Creative Crochet Lace: A Freeform Look at Classic Crochet

Creative Crochet Lace: A Freeform Look at Classic Crochet

This is a real breakthrough book by Myra Wood that develops her special perspective on freeform crochet.  For those seeking to go beyond scrumbling, Myra offers five alternative freeform techniques she calls  Funky Filet, Doodle Lace, Tossed Salad, Wild Irish Crochet and Organic Lace Scrumbling.

Funky Filet offers a stitch count formula which allows you to line up blocks of filet and fill them in any number of ways you like. Doodle Lace is a clever and simple method of creating freeform lace in one large piece, and Myra’s Peacock Path, a Doodle Lace cape, is stunning. With the Tossed Salad technique, Myra introduces “lace logic,” a method for changing stitch patterns at will whike keeping  the edges of your work even. Wild Irish is a modern approach to traditional Irish Crochet, making it adaptable to the yarns of today and far less painstaking to execute. Finally, Organic Lace Scrumbling shows how scrumbling with openwork stitches is quite different from “traditional freeform” (if one can use such a term). This last technique appears to be the most spontaneous, and Myra has several awesome examples,including Beauty in Bloom, a long duster, September Blush, a tunic, and Sweet Romance, a blouse.

There is some lovely inspirational writing in the book as well, as in this passage:

   Everyone has the abiity to unleash his or her own creative side.  While you are               crocheting, take it one stitch at a time and reserve any judgment about what you are       doing.  The first steps are only the beginning, and each piece grown into a splendidly       woven fabric the more you work on it.

Wish I could follow this advice more myself!

I was fascinated to read that Myra’s freeform methods are underpinned by structured and sturdy mechanisms: the dress form and templates. It’s the backbone of freeform, vital to achieving the intended effect, especially in the hands of an artist like Myra. Myra self-published this beautiful book, and shows herself as adept at book-making as she is at crochet.