Interweave offered me review copies of two of its new iPad apps, and since I’m always hearing crafters on Twitter asking where the good apps are, I was excited to check them out.

Interweave has quite a range of apps now. (Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly difficult to find a single web page that shows you all of them.) You can get a preview of each title for free, and then within the app, you can purchase individual “eMag” issues. I wanted to try two titles with differing aims: Live Wire, which is an instructional app for making wire jewelry, and Colorways, which is an informational title about natural dyes and textiles.

The downloads each took a couple minutes on my iPad. (You can go in and view your app while it’s in mid-download, but that means you’ll have lots of pauses in the reading experience while individual pages finish downloading. So it’s better to make yourself some tea while the download completes.)

The issue price of $4.99 is great as compared to the prices of many print magazines these days. Both apps, however, contain some sponsorship presence – Live Wire has a one-page ad from an outside sponsor, plus another one-page ad for Interweave wire titles. Colorways contains a few ad pages as well, and all for various Interweave publications for the spinning and dyeing crowd. I didn’t find any of this very problematic – given the quality of the production here, I’d think some sponsor dollars/house advertising would be helpful for keeping the cover price down.

So, let’s take these one at a time…

Live Wire is an excellent entry point for what I’d call advanced beginners with wire. Much of the instructional content is aimed at the basics (opening a jump ring, making wrapped loops), but the project set also involves some hammering and patina.

The projects themselves are pretty and interesting, and each one provides a nice entry point into a specific wire technique. Each project is covered in complete step-by-step fashion.

There are also show-and-tell sections covering the tools and materials you’d need and the basics of handling wire.

I love embedded video in ebooks – it’s so great to see a key technique in motion, with helpful tips from an expert. Denise Peck’s videos on making link loops were worth the five bucks to me all by themselves. And I loved that even the hammering and patina projects had their own basics videos.

Live Wire also takes advantage of the on-screen format to really maximize the size of the step-by-step photos for each project. The photography throughout is wonderful – Clear, sharp-focused, and perfectly framed to communicate the kinds of tiny details wirework is all about.

The Resources page, of course, links you directly to company websites – another thing apps can do better than print.

Speaking of print, each project has an accompanying PDF, which you can open in iBooks and, assuming you have a wireless printer connection for your iPad, print them. Personally, I felt this was a slightly weak point in the app. The PDF’s, constrained as they are by an 8 ½” x 11″ page format, contain much smaller photos. I’d use the easier-to-read layouts from within the app, but I can see where having a means of printing individual projects without consuming too much fo your toner could be useful for some users.

Colorways was, for me, an interesting glimpse into a craft I know next to nothing about. This app seems to be aimed at people who already have a good working knowledge of dyeing textiles; there’s a fair amount of jargon that doesn’t have explanation.

This app is much more about storytelling than how-to’s, however. As a newbie, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about cochineal (a red dye made from dried Peruvian bugs), the various natural colors of cotton fiber, a Japanese sun-dyeing technique called Kakishibu, and the Hèrè jè Center in Mali, which is a micro-enterprise teaching women and girls to dye beautiful cloth as a means of income and independence.

There is a also little how-to in here: Chris Conrad has a fascinating demonstration of Kakishibu, and India Flint demonstrates a technique called “cold-bundled eco-printing,” in which fabric is rolled with natural ingredients and then left to imprint slowly over time.

As in LiveWire, the still photography is excellent. I did feel that the videos in Colorways left a bit to be desired. I loved, for example, watching the Kokishibu demonstration and seeing a woman in Guatemala spinning cotton yarn. But there are quite a few “talking head” videos, in which the author or subject of an article stand and talk about the subject matter, and for me, these quickly grow stale, as they’re missing interesting visuals.

All in all, though, I think these apps are beautifully-presented and each one does what it does well. I like that Interweave is reaching artists and crafters at a variety of levels, and hope to see even more issues aimed at beginners and more advanced makers. The nice thing about these apps is their relative permanence as learning resources, which is a weird thing to say about a digital product, but bear with me. Print magazines, as we all know, tend to become clutter over time. We shelve them, or box them up, or trip over them in the hallway, but no matter how we archive them, locating a specific article at a specific time may require some time and effort.

Digital apps like these take up no space, other than disk space on my iPad. So I can easily refer to them again and again and easily get at specific pieces of information when I need them. Well done, Interweave!

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So, I’m still working out what I want to do with craft book reviews going forward, but I’ve had this in my stack for some time. I love it dearly for a number of reasons, and wanted to share.

In the world of sewing-project books, Simple Modern Sewing is a great example of function trumping form. That sounds like I think it’s not a pretty book – and that’s not the case at all. I love the art direction here, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

The book contains eight full garment patterns, the pieces of which you can mix, match or alter to build 25 different garments. There are dresses, blouses, pants, and skirts, and all are designed to be the kind of simple, comfortable things you pull out of your closet all the time.

