Today I’ve got two books to review for you, but they kind of go together. They are Crochet Power and Crochet Power 2: Edgings, by Kristin Omdahl. For those of you not familiar with Kristin Omdahl, she’s written something like 20 crochet books at this point. I first found her back in about 2011 right when I was getting started designing. She had published “Crochet So Fine” with beautiful lace crochet patterns, and I was in awe. So she’s a pretty prolific designer, and she’s come out with these two books, which are kind of like stitch dictionaries. I’ll go through each of them individually, and I’ve also got a video review so you can see more inside the books!
*Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means if you click on them and make a purchase I may, at no additional cost to you, earn a commission. Read full disclosure here.
I’d like to throw out a quick thank you to Kristin Omdahl. She was kind enough to send me PDF copies of both books to review. All images from the books are used with her permission. The books are available on Amazon, through Kristin’s website directly, and a few other retailers.
Crochet Power Books Review Video
Crochet Power (Book One)
So the first book is “Crochet Power, Making Stitch Patterns Work For You”. So this one is like a traditional stitch dictionary. There aren’t as many patterns as in a typical large stitch dictionary, but she does it in a different way, and she adds some features that are really nice. Within the book, she takes one stitch pattern at a time, and for each stitch pattern, she’s going to have a crocheted sample for you to see, the chart diagram, and the written directions. But she doesn’t just give you one way to make it. So she’ll show it worked in four ways: regular rows, continuous round, increasing in rows, and increasing in the round. She does this for every stitch design in the book. So that’s actually really super useful. She included 19 different stitch patterns. So like I said, there aren’t as many stitches, but it’s a lot more ways you can use the stitches, which is really useful. Here are snippets of some of the stitch patterns she includes. So you can see that she doesn’t use only basic stitch patterns. She does also include the basics like sc and dc, but she really takes it up to another level. Some of these patterns would be a bit beastly to figure out the increases for on your own! This could really be empowering for designing something for yourself.
She does also include in this book some handy guides for sizing, like dimensions for different sizes of blankets, which area also very helpful. There are only 2 things I didn’t love. The first is that I wish she would have included a few more stitch patterns. 19 isn’t a ton, but then again, given how much work she put into them, it’s almost like including 4x that many since she gave us 4 ways to make each of the 19 patterns. The only other thing I could wish for, and this is just me being totally nitpicky, is that I wish the samples were blocked a little better. Some of them don’t look exactly square (or rectangular) and that’s slightly off-putting. It doesn’t change the value of the instructions and charts in any way though, it’s simply aesthetic.
Crochet Power 2: Edgings
The second book is Crochet Power 2: Edgings. And this one actually is really cool (not that the first one isn’t cool too… but I really like this one). She includes 100 different edgings. I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen people ask, in various Facebook groups, what kind of edging they should add to their blanket. This resource is great for blankets and shawls, or edges of shirts!
She split the book into different styles of edgings. She included four main types: bottom up, fringe, perpendicular, and top down. In the video I go through a sample from each of the categories. Each of the edgings includes a picture of a finished sample, the crochet chart diagram, and the written description. I was really surprised at how many different types of fringe there were!
My one complaint for this book is that I wish the instructions were a little more clear for how to actually attach the edging onto the main project (like, for example, the perpendicular edgings). A more experienced crocheter will definitely be able to get it done, but a beginner may get a little frustrated. Some of the other edging types are more straightforward, and there are lots of options that a beginner would be able to do as well!
She also included some instructions for attaching to knit items, for those of you who are multi-talented fiber artists!
