Crochet! - A book review and a book giveaway contest!

Crochet continues to gain popularity as a craft or hobby. We can see it everywhere on the internet as we search for anything crochet-related. There are also plenty of magazines and books on this particular craft and there are still more in the making. For those who are beginners in crochet or for those wanting to start it as a hobby, there is an enormous amount of resources for free or available for sale. But there is one book that has just been published and I definitely recommend it to a beginner or any skill level crocheter. A must-have book, Crochet! by Marie-Noȅlle Bayard is brimming with techniques, stitch tutorials and patterns for projects and inspiration. You'd want to keep coming back to this book for reference, as it is full of color photos, clear instructions and up-to-date patterns.
The author, textile designer Marie-Noëlle Bayard, has worked for haute couture designers and for women's magazines. She has written for Marie-Claire Idées and Elle Décoration and is the author of Embroidery: Techniques and Patterns and Sewing: Techniques and Patterns. She lives in France.

Here's a preview:

Open publication - Free publishing - More home

Conclusion: I was actually thrilled to have this book, and it was a long wait considering how far it has traveled. It exceeded my expectations too, from the quality of the book and its content full of color photos, to its easy to understand instructions. I highly recommend you add it to your collection. I find it better than a lot of the other crochet encyclopedias, dummy-books and such. For the most part, its the techniques and pattern stitches that would keep me coming back to the pages of this book.

Disclaimer: This book was received from Soho Publishing as a review copy.

Book Giveaway Contest
Yay! Now its time for some action here in my blog. There's one copy of the book Crochet! by Marie-Noȅlle Bayard that will be given to the lucky winner of this contest I made up. The rules of the contest are as follows:
1. To qualify for an entry you must be a crocheter of any skill level.
2. Post a comment here and let us know your Ravelry name, or share the link to your blog, or a link to your FB page.
3. I will take a peek at your projects and immediately add your name in the contest drawing.
4. To qualify for another entry, like my FB page and make a comment on the post where I share this blog post.
Now that's as easy as 1-2-3 :) Contest ends on July 12. I will assign a number to each entry, and use the random number generator to determine the winner. Winner will be notified immediately. She must be able to give her mailing address, which I will give to Soho Publishing for them to mail the book to.
Lastly, I will also be giving away at least 3 consolation prizes of a pattern gift via Ravelry.

That's all, thank you! Please email me if you have questions.