Would you like to learn how to crochet flowers to use for embellishing your clothing, home décor items and craft projects? Would you also enjoy learning how to use your crochet flowers to make flower-themed craft projects such as a poncho, headband, bracelet, tote bag, placemat set and pillow? If so, Crochet Flowers Step-By-Step : 35 Delightful Blooms for Beginners is just the book you need!
This book will teach you how to crochet three-dimensional, textured flowers that resemble real flowers like roses, lilies, marigolds and pansies. You’ll also find patterns and instructions for crocheting a variety of leaves that complement these flowers beautifully.
This is a book that’s written for beginners. If you have never crocheted before, and you want to learn how to crochet starting from the beginning, this book offers you an enjoyable and easy way to get started. However, you’re likely to enjoy this book even if you are already an experienced crocheter — and you’re likely to learn interesting things from this book even if you’re not new to crocheting.
What You Need to Know About This Crochet Book:
Author: Tanya Shliazhko
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Copyright Date: 2016
ISBN 13: 978-1250077943
ISBN 10: 125007794X
Book Format: Softcover / Trade Paperback
Number of Pages: 112 pages
Cover Price: $18.99 US dollars
Crochet Skill Level: Beginner. These patterns are rated on a scale of 1-3, with 1 being the easiest and 3 being the most challenging.
Crochet Flowers and Leaf Patterns Included in This Book:
- Chrysanthemum — The author recommends this easy crochet flower as a first crochet project. It’s a wonderful pattern to use for practicing your chain stitches.
- Anemone — This anemone is another design that the author recommends as being an excellent first crochet project.
- Crocus — This three-dimensional flower sort of reminds me of a Celtic knot. It’s fascinating to me how the flower petals overlap each other. This is a really interesting project to crochet, and the end result is also an interesting embellishment you can use for finishing another craft project. I think this would make an interesting flower to pin to a hat.
- Hawkesbury River Daisy — This is a simple and attractive crochet daisy pattern featuring loopy petals that are quick to crochet.
- Marigold — Real marigolds have a fascinating ruffled look about them. The crocheted version you see here is also ruffly and intriguing, although it’s not as complex as a real marigold.
- Forget-Me-Not — These sweet little blue flowers would be ideal for embellishing baby layette items or girls’ clothes.
- Hawaiian Plumeria — Have you ever been to Hawaii? If you have, these pretty crocheted plumeria blooms will be a perpetual reminder of your trip. They do resemble real plumeria flowers, and they are likely to inspire smiles every time you catch sight of them. If you haven’t been to Hawaii yet, embellishing your home décor with crocheted plumeria blossoms could at least help you create the mood of being in an exotic location. For the ultimate in surfer-girl style, I suggest stitching a few of these flowers to a tote bag, or to decorative pillow covers and cushions for use in your bedroom.
- Clematis — It’s amazing to me that the author of this book was able to create so many crocheted flowers that are simple yet lifelike. She’s done it again here with these easy clematis blooms.
- Begonia — You can use two different yarn colors to crochet this interesting ruffled flower; if you want to make leaves to go with it, they add a third color to the mix.
- Black-Eyed Susan — This same pattern can do double-duty, because you can also use it to crochet daisies and other similar flowers if you change the color scheme.
- Bumblebee Primrose — This is another gorgeous flower made with two different yarn colors.
- Mini Rose — Learn how to crochet a grouping of petite three-dimensional rosebuds. These little crochet roses would make extra-special embellishments for baby clothes, little girls’ clothes and girls’ accessories. I could see grownups wanting to use them for various purposes too.
- Purple Rose — This small but spectacular three-dimensional flower is surprisingly easy to crochet.
- Harlequin — You can use three contrasting yarn colors to make these striking layered crochet flowers.
- Purple Dahlia — These dahlias are eye-catching three-dimensional blooms with bunches of petals and lots of depth.
- Rain Lily — You can capture the look of a delicate lily flower by using these crochet instructions and two colors of fingering weight yarn. This is one of the easier patterns in the book — but since fingering weight yarn can be a bit fiddly to work with, a total beginner might want to start out with a thicker yarn, which would result in a larger lily in the end.
- Yellow Poppy — These lovely flowers look a bit fancier than the California poppies I’m acquainted with. They’re also more colorful, utilizing three yarn colors in all.
- Cherry Blossom — You can use three different yarn colors to crochet these delightful layered cherry blossoms.
- Lacy Carnation — These fascinating flowers have a ruffly, three-dimensional appearance.
- Cornflower — Rich texture makes these cornflowers both beautiful and touchable. They’d be fun additions to kids’ clothes, but they’d also be lovely for pinning to adults’ hats, bags and other fashion accessories.
- Tulip — This tulip pattern incorporates instructions for crocheting the flower, stem and leaves. The assembly of this flower is a little more complicated than what’s required for making some of the other flowers in the book; most of the other patterns are two pages each, but this pattern spans across 4 pages of the book. The author concludes the pattern by giving you a suggestion for making a tulip bouquet.
