Review: Granny Square Love

I’ve talked many times here about my love for the granny square, so of course I was thrilled to be a participant in the blog tour for Sarah London’s new book, Granny Square Love: A New Twist on a Crochet Classic for Your Home.

Sarah’s work in crochet is amazingly beautiful. Visit her blog if you haven’t seen it before. She’s a master colorist, and she creates some of the most gorgeous crochet shapes I’ve ever seen. This book is a great representation of her aesthetic, and it’s also just a whole lot of fun.

There are 25 projects in total, smartly arranged according to the room of the house in which they’d be useful. (And all styled in this gorgeous, riot-of-color fashion.) This lovely tablecloth is from the Dining Room chapter, whch also includes this tea cozy:

In all seriousness, if that doesn’t inspire you to get a teapot, I think nothing will.

The nice thing about a book like this is that the instructional component is fairly simple – I think that often leads to better instructional materials, since the production budget doesn’t have to be stretched as thin. Granny Square Love has a Getting Started chapter that lavishly illustrates the basic crochet stitches needed to make grannies, and then covers the process of square-making in detailed step-by-step photos. Bravo!

The modular nature of granny squares allows for so much creative possibility, and I love how playful Sarah’s been with the form. This headboard is such a genius idea – and even more so when you realize that it’s built upon an easily-available 30×40 artist canvas.

Thoughout, projects that are built upon other forms, like lampshades and ottomans, are made using styles that are fairly easy to find in the marketplace. This makes the project set really accessible for beginners. And more advanced crocheters can riff off these ideas, doing the necessary math-y stuff to customize them.

(I don’t know which I love more here – the lampshade or the fabric hanging behind it.)

There are so many amazing color ideas in this book, you’ll likely need to go lie down afterward. As I said, Sarah is extremely talented with color, and she offers great advice throughout – not only on how to build a palette that works in the project itself, but how to choose colors that will harmonize well with the room the project will live in. I learned a lot just from these color commentaries.

(And I really, really need to make a nice, graphic black-and-white granny pillow.)

You’ll also enjoy seeing grannies in some unexpected contexts in Granny Square Love. I adore this window shade idea, which gives the colors and patterns a nice showcase. Can you please help me convince K that what our living room really needs now is a group of large-scale grannies hung on the walls?

Anyway. Whether you love granny squares or crochet, this is a great inspiration book. I just realized that I’ve shown mostly larger projects here. Oops. There are definitely plenty of simpler projects for beginners, too – dishcloths, placemats, potholders and the like. And there are blankets, of course. But definitely, this book will soon have you thinking outside those boxes.

Want to keep up on the rest of the blog tour? It’s right over here.

(Disclosure time: North Light Books sent me a PDF copy for review. The title links above are affiliate links. I hope you’re having a great week so far.)