Best Crochet Patterns, Ideas and News (Link Love)

Link love is my way of giving back to the crochet community by highlighting the great work out there each week from crochet bloggers, designers, artists and more. Here’s this week’s links …

Something Special in Crochet

A congrats shout-out to @twinkiechan who has some crochet tips featured in Homemaker Magazine (@homemakermag) and a feature in the newest issue out from @crochettoday

Crochet Art

@lionbrandyarn shared the amazing crochet art of Nathan Vincent in 7 Wonders of The Yarn World

I loved the @knithacker roundup recently of knit and crochet pigeons. It included two from crochet artist Laurel Roth and one from Anne-Claire Petit.

I’m loving this yarnbombing documentary, which I found thanks to a post by @kpwerker

Crochet Fashion

Taylor Swift shows off some celebrity crochet fashion via @HuffPostCeleb

Crochet Patterns

I’m liking the free crochet pattern for a chevron scarf from Grow Creative which I found thanks to JD @craftgossip

Beautiful free bobble crochet scarf pattern from Pigtails

Hobzy (@hobzyapp) has a free crochet pattern for a Valentine’s garland

@lionbrandyarn now has a series of Zodiac Sign scarf patterns in knit and crochet. Love it! This one is the Aries crochet scarf.

I love this variation on the classic granny square with rainbow outlining, free from @AboutCrochet

Other Crochet Tutorials

@crochettoday shared the tutorial I put together on How to Crochet a Granny Circle

How to Crochet Cabled Pineapples via @crochetkitten, who also shared some great info this week on crochet gauge

Crochet Tips

I enjoyed the CGOA’s article and information on Becoming a Crochet Teacher via @cgoaboard

Tips for customizing crochet gloves from @krwknitwear over on @crochetmedaily

Crochet Books

The new crochet wraps pattern book by @hotlavacrochet continues on its book tour (stopping here on this blog on the 24th!) with great posts in particular over on @hookedonknitting and Not Your Granny’s Crochet

@planetjune announced that her new book Idiot’s Guide: Crochet is now available for pre-order. In other news, June is rebooting her crochet commissions model and I loved reading about that process.

Crochet / Craft News

I was intrigued to see that The Telegraph had an article about the “new trend” of men knitting. I’ll be writing more about this one next week but for now I’ll say that I’m glad to see this getting covered since I do think there’s still a stigma around men doing needlework. But it’s not a new thing. And here are some awesome male crocheters to prove it.

Other Crafty Things

Escher Prints as Knitted Blankets. Amazing! Via @make and @jacobsw

Mr. Finch turns Vintage Textiles into Flora/ Fauna Art via @colossal

Yarn Review by @UCrafter of Twizzle by Mountain Colors Yarn

Attic24 shared her crochet studio. I previously featured her in my roundup of crochet homes I’d love to retreat to!

Sarah Pope shared a really beautiful essay on winter knitting over on Brooklyn Tweed. Here’s an excerpt but do read the whole thing; it’s amazing: “his is how I began—the first of three beginnings before the craft caught my heart and clutched it for good—nestled against my grandmother in her blue chair in a house on a hill in the Connecticut woods, the winter I was nine. Granny was not the knitting grandmother of popular imagination, all ample lap and sugar cookies beyond the pointy sticks. She had no permanent wave, no gold-plated baubles, no lipstick or sweater sets or collection of porcelain angels. Granny was boldly original.” Image credit: Jared Flood/ Brooklyn Tweed

Special Thanks

Thanks (and congrats) to @UCrafter for sharing on her crochet blog that I’d awarded her the 2013 Most Awesome Crochet Blog Award for Best Crochet Interviews and that she was also chosen by AllFreeCrochet as one of their 100 Favorites: The Most Popular Free Crochet Patterns of 2013 and named one of their favorite crochet bloggers. She shared links to her interviews with me here and here, and said, “find out more about what I love about her blog here.” She mentioned that she loves the awards as well as these weekly link love posts and she shared specific links to some of her favorite crochet interviews on her site. Check it out!

Thanks to Stitch and Unwind, All Free Crochet and Prime Publishing for sharing the info about my Awesome Crochet Blog Awards. Stitch and Unwind was the winner of the Best Crochet Pattern Roundups 2013.