The author, Shufu To Seikatsu Sha, has designed a really usable and charming collection of silhouettes here.

The full-size pattern sheets come in an envelope bound into the back cover, ready for you to trace onto your own pattern paper. There are clear markings to help you see which pieces go with which patterns.

I’m going to get nerdy about the instructional quality in just a moment, but before I do, let’s look at some of these garments. Here’s a simple yoke-front skirt with a cute ribbon-tie detail.

As you might have guessed by now, Simple Modern Sewing is an English translation of a Japanese sewing book. So the designs here reflect that overall simplicity.

These garments are designed as a collection, so you can layer them easily.

…And in all seriousness, I’m very much in love with these models. I assure you, by the time you get to be my age, you are very, very tired of stick-thin scowling 20 year-olds representing all of fashion. The ladies in Simple Modern Sewing are delightfully real, and this helps me not only appreciate the garments, but better understand how they might fit on me. And frankly, looking at them is just a huge relief.

…Speaking of which, I like that the sizing data for each pattern is given with the ease included, which means these measurements reflect how big around, essentially, the garment is at each measurement location. If I know my own measurements, and I know these measurements, then I have a much better idea of how I can expect the garment to sit on my various curvy bits.

OK, so, instructionally… for techniques you’ll use over and over, like seam finishes or tracing patterns, you get lovely photo instructions like these.

Then, each pattern has fully-illustrated step-by-step instructions. I think anyone who’s done at least a little straight-seam sewing would be very comfortable with these diagrams – they’re phenomenally clear. And there’s a nice range of simpler to more complex projects, so if you’re a beginner, you’ll have plenty of accessable options.

This gets at what I mean by “function trumping form:” the lion’s share of the pages here are actually devoted to these carefully-illustrated sewing instructions. To me, this is what a good sewing book should do – focus on teaching me sewing! I don’t tend to need lavish, beautifully-styled photography – in most cases, it doesn’t give me a reliable idea of how the garments will fit me, and the lavishness frankly inhibits my ability to imagine how the garments might fit my actual (and considerably less lavish) lifestyle.

Lastly, my photos don’t really communicate this well, but for each pattern, the book offers great advice on fabric choices and extra little details you might add to make the project uniquely yours. This book will stay in my library, and I’m already making a fabric list for my Spring wardrobe. (A girl can dream in January, right?)

(The disclaimer: Interweave sent me a review copy.)

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(Note: today, I have one more blog tour stop for you, and then I’ll be entering a slightly different era of book-reviewing. More on that later.)

I’ve always liked Stacey Trock‘s amigurumi, so I was happy to join the blog tour for her latest book, Crocheted Softies: 18 Adorable Animals from Around the World.

The term “softies” deserves mention here. These are perhaps not exactly amigurumi, which tend to be more petite in size. These designs are quite a bit larger, like the stuffed animals you recall from your childhood.

Stacey has done some fun things here. As you can see, the project collection represents animals from all over the globe – thankfully, not neglecting outer space. :-)

There’s a lot of cuteness going on here, to be sure. I’d make any one of these designs for a certain pair of excellent kids I know. And you get a nice mix of simpler shapes for newer crocheters and more complex stuff for veterans.

Instructionally, I think Crocheted Softies is excellent. There’s a thorough chapter of basic information with a generous number of diagrams like these to illustrate. If you’ve at least handled a crochet hook at some point, you could absolutely learn everything you need to know to make softies from this book.

For you veterans, Stacey does some interesting things with working into only the front or back loops of her stitches as a means of getting a tighter fabric that hides stuffing, or creating different textures on different parts of an animal.

There’s also some fun stuff going on with yarn choices. These (cuuuuute) alpacas are made (of course) from alpaca yarn. The panda is made from bamboo yarn. There’s a kiwi made from New Zealand Merino. You’ll also find patterns that use corn-based yarn, milk-based yarn, recycled silk, and soy. What a fun way to experiment with fibers!

I really love the range of shapes in these patterns – stuff that’s articulated way beyond the simple bears and cats that have appeared in many other books. And you see some thoughtful repetition of shapes, too, so once you’ve mastered the bulgy eyes on this snail, you can use that skill in the crab or alien patterns.

Similarly, there’s a smart page of basic shapes that show up in many of the patterns, so you can easily refer back there… or use them to build your own animals.

This is my favorite pattern in the book – hands down. The world needs more crocheted jellyfish.

The patterns are written in row form with abbreviations (so, no diagrams, in case you happen to be a diagram-lover).

If you’d like to check out the rest of the blog tour, the schedule is on Stacey’s website.

(The usual disclaimers, of course… Martingale & Company sent me a review copy, and the title links above are affiliate links. Crochet on, you crazy crochet diamond!)

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I suppose I should start this review with a big disclaimer: I was the technical writer for this book! So I’m probably going to find a lot of reasons to recommend The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook to you. But I hope you’ll bear with me! I’m genuinely excited about the instructional quality of this one – and we know that I always harp on instructional quality in my reviews.

