A Wonderful Book

This is my go-to crochet book these days, when I want really lovely motifs that either work together (to make something bigger) or stand-alones (to use as small doilies or coasters. The title translates as "Motif*Edging 300" & the book is from Japan, land of the always-charted crochet patterns, and appears to be published by Nihon Vogue. I bought it late winter time from the late, lamented Sasuga books (moment of silence) & I honestly didn't even know what I gem I was getting at the time. I think I was trying to get my book order up to $40 so I'd get free shipping...

Other than every last design being charted in easy to understand terms, the other main thing I love about this book is that it not only shows you photos (some in colour) & charts of each motif, but also photos & charts of the motifs put together, with charts for any small motifs to fill in the spaces between motifs. Multi-coloured motifs are shown in colour, so you can see how pretty they are (or not... but most are gorgeous).

The small motifs at the bottom of the picture are the beginning of something to soothe a soul hungry for lots of colour. Most of what I've been making lately is shower & wedding presents for a friend who requested muted colours for gifts, so it's been creams & taupes & browns for the past couple of weeks. Occasionally I go over to Attic24 & geek out over the lovely colours (& how she refers to crochet as "hooky" :) so I decided it was time (now that the wedding prezzies are blocking on the bed (I can hear Charlie's plaintive call to unpin so he can go to bed...) to make some colour splashes of my own. I found a little, 3-round motif that kind of pinwheels around, so I thought I'd put together something with every colour of Knitpick's comfy fingering that I have... I'll take another photo when it's farther along.

I have made everything from swatches, scarves, doilies & baby bonnets, to the aforementioned wedding prezzies (will post pictures after the wedding) from this book & have not even begun to get bored. Hooray for wonderful books like this one. Hopefully it will keep me busy until we get back to Japan next summer...