Raffia Crochet: 10 Contemporary Crochet Patterns with Raffia Yarn

by Wool and the Gang

Wool and the Gang introduce you to the craft of crocheting with raffia, a breakthrough new yarn that is great for a wide range of summery projects. Light and eco-friendly, raffia yarn is made of 100% long wood fibre that adds structure to your projects, making it perfect for hats, bags and accessories. This book includes 10 crochet projects all made using Wool and the Gang's Ra-Ra Raffia yarn in a range of colours. Projects include on-trend raffia items such as bags, hats and baskets, which are then further embellished with embroidery in raffia yarn too. General techniques are covered at the end of the book, with instructions accompanied by clear illustrations. This book contains patterns only, no yarn is included.

• ISBN10: 1446307484
• ISBN13: 9781446307489
• Publish Date: 19 April 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: David & Charles
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 72
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Raffia Crochet is a tutorial guide for 10 crocheted projects (13 including alternative finishes) using Ra-Ra Raffia, a proprietary yarn from Wool and the Gang. Due out 18th June 2019 from Sewandso, it's 72 pages and will be available in paperback format.

Wool and the Gang's catalog and this tutorial book are full of punny music related titles (Worn This Way hat, Paper Gangsta market bag, Money Honey clutch, and more). Even the company name is a play on the iconic Kool & the Gang. I appreciated the 'hipness' of the tutorials and I sincerely wish them luck in convincing a new and vibrant generation of fibrecrafters that these are not-their-grandma's-market-totes.

10% of the page content is given over to an introduction of the difficulty categories in the book as well as the company and materials. The following 70% includes the 10 tutorials as well as tips and alternate finishing techniques. The final parts of the book include a comprehensive how-to-crochet tutorial, finishing techniques, a company statement, and a short index.

Ra-Ra Raffia is 100% biodegradable wood fibre and put-up is 100gram/250m balls. The aesthetic is very young, urban, and fashion forward. As far as I can tell with a project search on the designer's website and Ravelry, several of these projects are unique to this book and not available elsewhere. Approximately half of the patterns are available individually from the website as kits (including the raffia yarn). The price of the kits on W&tG's website would more than cover the purchase price for the book with just one project; in other words, the pattern instruction prices on their website for one project, paired with the yarn cost about the same as the entire cost of this 10 project book (+ the yarn). It also should be said that one of the included projects is for a macrame plant hanger. That one is made with chain-crocheted strings though, so it could theoretically be argued that it's crochet also. (pic below).



I was not supplied with yarn for the review, but I did test out some of the patterns with another yarn I had lying around and found no factual errors in the tutorials.

This would make a really great gift for a fashion conscious young person (young adult, professional, etc) who wants to learn to crochet. The tutorials are simple enough for complete beginners; advanced crocheters will likely find little here to challenge them.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.