So, just to give you a lay of the land, this book comes from Nora Abousteit and Alison Kelly of BurdaStyle.com, which is one of my favorite online communities. (I first wrote about it way back in 2007, and did a podcast that same year.) BurdaStyle is all about open-source sewing. There are lots of patterns available for download, and users do all kinds of customizations to them and share their creations. Tutorials abound, and there’s a lot of helpful disucssion – in short, a wonderful online resource.

This book has a similar “resource” approach, and as such, it’s rather different from many of the sewing books I’ve seen emerge in the past few years. It’s not just a collection of pretty projects. It’s an instruction manual that will teach you to sew from the pattern up.

At the heart of the book are five basic patterns: one skirt, one blouse, one dress, one coat, and one bag. Each is cute in its own right, as you see here.

For each of these patterns, the book walks you through the process of making it as is…

…And then the book shows you how to alter the basic pattern to create two entirely different variations, each one created by a member of the BurdaStyle community.

…And then, for further inspiration, it takes you through a couple pages of pretty variations made by other BurdaStyle members.

So really, the book contains 15 sewing projects, but if you spend some time with it, you’ll have in your hands the tools to create endless garments.

Everything starts with the pattern sheets, which are included in a handy envelope inside the back cover. If this looks like a bit of a mishmash, I promise, there’s a ton of method to this seeming madness. There are actually several patterns here, superimposed over one another.

These pattern sheets aren’t designed for cutting out. Instead, you trace them onto your own paper, and this is what gives you the freedom to make any alterations you want. The book walks you through the tracing and alteration processes in detail. (I know, because these are some of the parts I wrote.)

Within the projects, you’ll find text instructions backed up with diagrams. Everyone who worked on this book put a huge amount of energy into making everything very clear and beginner-friendly. (I know, because I was there.) If you’ve never sewn before, there are chapters covering all your basic materials and techniques.

This actually brings me to something important I’d like to say about The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook: It’s wholly beginner-friendly, but the projects have not necessarily been dumbed down for beginners. I do like a sewing book that, say, uses all straight seams or blocky shapes to create a beginner experience – that’s certainly one valid approach. But here, you have access to ground-up learning and well-fitting, fashionable clothes.

The depth of this measurement chart should tell you that fit is an important element of these projects. I think this book is an excellent introduction to tailoring. It walks you through choosing the best fabrics for various garment shapes, and making a muslin and altering it for your body. These are important, foundational techniques not often covered in beginner sewing books.

Oh – and incidentally, the book patterns are graded for sizes 0 – 14.

I don’t want to go on and on here – let me show you just one more thing. Here’s the basic blouse…

…And here’s one of its variations. Isn’t it amazing how much you can change a garment with some simple pattern alterations?

So, yeah. I’m really proud to have been part of this book, and I’m excited at the thought of all the new seamsters it’ll create. If you make something from The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook, I’d love to see it!

(One more tiny disclaimer: the title links here are affiliate links. Sew on, you crazy sewist!)

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I’m always excited to see crafty ebooks taking steps forward, and here’s a nice example. Knitting Video Stitch-Alongs, which is available on Apple’s iBookstore, is a video-enhanced ebook of specialty knitting stitches – a nice teaching tool for experienced beginner or intermediate knitters.

Above, you can see the Table of Contents, which tells you what stitches and what projects are included here. Each line is a direct link to that section of the ebook.

This ebook will play on your iPad or iPhone, or you can download it to your Mac or PC (assuming you have iTunes installed). The publisher plans to release it for other platforms like Kindle Fire, Nook, and Android. At the moment, though, these platforms aren’t quite ready for the integrated video display.

Each stitch has an embedded video alongside its pattern. You can easily pop the video to full-screen size to get a closer look. Video quality is excellent, with each demonstrator giving a little history of the stitch before going to a hands-only view. The pattern is demonstrated row by row, and you can easily pause the video at any point while you catch up. I like how the pattern line displays above the video – this was really helpful for my beginner brain to relate pattern-ese to actual hand-motions.

I’m a very beginning knitter, having a basic grasp of casting on, knitting and purling, and I was able to follow along just fine. The patterns don’t demonstrate any particular cast-on, so you should already be comfortable with at least one method. I do have one fairly important caveat: I’ve played with both English and Continental knitting, and I think this is helpful here, as some of the demonstrations in the ebook are shown English and some Continental. If you’re unfamiliar with either one, you may have trouble following all the stitches.

There’s also this super-handy Notes feature, where you can add your own notes anywhere in the pattern.

Setting aside the obvious paper-saving benefits of ebooks for a moment, I think this one gives us a good glimpse of the possibilities for crafty ebooks – integrated demonstrations, easy navigation, and the ability to cleanly add and access our own ideas. It goes way beyond a collection of pretty projects to become a highly useful learning tool. There are more titles planned in this series, and I hope other kinds of crafts find their way into this format.

