the author could do a little more work on the menu and make that very simple. I bought this entire bundle just for one book - the one on Expert CROCHETING - and I haven't had a chance to read it in detail of go through the weblinks yet. If that book is as good as I think it should be, I will revise this review to give them another star. IF. For now, I'm reserving judgment. For now, it's basic info for a decent price, but the author could have done better on the menu so the reader can quickly access specific info. This is, after all, reference-type material for the target audience.

This box set is the most complete guide on crocheting. My wife love crocheting but she is still learning the basics of crocheting. She had a few books but she only finds few things to learn in each and few stitches and projects. In this collection she found a countless number of projects that would help her not only to learn the basics but to even be an expert in crocheting as she say. She really loved this box set and she said she probably wouldn’t need to get any more books about crocheting because everything she ever expected to learn about crocheting is included in this box set.

This is a great book for beginners or intermediates who need a brush up. Well illustrated and well written. Includes knitting how to's toward the back of the book. I'm glad I have it - even though I have designed Tunisian crochet and know my way around a crochet (afghan or knitting needle) hook. You won't be disappointed.

Was lucky enough to get the free download of crochet books. They are great!! Thank you so much!!

This was such a useful book! The series really does fit all needs, from beginners to advanced but I downloaded the Basic Patterns. I have never done Crochet, before but the instructions were so clear and so well set out, it was actually very easy to pick it up. It is also a lot of fun! I have already mastered the beginners’ patterns thanks to this amazing book, and looking at the more advanced patterns (which are just beautiful) I feel confident that with the books helps I could master these as well. A treasure of a book!

The written pattern basics are really easy to understand and the crochet graphs and charts are visual. You'd need a more in depth book if you wanted to progress with crocheting but a great starter!

Interesting book mainly about crochet but ended on knitting!Only thing I found a problem with was the cast on thumb method as felt needed more images of the steps.

Great. As described. Highly recommended with some great ideas and designs