BEYOND THE SQUARE CROCHET MOTIFS

This colorful book may make a nice addition to your crochet library if you don’t already own a bunch of crochet square books. While these ’squares’ are not all square, many are repeats of those seen in other books. However, there are a few in this collection that I find to be especially appealing.

I like hearts. They speak to me. Motif #127 is a unique heart motif with a trefoil in its center.

Motif #130 is an oval that I’ve not seen before. There are several stars, but Motif #144 is an especially charming two-colored star that would make an excellent applique. Motif #17 is a very unusual circular flower motif using picot stitches (not my favorites but very effective).

Each motif is pictured in color with an accompanying symbol chart plus an inset with directions on THAT PAGE for any special stitches. Most motifs cover a single page, so keeping this book on your lap while working is comfortable.

The motifs are organized by chapter – circles, hexagons, triangles, squares, and unusual shapes. In addition, there are the usual ‘how-to’s’ at the beginning and a stitch key in the back of the book. All photos are full color, which adds to the visual appeal of this book. There’s also a very cute 7 page lay-out of color drawings demonstrating how the motifs in this book might be used in and on garments, as appliques, and edgings. Lots of creative ideas!

Book Specs:

Beyond The Square Crochet Motifs by Edie Eckman

Storey Publishing, 202 pages, 144 motifs.

ISBN 9781603420396

Hardcover with SPIRAL BINDING (yeah!!) and slick cover

There are several other advantages to this book over other motif books. The appendix contains two elements that I find especially helpful – the circular graphs for drawing one’s own symbol charts and the full color motif arrangement guide.

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I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking.

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section.

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily.

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right.

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next.

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]

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