You can learn more over here, or click through that link to iTunes and purchase your copy (just $2.99!). There’s even a free sample, if you’d like to try it our first.

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If you’ve been in the online creative community for any length of time, you’ve likely read or participated in a conversation about copyright – and more than likely, that discussion became either vitriol-filled or convoluted, or both. In truth, there’s a lot of misinformation and assumption around this subject out there, and our online landscape adds a healthy helping of grey area.

So, when Matt Lowe contacted me, I was immediately listening. He’s an attorney in Colorado, and he’s written an ebook, A Creative Mother’s Guide to Copyright Protection. Would I like to review it, he asked? Oh, definitely.

Image by Horia Varlan, via Flickr

First, let me say that I find the “Creative Mother’s” title a little limiting (and I’ve already shared this with Matt). It may be easy to assume from the outside that all art and craft bloggers are stay-at-home-Moms, but we know that the creative community has far more lifestyle diversity than this.

Still, don’t let the title keep you away. What we have here is a nice, plain-English guide to how copyright works, and a much-needed starting point for copyright discussions in the creative community.

Image by Leo Reynolds, via Tiwtter

Let me re-iterate that point about “plain English.” One thing I always find frustrating in copyright discussions is how dry and confusing lawyer-speak can get – words and words that don’t seem to say anything at all. Matt has done a great job of keeping the language simple and friendly.

In just 15 pages, Matt covers the following subjects: what a copyright is, what can and cannot be copyrighted, whether you need to register a copyright formally (and how to do this), how to clearly express your copyright on printed and online works, and how copyright applies to websites. Everything’s covered in brief and clear terms, with illustrations to break up the text so things don’t get dry.

I do think Matt could write a companion ebook on the subject of derivative works. These are a big issue for the online creative community. Whether we like this or not, much of what we make is derivative, because we’re always awash in images of other people’s work. In many cases, we may be making derivative works without even realizing it. It’s the derivations, and the huge difficulty of tracking where, exactly, they came from, that make copyright discussions in our community so convoluted.

Image by Horia Varlan, via Flickr

This guide doesn’t cover what to do if you feel someone has infringed on your copyright, but then again, that’s a job your your own attorney. What this ebook will give you is a solid grounding in what you can and cannot copyright, and how you express that copyright. And that’s valuable.

Matt also has a copyright guide for Etsy sellers, and guides for making a blog compliant with FTC regulations.

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Today, I’m hosting a stop of the blog tour for Little Bits Quilting Bee: 20 Quilts Using Charm Packs, Jelly Rolls, Layer Cakes, and Fat Quarters. It’s the new book by Kathreen Ricketson, of Whipup fame.

In this book, Kathreen offers a group of quilt designs based on common small fabric cuts:

I’ve bought a lot of fat quarters for Kanzashi making, and there’s always something very attractive about those color-coordinated jelly roll and charm square bundles. As a bonus, they’re usually print-coordinated as well as color-coordinated, so they’re an excellent starting point for simple quilts.

I love this idea especially because to me, the color/fabric-choosing part of quilting feels very daunting. I can pull a few fabrics together for a Kanzashi, but doing this at quilt-scale, yeah, not so much.

So, the book works its way through charm squares, jelly rolls, layer cakes, and fat quarters, with several quilt designs for each. These quilts are decidedly modern in design, with a balance between child-oriented and adult-oriented designs. (And for the record, I just realized that I photographed mostly the grown-up designs here. Sorry. You can see more on the blog tour page at Whipup.)

I think Little Bits Quilting Bee would be a nice gift book for a new quilter, especially one who a family to quilt for. The projects walk you through a solid mix of techniques, including chain piecing, curved piecing, applique, strip piecing, foundation piecing, block assembly, and so on.

(If you’re new to quilting, this may all sound intimidating, but there’s an early chapter that illustrates all these techniques in detail.)

Some of my favorite quilts in the book combine more than one technique, like this one, in which a border pieced from jelly-roll strips surrounds a bold applique center.

I think the assembly directions for each quilt design are well-illustrated, covering block assembly where needed, and showing a full-quilt diagram. The foundational techniques that are part of any quilt project, like backing, sandwiching, quilting and binding, are covered in an earlier “Anatomy of a Quilt” chapter. Each project refers you to the pages you’ll need for those steps, so the whole thing is easy and logical to follow.

Here’s another combo quilt – this time, with charm squares and fat quarters creating a beautiful circle-and-square pattern.

I did have one tiny disappointment with the book, and that’s the fact that there are a few quilts that are displayed only in this casually-draped manner. It’s a beautiful photo, to be sure, but I love the giant applique here, and would love to get a closer view in a full, flat rendition.