- Hibiscus Flower — This hibiscus flower is pretty, but it isn’t as realistic looking as some of the other crocheted flowers featured in this book.
- Blue Columbine — You can crochet these striking layered columbine blossoms using three different yarn colors.
- Chaenomeles Japonica — These are the flowers used to create the beautiful placemat pictured on the front cover of the book.
- Esperanse Rose — This is an unusual crochet rose design that’s quite lovely.
- Ranunculus — It would be hard to choose a favorite flower from this book, but the ranunculas would for sure be right up there at the top of my favorites list. They have a chic, modern look about them that’s really fresh and appealing.
- Passion Flower — These passion flowers are colorful and eye-catching if you work them in the yarn colors Tanya suggests in her pattern. If you make the greenery that accompanies the passion flower, you’ll use 4 different yarn colors in all.
- Tiger Lily — The author has included 2 slightly different, imaginative colorway ideas along with this pattern. This is one of the more challenging designs you’ll find in this book, but Tanya reassures you in the text that it’s workable for new crocheters who have already become familiar with the other crochet flower tutorials included in the book..
- African Daisy — You might be familiar with the popular African flower motif that has made the rounds on the Internet, but this is a whole different type of flower design than that one. This is a flower motif with undulating, textured, three-dimensional petals. There are 3 colors in the design all together if you count the green used to crochet the stem and leaf. This is one of the designs pictured on the front cover.
- Fuchsia — This unusual flower mimics the look of a real fuchsia, although the real fuchsia flowers I’ve seen are so delicate that they’d be challenging to reproduce using fiber and yarn. I think this crocheted version is about as good as it gets, and it definitely looks like an interesting crochet project. The author suggests using these to make a decorative garland. I’d use them in a different way, to make a pretty corsage or lapel pin.
- Gerbera — As far as crocheted flower designs go, these gerberas are pretty spectacular. They’re colorful, using 5 different yarn colors all together if you count the green for the leaves. They’re also extremely detailed, with lots of texture.
- Peacock Flower — This intriguing flower only has three petals. It’s another multicolored design, utilizing 4 different yarn colors. This is one of the designs pictured on the front cover.
- Dandelion — This is a really cool pattern offering you multiple interesting components. You have the opportunity to crochet both the yellow dandelion as it looks when it is in bloom, and the feathery white dandelion seed head as it appears at the end of its lifespan after it has gone to seed. Another component of the pattern gives you separate instructions for crocheting a smaller side-view dandelion flower. This is one of the designs pictured on the front cover. You also get dandelion stem and leaf instructions. All together, 4 pages of the book are devoted to these instructions.
- Day Lily — This three-dimensional crocheted lily is fancy, frilly and richly textured. It’s another of the more complex patterns included in this book, and the instructions take up 4 pages all together. This is one of the designs pictured on the front cover.
- Crochet Pansy Pattern — I’ve fallen in love with this colorful crochet pansy pattern. It’s quite an eye-catching design, utilizing 4 different yarn colors all together. One colorway of the design is pictured on the front cover of the book, but there’s another colorway pictured inside that I like even better.
- Simple Crochet Leaf Pattern — This leaf and all the other leaves in the book have the simplest skill level rating, which means you should hopefully have no problem learning how to crochet a leaf. This one is the easiest of all of them; it’s simple and attractive, and it works well with many of the flower designs included in the book.
- Stylized Leaf — This is an easy yet interesting-looking leaf that’s crocheted in the round.
- Little Leaves — This is one of the fancier crochet leaf designs included in the book; it features a leaf stem with 5 little leaves branching out from the stem.
- Lacy Leaf — In situations where you need a leaf to go with a crochet lace design, this leaf pattern is a great choice; it’s definitely a worthwhile addition to your crochet pattern stash.
Finished Crochet Projects Included in This Book:
- Forget-Me-Not Crochet Headband and Bracelet Set — The flowers that comprise this pretty set are even simpler than the forget-me-nots featured earlier in the book. The author suggests this set as being an ideal first crochet project for beginners. The headband in this set is a one-size-fits-all design, so it’s appropriate for girls or ladies of just about any age.
- Floral Placemat — You can use the chaenomeles japonica flowers from this book to crochet a gorgeous multicolored set of floral placemats. This is one of the projects pictured on the front cover. The author also suggests this pattern as being easily adaptable to other types of projects including table runners, coasters and more, so you could make an entire set of coordinating table linens if you like.
- Gerbera Garden Pillowcase — You can use the pattern for gerberas to crochet this lacy pillow cover for enhancing the type of decorative pillows or cushions you’d place on your couch, armchairs or bed. Once you understand how to join these flowers together create this type of project, you could adapt the design endlessly to make even more projects.
- Landscape Market Bag — You can combine flowers with granny-square-style stripes to crochet this creative, colorful tote bag, which is based on a variation of the harlequin flower.
- Patterned Floral Crochet Shawl — This bright, cheerful shawl is a colorful and fun fashion accessory. It’s crocheted using 5 different yarn colors. The final round is used for joining all the flowers together to complete the fabric of the shawl.
