Okay, this book LOOKS beautiful, but looks can be distracting if not outright deceiving.

First, for those of you who are sensitive to certain smells (of which I am one), the ink has an extremely funky smell that you might or might not notice in the bookstore. However, after the book has had a chance to sit on your bookshelf, you will not miss it.

Second, the seductively gorgeous photography of equally gorgeous projects masks the fact that there are many errors in the directions for said projects and no matter what the intended skill level, you have to know enough about crochet to know when the written directions don't match up with the photo. Since there are no international diagrams used, it can be very frustrating when you encounter an error as, depending on your level of experience and pig-headedness, it might take quite a while to figure out that the problem is that you are following the directions as they are stated.

I am not going to rate this book as I have no clue how to balance the competing pluses and minuses. I completed project no. 9 which is a baby blanket. Instead of the off-white, I did one square in red, one in green, one in purple, and one in blue, then made the crosspiece that joined them and the edging yellow. It was absolutely gorgeous.

So, there is a lot to be learned from this book, but you need to know a lot in order to be able to work through the myriad errors.

This book should be a serious contender for your shelf space, but if you aren't the sort of person who can figure out what someone meant to say rather than what they did say, you might do well to stick with Jean Leinhauser as her books have few mistakes.

I like how Pauline Turner books, they are information and well written. Colorful pictures and numerous patterns to help you learn crochet. The book is broken up into mini workshops. ( )

This might be a book I'd like to own. A nice baby blanket sampler idea. Bag and hat patterns I'd like to try too. ( )