For anyone who has seen this photo of the bookshelf unit I have dedicated to crochet books:

it might not seem possible that I would need yet another crochet book. But be that as it may, yesterday, after lunch and before my son’s trumpet lesson, I headed over to JoAnn Fabric and Craft with the hope that a book I had eyed several days earlier had not been sold.

To my great relief, it was on the shelf seemingly where I had left it. I picked it up, got in line, made my purchase, and headed to the trumpet lesson.

Once we arrived home, I needed to take some photos while there was still daylight and then make dinner. With all the tasks of the day that remained, I did not get a chance to open the book. This morning, however, I awoke to one of those rare and delightful weekends where I had no obligations to meet, no practices to drive to, no shopping to be done.

The first thing I did after pouring a cup of coffee was to grab my new crochet book. The title promised a lot:

I opened it to see if it would deliver on the promise.

My first stop was page seventy-four which the index indicated was the page where I would find directions for how to make a two-color spiral which was the primary reason I had purchased the book.

Once I made my way to page seventy-four, I surveyed the instructions. I would need a hook, two colors of yarn, and a stitch marker.

I had no trouble locating the hook or the yarns I would use, but the stitch marker was another matter. I tend to use scraps of yarn to mark increases and in crochet one does not often leave a loop dangling, so it took a couple of anxious moments of sorting through a small case where I store such things before I found what I needed.

Once I had the tools and materials I needed, I read the directions given on page 74 and got busy:

To my amazement, I experienced success for another five rounds:

I haven’t had a chance to look over the rest of Ms. Crowfoot’s compendium, but if the directions for the spiral are any indication, this may well be one of my most useful crochet book purchases ever.

Related Post: My new desert island pick