SoapyLove book review – Craft Gossip

Debbie Chialtas of Soapylove has published her first book, SoapyLove: Squeaky-clean projects using melt and pour soap, and it does not disappoint! SoapyLove is not only a great introductory book for the beginner melt and pour soap crafter, but will teach soapmaking veterans some new tricks as well.

The first portion of the book has an overview of basic melt and pour techniques and materials, such as preventing surface bubbles; adding colorants, micas, and fragrances; layering soaps; and cutting soap. The balance of the book is dedicated to projects and more detailed techniques. Some of the skills taught are layering, embedding shapes, cutting out shapes, soap on a rope, marbling, and using transfer sheets to create designs.

There are 25 wonderful projects included in SoapyLove, and several of the projects also have other suggested ideas for the skills used in the project. Projects include cameo bars, checkered stars, heavenly bars (clouds and grass with a blue sky), marbled ice cream cones, soap tarts (toaster pastries), and soap candies. A couple of my personal favorites include the flame bars and plaid soaps.

Each project has lots of full color pictures and step-by-step instructions. While some of the projects are better suited to more advanced melt and pour soapcrafters, beginners should have no problem with the majority of the projects included.

The only thing that I would like to have been included would be a short resource guide in the back as a reference. While Chialtas does mention some brand names of items and the occasional store, it would be helpful, especially for beginners, to have a resource guide giving more specific information on where to find some of the items, such as fragrances and molds, from such a seasoned soapmaker. All in all, this is definitely the best melt and pour soap crafting book that I have seen! Pick it up for only $19.99 at your favorite bookstore.

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Stitch dictionaries are a fun way to learn new-to-you knitting stitch patterns or to take a deep dive into a particular technique. Debbie Tomkies offers 100 cable stitch designs and thoughts on how to incorporate them into projects in her Cable Knitting Stitch Dictionary.

Each stitch pattern is shown in a large swatch photo and with written and charted instructions. Any special stitches are included on the page. The stitches are rated on a difficulty scale of 1 to 3, and the pattern notes also indicate how many extra stitches you should add to a project if you’re going to work this cable (since cables pull the fabric closer together you need to compensate for that) as well as how many stitches and rows are in the repeat if you want to design a project yourself.

The cables are arranged into sections: classic cables, combinations, all-over panels, creative cables, motifs and panels and cabled edges and borders.

It’s fun to flip through the designs to think about projects you can add a single cable or two to or make with an allover cabled design. Or you could make swatches of different cables and sew them together into a pillow cover or a throw.

At the back of the book there’s a section on general cable knitting techniques, reading charts, working swatches and avoiding errors (though it mentions working the wrong number of rows between cable turns, it doesn’t share how to count rows between cables to avoid this mistake).

It also talks about how to design your own cables, combine cables in a project, choose the right yarn and needles and determine how many more stitches you need to cast on when working cables instead of stockinette stitch. There’s also a glossary of symbols and abbreviations you may find in cable knitting and other patterns.

The book provides a good overview of things you can do with cables, as well as some fun things you might not have tried like infinity cables and horizontal cables. It’s a great book for a designer who likes to work with cables or a knitter who wants to play with different stitches in their projects.

About the book: 176 pages, paperback, 100 stitch patterns. Published 2024 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $26.99.

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