I've been picking a different stitch to swatch from my new crochet stitch book when I have a spare minute here and there.  I'm really loving it.  Doing little swatches like this is like the equivalent of doing quick sketches.  It's wonderful practice.

The big one on the left is very peacock feathery ... I experimented with closing up the waves in the top two rows.  It's very difficult to photograph details in the shiny cream yarn, but that's what I have to doodle with.  You'll just have to trust me.

I really like the ones with the arches.  I've never tried anything like this and I love the technique.  I need to take another look through my other stitch books and see if I just missed them or if they really are new-to-me.

Michelle asked about what crochet stitch books I own.  I thought you guys might all want to know:

Crochet Patterns Book 300 is my newest addition, courtesy of Alex.  This is where all the patterns above are coming from.  There are all sorts of patterns in the book.  Square number 10 on the cover is tree shapes.  I think it would look cool in rows of brown and green.  I'll have to try that someday.  I slobbered all over this companion crochet motif book when we were at Kinokuniya last weekend.  It's going to be my next crafty purchase.


300 Crochet Stitches (The Harmony Guides, V. 6) (Paperback).

220 More Crochet Stitches: Volume 7 (The Harmony Guides) (Paperback)

I got these free for joining a craft book club in the mid 90's.  I wish they were spiral bound, because they are a pain to keep open when I want to use them.  Most of the time I photocopy the pattern I want and carry that around with me. The books are mostly pattern stitches but they also have some filet crochet charts, motifs, Irish crochet, edgings, Tunisian stitches, and granny squares/hexagons.  They have been super useful for me.  They are both full of post it notes reminding me what I used certain stitches for.  The tricky part is that one of them is written in American stitch notation and the other isn't.  It took me a while to figure out why I couldn't duplicate the stitch patterns in the one book.  Finally I figured it out because I noticed the double crochet graphic in the one book was the same as the single crochet in the other.  I'm not sure if the books on Amazon are like this, too.  I just thought I'd warn you.

I've had this one since 1989.  There are a ton of crochet stitches in here, but nothing too fancy.  I always loved that there were all kinds of needlework in the book, but the truth is I've only used it for crochet reference.  Maybe I should try out some macramé soon.