Karen Manthey - Crocheting For Dummies with Online Videos

Crocheting For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016954725

ISBN 978-1-119-28711-7 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-28712-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-28713-1 (ebk)

1. Table of Contents

No longer is crocheting considered something your grandmother did while sitting on the porch in her rocking chair. Crocheted designs are everywhere, from the racks in your favorite clothing store to fashion catalogs even to the runways in Paris and Milan. Celebrities have started crocheting, and the craft even shows up in movies and television shows. The reasons for this comeback are many, and we hope that by reading this book you discover some of those reasons and begin to enjoy a lifelong affair with crochet.

Even though crochet is a time-honored craft, that doesnt mean its behind the times. Advances in technology have made yarns softer and more colorful, with wonderful new textures appearing every time you turn around. No longer are crocheters limited to solid or variegated colors; yarn is now hand painted and space dyed. Although worsted-weight yarn is still a staple in every crocheters yarn cache, so many varieties of weights and textures are available today that were at a loss as to how to categorize them all.

Youre never too old or too young to discover crochet. The skills that you master, the benefits that you receive, and the beautiful heirlooms that you create can last a lifetime and, ideally, be passed on to future generations.

Crocheting For Dummies, 3rd Edition, gives first-time crocheters hands-on experience with new skills and serves as a reference tool for those who already have some basic crochet know-how. We kick off the book by taking you step by step through the process of gathering your materials, crocheting your first stitches, and finishing off a piece of crocheted fabric. If that sounds somewhat overwhelming, relax. We include detailed written instructions and easy-to-follow illustrations throughout this book.

Each part of Crocheting For Dummies, 3rd Edition, contains chapters full of information relevant to each other, with successive parts adding more building blocks to your crochet knowledge. If you already have some crochet experience and are looking to refine and expand your techniques, then the later chapters are for you. There, we include more advanced stitches and techniques, along with many tips to guide you. Finally, each part contains several projects that allow you to practice your newfound skills on fun and useful designs while feeling a sense of accomplishment for a job well done.

We also use the following conventions throughout the book to make the world of crochet even easier for you to dive into:

• New terms appear in italics and are closely followed by an easy-to-understand definition.
• Bold text highlights the action parts of numbered steps.
• Web addresses appear in monofont . (Some URLs may have broken across multiple lines as we laid out this book, but rest assured we havent added any spaces or hyphens. Just type in the address as you see it.)
• When we first introduce a new stitch or technique, we include its abbreviation in parentheses to help you become familiar with the shorthand used in crochet patterns. We also include the abbreviation the first time a stitch is mentioned in a set of numbered steps.
• In addition to the abbreviation, we include the crochet symbol whenever a new stitch is introduced.
• The specific part of an illustration that relates to the step youre working on is shaded dark gray. For example, if youre inserting your hook into a certain stitch, that stitch is shaded so you can see exactly where to go.

How does that saying about assuming something go? Well, never mind about that. We explain each step as clearly and concisely as possible, so you dont need any prior experience to understand the concepts introduced in this book.

We are assuming, however, that by picking up this book, you have a desire to master the art of crochet. Beyond that, all we ask is that you give it your best shot and dont give up.

This icon highlights important points. You should remember them and apply them when dealing with the skills shown.