The Best Things About This Book
This Is a Book You Can Really Learn From. — Crochet Flowers Step-By-Step succeeds in its mission to be a beginner-friendly resource for learning how to crochet. It gives beginners bunches of fantastic motivation for picking up their crochet hooks and investing the effort in learning this fun and timeless craft.
An Impressive Level of Realism — When you’ve gazed at paintings or sculptures in museums, art galleries and boutiques, you’ve no doubt noticed that some artists are more talented than others in their abilities to depict a scene or object realistically.
Crocheted flowers are like soft sculptures; their success or failure similarly depends on the talents, vision and observational abilities of the artist who designs them.
Tanya Shliazhko, the author of this book, has a remarkable talent for translating her observations of real flowers into crocheted versions that are recognizable, realistic and detailed, yet simple to crochet. This is not an easy task, and there are not many designers who have perfected the required skill set to the degree that Tanya has.
Floral Eye Candy on Every Page! These crochet flowers are beautiful. They each have their own personality, and there’s a fantastic selection of designs — more than the 35 promised on the front cover if you count the leaves and variations included.
Some of these flowers are chic and sophisticated. Some are frilly, ruffly and complex. They all look like flowers you’d be likely to want to use for decorating your craft projects, stitching onto bags and hats, appliqueing onto your clothes or dressing up your home décor.
Crochet Leaf Patterns Are Included Too. In many cases, the photo shoot for a flower also includes a crocheted sample of whichever leaf design the author has chosen as being the most appropriate choice to complement that variety.
To give you a couple of examples, the simple leaf pattern is pictured along with the purple crochet rose. This allows you to see how the two designs look together, and it also helps you visualize what colors you might want to use for crocheting these designs.
In some other cases, the flower crochet instructions also include information about how to crochet leaves or greenery that would suit that particular flower specifically. For example, dandelions have distinctive ruffled leaves; the dandelion tutorial included in this book shows you how to make dandelion leaves that mimic the ruffly appearance of their real-life counterparts.
The project ideas included in the book are also lovely.
Clear, Intuitive Crochet Instructions
I crocheted a couple of these flowers, and I found the instructions clear and easy to understand. I’m pleased with how my flowers turned out.
The team at St. Martins Griffin has organized this book logically and intuitively. The book starts off with a detailed, visually presented table of contents. You can see a small picture of each flower and compare the photos against each other at a glance. This feature enables you to pick the pattern you want quickly, so you can flip right to it and get started crocheting. If you need basic crochet instructions, there are sections of the book to help you get started. The book also includes a helpful index.
There’s an abundance of detailed information included in this book such as the finished size of each flower, the recommended yarn weight and corresponding yardage required, and the hook size used to make the sample project. These details are omitted in some competing crochet motif pattern books, which has been a source of frustration to many of our readers in the past. You’re likely to appreciate having these insights available when you work from this book.
The photography in this book is done well.
The book is a visual delight; the pages are filled with harmonious color combinations, on-trend fonts and graphics, and appealing design work.
These flowers and the book are both portable; you can take them with you on the go. This volume is surprisingly compact considering all the information packed into it.
Cons
This is a fantastic book overall, and I enthusiastically recommend it; Crochet Flowers Step-By-Step is a worthwhile purchase for any crochet enthusiast who would enjoy crocheting flowers. I didn’t find any shortcomings that would give you a reason to avoid buying the book. However, I’d be a bad reviewer if I didn’t mention a couple of nit-picky things that caught my attention.
There are multiple instances of run-on sentences in the pattern descriptions for these flower motifs.
The other minor thing I noticed: readers who have less than perfect vision, like myself, should take care to read this book in a well-lit environment. The book is readable to me even though my glasses prescription is several years out of date, but the text is small. Thankfully, the crochet charts are large and legible, and the photos of the finished flowers are generously sized and detailed. These are the elements that I think will be most important to the majority of crochet enthusiasts who work patterns from this book.
Conclusion:
Crochet Flowers Step-By-Step is a clear-cut winner of a book. For crafters who want to crochet flowers, I’d recommend this book over many of the competing flower crochet pattern books on the market. I think it’s an especially good value for beginners because beginners are likely to make the best use of all the basic crochet instructions included in the book — but I’d recommend the book to crochet enthusiasts of any skill level.
Where to Buy This Book:
Related Resources
This book is included on our list of best crochet patterns for beginners. It’s also included on our lists of best crochet flower patterns and best crochet motif patterns.
See Also:
Learn More About Crochet:
- Click here to find our picks for the best crochet books.
- Click here to find crochet stitch tutorials and instructions.
- Click here to learn more crochet techniques.
- Click HERE to Find Fabulous Yarn for Crochet and Knitting
- Click here to learn about crochet hooks.
- Click here to find my favorite crochet project bag.
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- Click here to find our beginner’s guide to knitting needles.
- Click here to find outstanding craft project ideas.
Posted By: Amy Solovay
Page last updated on 11-8-2021. Thanks for visiting!