Crochet in Color
Crochet in Color
Crochet In Color
Kathy Merrick
Interweave Press
Kathy Merrick's designs have been widely seen, and much admired, in publications like IC, vogue, and in countless book collections. Perhaps her best known design is Babette's Blanket, which stimulated a whole generation of crochet colorists whose work flourishes on ravelry and flickr. When someone of this reputation finally publishes her first solo book, it's cause for anticipation and maybe a bit of angst over whether such high standards can be maintained. Have no fear, Kathy fans: her superior design abilities shine in this stunning book. She is comfortable in a wide range of genres, has a great grasp of tradition but efffortlessly transcends it, and offers an assured, elegant style. The designs have faultless construction, and many use the simplest stitches, relying on drape and form to make a statement. Given this understated tone, the choice of high intensity colors -- pinks, magentas, yellows, oranges, greens -- is a little surprising, and a real delight.
The first chapter, called "One or Two Colors", includes a lovely Pleated Hat in shades of rose that's gathered on one side, and a great, close-fitting Firefly Cardigan in bright yellow. This cardi is exemplary of a Merrick piece: carefully tailored, simple stitches, beautiful detail at the collar and cuff, and one suprising element: a tight gather of stitches in one spot at the back, two on the front, to create waist shaping -- very cool! The second chapter focuses on Stripes, a fine vehicle for experimenting with color combinations, my favorite being another fabulous sweater, called Butterfly Turtleneck, striped in lilac, orange, golden yellow and olive. It features raglan shaping and a really special collar that's much more butterfly than turtle. The openwork at the collar, bottom third of the sweater and cuffs, shows a refreshingly contemporary take on lace too.
The next chapter, Color Blocks, has a stylish jacket of large rectangular color blocks, and a Chain Lace Big Fat Scarf that shows some real stitching innovation: using chain lace to create an unusual, flowery 3D texture. The last chapter, Color Adventures has one winner project after the other, but I must single out a real tour de force: a stuffed, intensely colored Triangle Tuffet, (which I would call a pouf and others might call ottoman). I remember an item like this in my parent's living room when I was a child, but this crochet version is much hipper and more fun.
What I admire most about Kathy's work are several qualities: her fresh eye, real sensitivity to fiber and yarn, and the ability to make crochet completely contemporary, not an easy task, but one she pulls off magnificently.
This Interweave book is laid out nicely, though I have some minor quibbles. Stitch diagrams are enormous, but there are too few good closeups of actual stitches. For me, seeing stitches in detail is as important as a diagram for achieving what the pattern says, especially with Merrick whose stitchwork is not the usual. Another issue is that the columns are narrow but font size is large, making the contents of the materials pages sometimes hard to read.
Kathy gives excellent advice throughout on color work in general, and picking and arranging colors for each design, and there are very useful technical pages at the end of the volume. This book brings the art of crochet to a very high level indeed.