Book Review

A few months ago, I checked out Kim Werker's crochet book, ”Get Hooked: Simple Steps to Crochet Cook Stuff, and really liked it. When her follow-up book, "Get Hooked Again: Simple Steps to Crochet More Cool Stuff" came out, I put a request hold on it, but the library hasn't even gotten any copies in yet, so I broke down and bought a copy from Amazon.com.






The book is geared towards teenagers, but even though I'm in my thirties, I still really liked it. The first half of the book is crochet instructions, covering hook size, types of hooks, yarn types, reading yarn labels, reading patterns, felting crocheted items, making a gauge swatch, the four basic stitches, etc. The stitch instructions show color photos of hands performing the stitches, which, when I was learning how to crochet, I found so much easier to follow than the black and white line drawings present in so many books. There also instructions on crocheting in the round, and increasing and decreasing stitches. The end of each section of instructions includes a "Try It" pattern that uses the stitches/techniques taught so far.

The second half of the book contains just patterns. There are 15 patterns in the book:

Autumn Striped Scarf
Chunky Hat (shown on cover)
Shelter Your Shades Case
Lacy Choker
Hook Roll
Crochet-Anywhere Tote
Gidget Bucket Hat
Workin' For You Scarf
Fingerless Street Mitts
Juliet Vest
Camo Bag
Flower Power Pillow
Ruby Slippers
Peek-A-Boo Shrug
Honor Roll Vest

I thought the patterns were very cute, especially the Gidget Bucket Hat and the Chunky Hat (the chunky hat is shown on the front cover). There's quite a few patterns I would like to crochet for either myself or my daughter.

Another thing I really liked about this book is that most of the projects use inexpensive yarns that are available at mainstream craft stores, Wal-Mart, etc. One of my pet peeves is crochet books where every pattern is made with $10+ a skein yarns that only specialty yarn shops carry. Not everyone can afford to spend $50 on yarn just to make a hat. Another really nice thing is that each pattern lists the exact yardage of yarn used, rather than just saying "3 skeins of Yarn A". I find that helpful for determining if that partial skein of yarn in my stash would be enough for a project. One last thing I really liked about the book is the biographical information about the designers in the back of the book.

Overall, I felt "Get Hooked Again" was well worth the price (a really reasonable $9.56 on Amazon), and I highly recommend it. If you go to the Get Hooked website, there's two free patterns (which are not in the book) you can check out.