A handy reference of crochet stitches. Each stitch pattern is shown charted as well as including complete written directions. Basic crochet skills are also covered for those needing a refresher or new to the craft. One of the best parts is the visual list of stitches in the beginning. Each stitch is represented by a thumbnail photo making it quick to find the stitch you're looking for even if you don't know the name of the stitch without needing to flip through the whole book. All books of stitch patterns and project patterns should be presented this way.

Thank you to Betty Barnden, Quarto Publishing Group - Chartwell Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book. All comments are my own, unbiased opinion.

The book is a reissue of the The Crochet Stitch Bible: The Essential Illustrated Reference Over 200 Traditional and Contemporary Stitches (Artist/Craft Bible Series) by the same author. As much as I can see, it has exactly the same text, photos and illustrations page by page, but they reformatted the text to be more readable. They added more space between row instructions and although the font seem to be smaller, it is easier to read. They also moved some of the charts and samples, for example instead of two narrow columns each with photo, instructions and charts underneath, they made each of the patterns have their horizontal half, which made it much more visually appealing. The old book was a spiral bound, and the new one seems to be a hardcover, which should be much nicer, but I cannot see for myself since I only have digital copy.

But the book still suffers from its previous huge flaws. One is colored charts - printing charts in yellow or baby blue is pure evil. They are practically invisible! The other big issue is the photos of the crochet samples. I understand that it took enormous effort to crochet all the samples, but why did you have to choose shiny pearl cotton with practically no stitch definition? It is really hard to tell what the stitches look like because of the pearl cotton texture - it is twisted of several thick threads and the twist is very visible and it make the stitch pattern practically disappear. I understand making new samples and photographing them would be really expensive, but why not print the charts in black?! Why do we have to suffer in the name of pleasing color scheme if it renders the charts unusable for so many people?

Yes, the book has a wide variety of stitches, mostly suitable as an all over pattern, but can be applied to borders, too. Some of the designs are really beautiful if you can recognize what they are and then decipher the chart. In the beginning, they give some beginning crochet lessons, including some Tunisian crochet. I love that they put the symbols for the stitches used on the side of the page. Those are printed in black - aha, they do know how to print in black!



I received a free digital copy of the book from NetGalley.

This was a fantastic source of information for keen crochet fans or for those just starting out. Lots of stitches I had never heard of I would definitely buy this book when it comes out