As with all the quilts in the book, there’s a complete diagram. I guess I’m just a fan, personally, of seeing it in fabric, too. But really, that was my only issue, and it’s mostly one of visual greed on my part. :-)

Inside the front cover, you’ll find a thick envelope containing the patterns for all the block and applique patterns. Some will need expanding on a copier, and others are at full size.

All in all, a complete guide to simple quilting, using a really smart fabric approach – especially for those who find it challenging to choose and coordinate colors and patterns. Like me.

Your Turn…

Based on our marketing discussion this week, I’m starting to wonder about book reviews on this blog. What information is most useful to you in these? What makes you read a book review? We’ve talked about this before, but as quickly as the blogosphere moves, it might be time to revisit.

(The usual disclosures: Chronicle sent me a review copy, and the title links above are affiliate links. Happy Weekend to you!)

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I’m still trying to get caught up from my Houston trip, so today, let’s kick back and look at some choice images from Rachel‘s collection of vintage craft magazines. I had a splendid time hanging out in her spiffy studio, reading with Emilie.

Rach has lots and lots of McCall’s, Family Circle, and the like from the 70′s, which is when I was growing up and eagerly poring over magazines for crafty ideas. This stuff speaks directly to my brainstem.

…As does this outfit! Cancel all the other craft projects I have in progress, Marge – I need to make me one of these pantsuits!

Did you save all your old wooden spools? Then it’s time to make a chess set.

…And here’s what should adorn your game table while you’re playing! Tower of Bell Peppers FTW!!

…Or perhaps a tower of kale and candles. And baby’s breath.

I thought these brown paper sacks were glorious in their exuberant overdecoration. Anybody got a spare tassel?

Here’s a greeting card made with tiny little pasta! ‘Nuff said!

Here are some funky animals, made by snaking wire into some metallic cord and then bending and wrapping. In the 70′s, we never asked whether something actually needed to be made. That it was new and unusual was quite enough.

Case in point: these wacky car-slippers. Vroom!

But here, my friends, is my very favorite find. This is Dick Martin, who’s apparently known as “the father of 3D plastic canvas.”

He authored over 100 PC booklets for Leisure Arts, and pioneered a number of shaping techniques. He was completely devoted to the stuff, and is quoted in the article I found as saying he didn’t think PC had yet reached “its full potential.”

Amen, Dick Martin! He has a couple “Best of Dick Martin” books out there, which are now on my Amazon wish list and thift-store radar.

Do you see how clever all his PC pieces are? That kachina doll? The melon slices? The sculptural flower-pod thing? This man is my newest hero.

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I am besotted with this slim, high-value book. I Am Cute Dresses: 25 Simple Designs to Sew is authored by Sato Watanabe, who has published several sewing books in Japan. This is her first U.S. book, and it retains the same charm and high instructional quality inherent in Japanese craft books.

I Am Cute Dresses is a collection of 25 dress projects. It encompases a variety of shapes, fabrics and construction details. And all of the dresses are designed to be simple to construct and flattering on everyone. (More on that in a moment.)

Just to give you a complete picture, let me jump ahead of myself a little and show you how the book handles patterns. Each one is diagrammed like you see here, with measurements for each pattern piece and a layout guide. According to the press materials for the book, you can just cut your fabric to these measurements. But I’d actually roll out some big paper and use the measurements to draw myself a pattern first. That way I could alter it as needed and then more easily reproduce the dress later.

Back to the dresses. They are indeed cuter than cute, and would give a fairly new sewer opportunities to practice lots of necklines and sleeves. Sato Watanabe has thoughtfully constructed these dresses so that some can be slipped over your head and others need a side or back zipper – so you can pick and choose according to your sewing skill level.

There are dresses for all seasons, and for kicking back as well as going to a fancy party. And with shapes this simple, altering them to fit your style can be as easy as shortening or lengthening a hem or adding a drawstring or belt.

Every dress has its construction fully diagrammed, which is something I always love. There are also basic text directions, but they’re kept to an absolute minimum.

I know I say this all the time, but this is exactly the kind of instructional detail I’m always looking for in sewing books.

It’s kind of hard not to just keep showing you dresses. I have a lot of favorites here! (If you’d like to see a few more, visit the book’s web page and click the “Preview” tab.)

…But I do want to talk for a moment about fit and sizing. The book’s assertion that these designs “fit everyone” is likely no more true than it ever is, but I do like the approach overall. The book specifies that this pattern collection is sized for average bust measurements between 35-36 inches, and average hip measurements between 38-39 inches.

Obviously, there’s lots of leeway room in the samples you’ve seen pictured here, and the garments are designed to fit loosely. In some cases, too, the pattern measurements have points in them were you can follow an easy formula to customize things for your own body.

If you know a little bit about pattern-making, then you can easily “read” the measurements of the pattern pieces and determine how much ease a particular design will have on your body. And since most of the seams are straight seams, customization isn’t too challenging.

…And while it’s true that some roomy dresses will mostly look good on willowy women, I think I Am Cute Dresses offers up enough variety that most real-woman body types will find something cute to make here.

