Crocheting on the Edge

200+ decorative crochet borders?  Yes please!  When I learned about Crocheting on the Edge by Nicky Epstein I knew that I wanted it in my library.  I love her other On the Edge books and love having stitch dictionaries (stitchionaries) in my library for design inspiration.  I've only designed one crochet pattern to date (two if you count a bobble).

Thanks to the package I purchased at Vogue Knitting Live for classes in 2014, I had a $200 gift certificate to spend at vogueknitting.com.  This allowed me to add some books to my dream library! 

Nicky Epstein says, "You'll find ribs, bobbles, ruffles, classic vintage, fringes, flora and lots more" and boy, oh boy, does she deliver.  The book starts out by demonstrating swatches of crochet edging on knitting.  Back when I made my first ever sampler afghan I was supposed to crochet an edge on it.  I was not confident in my crochet skills at all so I skipped crocheting an edge and just left the edge unfinished.  Now I'm wondering if I should pick up another ball of Wool Ease and finish that project up, but I digress.  (Pause while I go make a note in my Ravelry queue...) 

I really like the stitch sections breaking up crochet motifs into different fabric characteristics I'm more familiar with in knitting, ribbing, cables etc.  It is much easier for me to imaging adding a horizontal edging with crochet than knitting.  Picking up stitches is not a concern in crochet, since it is the essence of the craft.

Looking through the ruffles section I keep imagining little baby girl tops and dresses.  The frou frou ruffle (page 60 in my version) would look great on a hat edge.  I wish I had time to start sketching, this is how excited this book is making me!  I wonder if the daisy chain (page 88) needs to be anchored to something as an edge or could be free standing.  I'm not confident enough in my crocheting skills to determine from just looking whether things would work in different situations, but I think that there could be a cute headband from this motif.

This book contains some patterns.  There is a little more variety than in the Nicky's last book, there are a few jackets, caplets, a vest, a shawl and a bracelet.  This book is good for more than the sample patterns, these are really only samples to show you how you can incorporate interesting crochet edgings into projects.

A lot of these crochet motifs have a vintage feel to them, but that is because it is more of a vintage craft.  You don't find crochet pieces in stores, it is just too hard to mass produce them.  I think it would be so fun to start incorporating some of these motifs into simple patterns.  I cannot wait to challenge myself and try something new!