Designer Margaret Hubert Shares the Inspiration Behind Her New Book

Our friend and long-time knit/crochet designer, Margaret Hubert has a new book, The Complete Photo Guide to Crochet, coming out in January. We caught up with her to ask her about this project and the inspiration behind it.

What inspired you to create this book?
Linda Neubauer, my editor at CPI and I were talking about my next book. We thought that we needed to come up with something different, rather than the usual 20 designs that I had been doing.

I thought with all my experience with designing and teaching that I could somehow share some of this knowledge with my readers.

Why did you choose a photo guide?
CPI has a whole series of The Complete Photo Guides to —-, but they did not have any pertaining to knitting and crocheting, so I thought this might be a great addition to their series.

What made you decide to make a stitch guide, rather than say, just a pattern book?
As I said, I had done about 9 other pattern books for CPI, always the same format: 20 Easy Designs. I thought that we needed to change that, come up with something a little different.

I did not want to do a book with just page after page of stitch patterns either. I proposed that we do a photo stitch guide book, with lots of close ups so that readers could see the stitches, but to also include a pattern in each section, so that readers could see how to apply the stitches in a garment or project. We also included stitch diagrams, which more and more people are finding helpful.

In addition to all this, I wanted to include other designers, who have special areas of expertise, and their contributions are terrific. The book includes a wonderful History of Crochet by Nancy Nehring, and the story of Lacis. So you can see, the book is a lot more than a stitch guide.

While we were discussing the crochet book, it was decided that we should also do the same book in knitting. So–before actually finishing The Complete Photo Guide to Crochet, I started working on The Complete Photo Guide to Knitting. Both books are now finished; Crochet to be released January 1st, 2010, Knitting to be out early Summer 2010. I loved working on these books.

If you could pick one tip from your book to tell our readers about, what would it be?
I would encourage readers to try some new stitches, out of their comfort zone, and apply them to a design. But most important tip that I can give, is to learn finishing your items neatly, always pin before you sew, and check your seams.

And just for fun: Do you have a favorite stitch pattern?
One of my favorite stitches is a real easy one, it is a combination of single crochet and double crochet, and reverse on the next row. This stitch is so versatile, to make it look new and different, just change size of hook and yarn.

Related links:

• The Complete Photo Guide to Crochet on Amazon.com
• Margaret Hubert’s blog: My Hooks & Needles
• Margaret Hubert on YarnCraft Episode 22