(Disclosures, as always: Interweave sent me a review copy, and the title links above are affiliate links. I hope you have a lovely week.)

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I’ve written elsewhere here about how I’m getting excited about craft books that go beyond a simple collection of projects. Here’s another example of that genre – Leanne Prain’s Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery.

It’s tempting to speak in terms of “embroidery that crosses the boundaries between art and craft” here, but I think that instead, I’ll say that this book is filled with a wide range of approaches to the craft – from making and embellishing useful items to creating statements.

One of Sherri Lynn Wood’s embroidery-tattooed baby dolls

Hoopla is a project book in that there are projects to try. But mostly, it’s a statement book, a primer on stitchery’s many possibilities, and a big dose of inspiration.

There are many profiles of and interviews with embroidery-makers thoughout the book as well, and they make for fascinating reading. You’ll see folks you’d expect to see, like Jenny Hart and Jamie Chalmers, but you’ll meet many more you may never have heard of, and they’re all doing interesting work.

There are also amazing stories: here’s an image from Liz Kueneke’s participatory embroidery project, in which she stitches city maps onto cloth and then brings these maps to communities, asking people to stitch in details that represent how they relate to their neighborhoods. She’s done this work in Barcelona, Los Angeles, Bangalore, Quito, and Fez, to name several.

One of Jacque Lynn Davis’ abstract embroideries

It’s really hard to represent the scope of Hoopla in a single review. You might want to visit the book’s website and follow the links to some of the artists’ websites. I’m very impressed with the great care Leanne Prain has taken to represent many voices in the embroidery world.

Andrew J. Phares’ Cover Your Shame series

You’ll also see an intriguing mixture of six-strand floss embroidery, crewel, cross-stitch, needlepoint, and stitching on found objects. It’s a very refreshing mix, and I came away itching to pick up a needle and make something.

In case you’re wondering about the projects, here’s a sampling of what the book teaches you to make: a modern cuckoo clock, doilies depicting fairly photorealistic nipples, a classic ransom note pillow, gloves with “prison tattoo”-style embellishments, and this dandy Metrocard pouch by Erin Stanton. Many of the interviewed artists contributed patterns, and believe me, I have only scratched the surface of the project-y goodness.

(Incidentally, the book also contains all the stitch diagrams and materials info you’ll need to make those projects.)

A Free Download, Kids!

Arsenal Pulp Press was kind enough to donate a pattern from the book for you all as a freebie. It’s called “Home Invasion,” and it’s the brainchild of Sarah Terry. She discovered that her new home in Australia was rather, um, well-populated with crawlers, and so she decided to turn that into an art statement by stitching these intruders onto existing vintage table clothes, placemats, and pillow cases. 

Might be just the thing for your Halloween decorating, eh? Click here to download your copy!

(Disclosure time: Arsenal Pulp Press sent me a PDF copy for review. The title links above are affiliate links.)

CraftyPod is a blog about making crafts and making media. If you're seeing this post on another website, I'd love to know. Thank you!

I’ve coveted this book for years, and finally found a reasonably-priced copy on Amazon. First, do you know who Rosey Grier is? Well, aside from being completely freaking awesome, he was a defensive lineman for the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams in the late 50′s/early 60′s. He was one of Robert F. Kennedy’s bodyguards. He did numerous TV and movie appearances. And he’s a devotee of needlepoint and macrame, and he wrote this book in 1973.

I adore this man, and I adore this book.

Rosey tells a great story in the introduction about how he’s always loved to get into conversations with people where he pretends to be an expert at something and bluffs his way through. He was visiting a friend who worked at a needlepoint shop in Beverly Hills one day when a customer came in to ask a question. According to Rosey, he “flew into action with my bluff act,” explaining to this poor woman that she’d have to rip all of her stitching out and start again. And then…

“Well, she was nice enough to listen to me and really cool – she let me talk until I even started to believe that I knew what I was talking about.”

…And then, she challenged him: if Rosey was going to hang out at a needlepoint store pretending to be an expert, why not learn a thing or two about the craft first? And so he did.

To be sure, Needlepoint for Men is a solid primer on needlepoint for beginners. But what I love is the manly orientation. Football metaphors abound, and whatever blessed person edited this thing retained Rosey’s distinctive voice. It’s the best crafty read ever.

The captions are so wonderful, I’ve composited them with their photos here so you can enjoy.

There are chapters on making needlepoint for your sporting interests (like tennis racket and golf club covers), for the ladies in your life (better than “wining and dining her in some classy joint”), and best yet, needlepoint projects for boys. I have to quote this:

” I’ve started getting letters from boys all over the country saying how they used to be ashamed to tell their pals that they liked practicing their violins or pianos, or how they’d die before they’d let anyone know they baked cookies or sewed with their mammas – all until they saw that big old Rosey does needlepoint.”

