Bead Crochet Jewelry: Tools, Tips, and 15 Beautiful Projects

Rating:
Summary: complete instructions, great designs
Review: i bought this book at one of the author's classes (the black and white lariat on the cover) at last year's bead and button show. the class was fabulous, ms. lehman is an excellent teacher.

her teaching ability shines in the book. all the information you need for bead crochet is here, plus some fantastic designs. the technique of tubular bead crochet is thoroughly covered, with suggestions for avoiding repetitive motion problems. if you make the projects in order, you will have mastered tublar bead crochet.

as an instruction manual, this book is much, much better than the interweave press bead crochet book. it assumes a basic knowledge of crochet and some knowledge of beads, but that's all it assumes. instructions are complete and there are photos to help illustrate the instructions. there are even instructions on how to recognize and correct mistakes. and, maybe the best feature of this book, the author explains her way of changing yarn in the middle of a project--which makes stringing mistakes annoyances instead of disasters.

the beads used in the projects are identified as completely as possible (miyuki numbers, for instance), which is helpful if the beader wants to substitute her own color(s) or reproduce the example exactly. finally, there is a convenient resource guide for all the items used in the projects, including lmapwork beads by independent glass artists.


Rating:
Summary: Probably the Best Bead Crochet Book
Review: The former reviewer said it all! There's not much I can add except to say that when I was teaching myself to bead crochet several months ago I bought every bead crochet book I could find. They all added to my eventual success, but this book helped the most because of the many details it covers and because the projects are so lovely and inspiring. The hope that I could eventually make any of them kept me going when I despaired of ever getting beyond a starting chain.

I also very much like that the brand, color #, and size of each bead and finding is given. That is a huge help! Also given are resources for the beads and findings.

If you can get just one book, get this one.