I have been crocheting for less than three months and I was ecstatic to find a copy of this book. Just what I needed! I had been trying to learn from an older crochet book (1980), which doesn't cover today's basics such as magic ring. I'd rather not have to depend on an internet connection (always nice to have but not always available in the back of beyond) for crochet instructions, so a good book on the fundamentals of crochet is a necessity. My only quibble (so far) is that although she has a good sidebar on US vs. UK crochet terms, neither "US" nor "UK" is found in the index. For some reason it's "British stitch names", which is not how people refer to the phenomenon ever. Props for covering UK hook sizes (and props twice over for recognizing that it's UK/Canadian: I shall have to be aware of that when I sort through my collection of loose hooks, anything of my step-grandmother's will likely be sized differently from the ones I've bought recently). A nod to the existence of the British and Canadian standard DK yarn (which we call wool) would have been appreciated when discussing yarn weights however.

Best quote from the book so far: "Never spit splice after drinking coffee or red wine... for obvious reasons." I'm looking forward to crocheting in the company of Lily Chin. ( )

This is a book that beginners will no doubt find useful, but for a cover price of $17.00, which I paid in order to be supportive of my local, independent bookseller, I didn't feel I got my money's worth.

The graphics are good, but the information contained is not that substantial, and at least 1/3-1/2 the book is exactly the same text as is contained in "Lily Chin's knit tips & tricks." Granted the words are most likely Chin's own so she's not technically plagiarizing, but it was more than a little dispiriting to find that the books had such huge chunks of shared material. What made me suspicious and caused me to check was that the editing was sloppy, and in at least three places Lily referred to "knitting" in the crochet book when it should have been crochet or crocheting.

This definitely does not make my desert island crochet book cut, but if you are new to crochet and can get it at a good priced used, (should be less than $10, ideally around $5), you might be able to learn something that you can use. ( )