The whole thing is so earnest and honest and beautful. There’s a great chapter about other men who do needlepoint where Rosey also shares some of the teasing he got when it first became known that he was into the craft. The whole NFL seemed to feel threatened! And then Rosey proceeds to tell how he conned many of his detractors, Tom Sawyer-style, into trying needlepoing themselves. You go, Rosey Grier.

The whole thing makes me want to burst into delighted tears. And, as it turns out, that’s all right:

Want a copy? They’re on Amazon and eBay, but prices fluctuate – keep looking! ISBN 0-8027-0421-2

CraftyPod is a blog about making crafts and making media. If you're seeing this post on another website, I'd love to know. Thank you!

Today, I’m the last stop on the blog tour for Weekend Handmade: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Crafting, which is a lovely lifestyle craft book by Kelly Wilkinson.

Kelly wanted to do something different with her blog tour, so she’s written a post for each stop about a particular segment of the weekend. She’s written about Sunday evenings for us here, and I’ll illustrate her words with images of some of my favorite projects from the book. And with that, here’s Kelly…

All photos are by Thayer Allyson Gowdy

Hi everyone! I’m so honored to be here with Sister Diane and CraftyPod as part of the Weekend Handmade blog tour. Over the course of the tour, I’m breaking my ideal weekend into its different parts, and posting about each part on a favorite blog. Which brings me here – thanks to the always-inspiring Diane for hosting this portion.

Sunday Evening

I am happy to report that I don’t usually suffer from the Sunday blues. In some ways, this surprises me – I wish I could say that’s because I’m an in-the-moment kind of person, but that would be a gross lie. Instead, I think that come Sunday night (if it’s been a perfectly unhurried weekend), I am coasting on the fumes of happy idleness and I don’t let myself think about the busy week ahead.

San Francisco is a terrific city for views, and my husband and I have a couple secret ones up our sleeves, which make for perfect evening picnics. Baker Beach, near the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, offers postcard-worthy views and there are picnic tables tucked into the woods, just beyond the sand dunes. But probably our favorite spot is a single picnic table near a vista called Immigrant Point, perched up high on the bluffs, looking across to the Marin headlands. The sun sets to the west, so we’ll gather a collection of bread, cheese, meats, fruit from our neighborhood shops. Add a bottle of rosé and as the sun sinks into the Pacific, it’s the perfect end to a relaxing and creative weekend.

Thanks, Kelly! And to wrap up, I’ll just touch on a few of the points I usually cover in my book reviews. Weekend Handmade contains over 40 projects, encompassing simple sewing and papercraft along with making jams, body-care concoctions and garden goodies. These are quite relaxed, easy-to-do crafts – perfect for a stress-free sort of weekend.

The project instructions are mostly text, with a few key illustrations. Usually, this kind of structure makes me warn beginners away, but in this case I think the projects are simple enough to be covered well in text-only instructions.

I think where Weekend Handmade really excels is as an inspiration book. It’s the perfect kind of thing for when you want to curl up with a lot of gorgeous photography and see what ideas flow. The production quality here is beautiful, and you’re sure to see something new each time you thumb through.

If you’d like to see what the rest of the blog tour had to say, you can catch up right over here.

(Disclosures, as always: Melanie Falick Books sent me a review copy, and the title links above are affiliate links.)

CraftyPod is a blog about making crafts and making media. If you're seeing this post on another website, I'd love to know. Thank you!

I’ve talked many times here about my love for the granny square, so of course I was thrilled to be a participant in the blog tour for Sarah London’s new book, Granny Square Love: A New Twist on a Crochet Classic for Your Home.

Sarah’s work in crochet is amazingly beautiful. Visit her blog if you haven’t seen it before. She’s a master colorist, and she creates some of the most gorgeous crochet shapes I’ve ever seen. This book is a great representation of her aesthetic, and it’s also just a whole lot of fun.

There are 25 projects in total, smartly arranged according to the room of the house in which they’d be useful. (And all styled in this gorgeous, riot-of-color fashion.) This lovely tablecloth is from the Dining Room chapter, whch also includes this tea cozy:

In all seriousness, if that doesn’t inspire you to get a teapot, I think nothing will.

The nice thing about a book like this is that the instructional component is fairly simple – I think that often leads to better instructional materials, since the production budget doesn’t have to be stretched as thin. Granny Square Love has a Getting Started chapter that lavishly illustrates the basic crochet stitches needed to make grannies, and then covers the process of square-making in detailed step-by-step photos. Bravo!

The modular nature of granny squares allows for so much creative possibility, and I love how playful Sarah’s been with the form. This headboard is such a genius idea – and even more so when you realize that it’s built upon an easily-available 30×40 artist canvas.

Thoughout, projects that are built upon other forms, like lampshades and ottomans, are made using styles that are fairly easy to find in the marketplace. This makes the project set really accessible for beginners. And more advanced crocheters can riff off these ideas, doing the necessary math-y stuff to customize them.

