Simple Crochet for Cherished Babies
Jane Davis (Lark Books)
$21.95 ISBN 978-1579907407
Beautifully presented and full of appealing clothes for babies (and toddlers), Simple Crochet for Cherished Babies will inspire you to go and buy some gorgeous yarn and start crocheting. There are dresses and 'onesies', cardigans, hats and booties, all practical but gorgeous clothes, along with four blanket designs and a couple of toys.
The patterns are well laid out, easy to follow and include diagrams. The Getting Started section is also reasonably helpful (as long as you ignore the glaring mistake on pages 14 and 15 where text is repeated and doesn't match the diagrams).
The confusion runs deeper, however—this book was produced in the US and uses different terms for crochet stitches. This brings up questions: should we change? Should they? Does anyone need to change? Are US crochet patterns at all suitable for Australia and vice versa? When you add the complexity of different names for weights of yarn, should we even try to use patterns produced in other countries?
Experienced crocheters who've done the translations before will just need to check the pattern source to know what's what, but this book, unlike many others, helpfully includes two conversion lists, one for hook sizes and one for stitch names. The yarns used in the patterns are all 4-ply or 8-ply, with each brand used listed, though not required—so materials should be easy to source and to substitute.
— Sarah Golder