Creepy Crawly Crochet, Megan Kreiner

Received to review via Netgalley

To begin with, Creepy Crawly Crochet is a good resource on its own, because it includes clear illustrations and step by step instructions for various stitches and techniques, including the adjustable/magic ring which forms the first part of a lot of amigurumi. It has info on finishing off your toys, too, including stitches to join things, how to make fringes, etc. Throughout the book, the patterns come with plenty of guidance on how to assemble them, and where special care might be needed. There’s a list of abbreviations in the back, too, along with a conversion chart from US sizes to UK sizes.

The designs themselves are also pretty neat; the faces are shaped really well, for example, and it makes great use of stitching to create body shapes and designs, in a more subtle way than I’ve seen in a lot of other designs. It’s little touches that make the designs look great by giving them just that little bit extra realism… right down to the bits of zombie brain.

I think it’s a fun collection and worth getting, especially for a beginner, because it covers a lot of the basics as well as some pretty easy designs.

Rating: 4/5

Zoomigurumi, Amigurumipatterns.net

I gather that my sister demanded I be bought this, so I could make her the admittedly adorable monkey on the front. The cat, donkey and monkey patterns are all cute and well done, particularly — the same basic model basically lies behind all of these, and none looks difficult. If you have the basics of crochet and sewing projects together down, you should be fine to make just about anything in here. It has the usual sort of introduction showing how to do basic stitches and explaining abbreviations, etc, too. The patterns are all in text; no need to have any skill in learning how to read a pattern.

I’m mostly surprised my mother hasn’t bought me the third in the series, which has a really cute hedgehog on the cover, and a hippo pattern allegedly inside as well.

Rating: 4/5

The Colouring Book for Grown-Ups, Arcturus Publishing

Quite a hefty collection of pictures to colour here, and an amazing variety, from twee fairies to Chinese dragons and back through mandalas to flowers. It really is just colouring, with no doodling or mindfulness advice, though there is a bit of advice on colouring and using your imagination in the front, which I duly ignored. I’m also duly ignoring the fairies and so on; I really prefer to colour patterns, I’ve found. There’s still a fair amount of that in here.

The paper is quite thin, so if you’re going to use felt tips or markers, you need to put a piece of paper between the pages to protect the next design. Unlike some other books, though, it doesn’t have designs on both side of the pages, so you don’t end up ruining anything as long as you remember to put a piece of paper behind the page you’re colouring.

Rating: 4/5

The Art Therapy Colouring Book, Richard Merritt, Hannah Davies, Cindy Wilde

This book has high quality pages, so you can definitely use pens, and there are some lovely designs. They tend to be more finicky — lots of little sections to pen in, rather than big areas to colour — which may or may not suit you. The thing I think is most offputting about this book is that most of the pages are already partly coloured. I’m doing the fox from the front cover, for instance, and it comes with a coloured background and some sections of the head already coloured. Normally, I’m one of those creatures who prefers to colour in the lines and with the colours of nature, so I was a little hesitant about my rainbow fox. On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to just colour something in differently, and see what it looks like as a complete picture — you might consider the already coloured parts of the pictures to be a sort of challenge to get really creative!

The last third of the book is for ‘doodling’, though there’s some scope for colouring, too. I was less interested in this stuff, and don’t know if I’ll really make use of it. The whole point of colouring books, for me, is that my dubious drawing skills don’t come into it.

Still, high quality book, and some of the multicolour designs come out looking surprisingly good, if you want to try something different.

Rating: 3/5

Art for Mindfulness: Geometrics, Andy Paciorek

Yep, I’ve jumped onto this trend. Mostly for the mindfulness aspect, because I got a little book of mandalas to colour and found that it really did help with just staying in the moment and not worrying, because I’d be too busy concentrating on keeping inside the lines and deciding which colours to pick next. The designs in Geometrics are pretty good: obviously, they’re all geometric, and some of them are very complex. It’s not full of massive open spaces to colour, but detail instead. Sometimes I find that a little frustrating, in which case I switch to something else in the same book or in one of the others I have.

I’m using markers with it, and while they bleed through to the other side of the same page, they don’t mark the next page. The quality of the paper is good, and fortunately, the only thing on the back of each design is an inspirational quotation — most of which I like, too; they’re not too syrupy. I think this one will last quite a long time.

In the meantime, hey, it’s 20th August! That means it’s my birthday!

Rating: 4/5

Sockology, Brenna Maloney

I read this on Scribd after browsing through the craft books (where’s the crochet hiding?!). It’s a fun sort of book, with patterns and ideas about how to cut up and reuse socks to make various creatures. I didn’t always find the results attractive, but the patterns could be fairly easily altered. As soon as you figure out how to look at a sock for how you can cut it up and change it, instead of as a sock, you’ve got it.

Not something I’m going to get into, I think — I never seem to have enough socks anyway. But I have a friend or two who might enjoy it…

Rating: 3/5