Crystal
Reflections
Designed by Wilma Bonner
Annie's Attic
leaflet #879712
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- Buy it, but share the cost with a friend.
- On the downside, lots of gluing and sewing needed after the crochet part is done.
- Supplies may not be readily available and often no substitions given
This leaflet contains 13 ornament patterns: 3 flat stars, 3 3-D stars, 4 bells, and 3 "snowballs" (hollow spherical ornaments). All are done in size 10 white crochet thread and all look very pretty in the pictures on the front and back covers of the leaflet.
I must admit, I was a bit put-off by the pictures of these ornaments.The crocheting looked easy enough (and proved to be, when I worked one up), but they have a lot of frills -- ribbons, beads, flowers, etc. --on them. I tend to avoid patterns with too many non-crochet decorations because it is such a pain gluing and sewing things to crocheted items.
Your mileage may vary, though.
The
other problem I had with the decorations on these patterns
is that most of them are listed as specific brand-name
items. If one is so unlucky as not to have a
well-stocked craft store nearby, it could be very hard to
find these items, and in most cases substitutes are not
listed. The leaflet does give the addresses and phone
numbers for these suppliers, advising that you "ask your
local store to contact the following companies", but my
experience has been that most large craft stores will not
order special items for one person.
As I mentioned, there are some spherical ornaments and 3-D stars in this book. For some of these, the finishing/stiffening instructions are longer than the crocheting ones!
The snowballs require something called cabone rings (which I've never heard of) and balloons to help the ornaments hold their shape until dry. The bell ornaments require Styrofoam bells for this purpose. As one who has always had trouble with blocking even simple things, I would probably shy away from these and stick with the simpler flat stars.
If you
are skilled with blocking and like lots of frills and
decorations on your crochet pieces, I'd recommend this book
to you.
I prefer to let most of my crochet work stand on its own, rather than having lots of beads and flowers take the attention away from the part that takes the most skill. And as I said, I don't like when the finishing instructions are longer than the pattern itself. So overall, I'd have to give this book a rating of "Buy it, but share the cost with a friend."
Reviewed Tina Mancuso for Crochet Partners. tina@castle.net 9/97
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9/7/97