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INTRODUCTION
Crochet Kaleidoscope was born out of my love of crochet, color, and geometry. While most of you likely share my love of crochet and color, my fascination with geometry is perhaps somewhat more obscure. Nevertheless, I imagine that many of you also find delight in the ways you can combine crocheted shapes to create intricate and exquisite tapestries.
Motifs are the bread and butter of crochet. From the humble, ubiquitous granny square to more complex and detailed shapes, motifs comprise the building blocks of an endless array of crocheted projects. The versatility of working with individual motifs is unparalleled; from one shape, you can create a blanket, a shawl, a cushion, or a rug. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination (and perhaps the size of your yarn stash!).
When I set out to write this book, I wanted to create shapes that could highlight the ways in which different combinations of colors, whether across a single motif or an entire project, could shift the appearance of the motif or project. In the same way that a twist of a kaleidoscope shifts what you see through the eyepiece, changing up yarn colors, or the order in which you use them, can alter the look of a crocheted piece. Crochet Kaleidoscope offers not only a compendium of crochet motifs of varying shapes and sizes, but also a compilation of alternative ways of working with the colors in motifs to achieve a variety of effects.
As you peruse the motifs in this book, try to envision what each might look like when worked in a different color scheme, or if you alter the rounds on which you change colors. What appears as a flower in one palette may be transformed into a more abstract shape when worked in an alternate palette. Motifs comprised of a single color will contribute to a very different finished object than motifs worked in multiple colors. I offer a substitute palette and/or order of colors for many of the motifs in this book; you can use these alternates as a concrete guide, or as more of a suggestion for how to begin experimenting with your own color ideas. I also offer color choice guidelines in the first chapter to kick-start your own exploration process.
Take some risks, reach beyond your color comfort zone, and let your imagination run wild when it comes to considering how to apply your own unique color schemes to the motifs in this book. With every turn of the crochet kaleidoscope, you're sure to land upon new and exciting ideas to apply to individual motifs, and to projects as a whole.
Happy Hooking!
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Excerpted from "Crochet Kaleidoscope"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Sandra Eng.
Excerpted by permission of F+W Media, Inc..
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