When you get a new craft book...

When you get a new craft book, what do you do?  Do you page through it for ideas? Do you read it front to back?  Do you immediately jump in and start doing?

I got a pile of new yarn books the other day at our discount bookseller, Half Price Books.  I got a couple of knitting books (a girl can dream) and a crochet stitch book.

My method of using new craft books? Grab yarn, grab hook, make stuff.  In this case, I decided to make washcloth "swatches" of stitch patterns.  It's a great way to learn new stitches and their rhythm, and you get some useful end product.  I use cotton yarn for it.

I made this one in Basketweave:

Ha - don't you hate it when you don't see the cat hair till you try and use your pics? Oh well. I have a cat and two dogs, and two preschoolers on top of it. One hair is the least of my worries!

I like the Basketweave - the stitch is actually much easier than I ever thought it would be.  I didn't like how long the woven sections appeared though. I think I'll switch that up next time.  Anyway, I think this would make a really cute baby blanket in the right yarn.  And a nice scrubby dish cloth. :)

And this one in "Starburst":

It's hard to see the pattern with variegated yarn. Next time I'll use a plain color instead.  It's lot of intertwined circles.  Still a scrubby cloth, but less so than Basketweave.  Not sure I'd use this stitch again.  Though I'm sure it looks better blocked.

I have a couple of other stitches I want to try, but I have a few projects I've committed to make, and new books got put on the back burner for a while.

How do you use your new craft books and supplies? Do you just dive in?