(I don’t know which I love more here – the lampshade or the fabric hanging behind it.)

There are so many amazing color ideas in this book, you’ll likely need to go lie down afterward. As I said, Sarah is extremely talented with color, and she offers great advice throughout – not only on how to build a palette that works in the project itself, but how to choose colors that will harmonize well with the room the project will live in. I learned a lot just from these color commentaries.

(And I really, really need to make a nice, graphic black-and-white granny pillow.)

You’ll also enjoy seeing grannies in some unexpected contexts in Granny Square Love. I adore this window shade idea, which gives the colors and patterns a nice showcase. Can you please help me convince K that what our living room really needs now is a group of large-scale grannies hung on the walls?

Anyway. Whether you love granny squares or crochet, this is a great inspiration book. I just realized that I’ve shown mostly larger projects here. Oops. There are definitely plenty of simpler projects for beginners, too – dishcloths, placemats, potholders and the like. And there are blankets, of course. But definitely, this book will soon have you thinking outside those boxes.

Want to keep up on the rest of the blog tour? It’s right over here.

(Disclosure time: North Light Books sent me a PDF copy for review. The title links above are affiliate links. I hope you’re having a great week so far.)

CraftyPod is a blog about making crafts and making media. If you're seeing this post on another website, I'd love to know. Thank you!

I’ve been saving up some more awesome 1970′s macrame pictures from the stash of books Sandra sent me, plus a new book Barbara was kind enough to send. I love giving this kind of stuff a good home.

As I mentioned earlier, I just love macrame books from this era because this was the absolute pinnacle of macrame. It was as dominant in the craft industry as scrapbooking is today. And that dominance led to a big need for new and unusual projects, and that let to some pure crafting-insanity brilliance.

Let’s start with a few garments – they’re my favorite form of macrame nutty. Definitely, a cheerful gal’s gotta have a snazzy set of hand-knotted suspenders. Can’t you see yourself running into her at the local food co-op? And she always remembers your dog’s name.

The great thing about long, long fringe is that, if you find yourself stuck someplace with nothing to do, you can always continue macrame-ing your own poncho.

My favorite detail here is the neckerchief. Doesn’t this strike you as the wearable equivalent of those wooden-beaded seat covers you sometimes see in taxis?

From here, let’s move on to home decor. I think my house needs a macrame toilet paper dispenser. Especially one dripping with bells – that’ll prevent too much paper-wasting!

…Meanwhile, while seated, you can enjoy the sight of this towel holder. Consider that 34″ finished length for a moment. That’s a towel rack with presence, my friends.

To me, this is a magnum opus of macrame. Seriously – the engineering involved in fitting four plant holders into that curtain? Wow. And the hanging spice rack and utensil holder are perfectly coordinated. After cooking a splendid whole-foods meal, you can peer out this window and wonder what’s going on next door. Why did Janet and Chrissy let that Jack Tripper move in, anyway?

You may have seen macrame room dividers before, but have you seen them festooned with tiny round mirrors? I kid you not, the materials list for this project calls for 1,000 half-inch mirrors. Won’t you take me to Funky Town?

(Big bonus points for the mirrored pedestal in the background!)

No macrame book in the universe would be complete without about 30 or 40 plant hanger designs. Seriously, I have hundreds of pictures of these things in my macrame book collection. And I remember them hanging in homes when I was growing up – I even remember making some myself.

Then IKEA came along and put everything on tasteful plant stands. The bastards.

…Of course, why have a mere plant stand when you could have a macrame extravaganza that houses a glass shelf and a side table?! The finished length of this bad-boy: 83″. You could probably house some birds in the top part.

Bientennial eagle, FTW!! I love that they give you directions for a naturally-hued one as well, so you can make the switch on New Year’s Day, 1977.

The eyes. They follow me everywhere.

There seems to be a certain sadness about the name.

My biggest question is, do you think scrapbooking will look this wonderfully crazy to us in 40 years?

CraftyPod is a blog about making crafts and making media. If you're seeing this post on another website, I'd love to know. Thank you!

I’m something of an oilcloth aficionado, so I loved being part of the Sewing with Oilcloth blog tour. Kelly McCants is just the person to write a solid how-to book for this material, having run Modern June and Oilcloth Addict for a while now.

The book actually focuses on both oilcloth and chalk cloth, with projects that range from easy no-sew things like these organizing tags to more complicated stuff I’ll get into below. I tend to think the collection is best for crafters with a little sewing experience, especially since oilcloth can be a little fussy to work with. There’s a nice chapter of tips on the best presser feet, sewing tools and practices to use with this material.

I’m definitely a fan of the instructional quality of Sewing with Oilcloth. Each project has illustrations for most of its steps, which is always helpful in sewing books. I also like the care that’s been taken to represent different oilcloth patterns in these illustrations, as let’s face it – so many projects use multiple prints, and it’s a lot easier to follow along if you can see what goes where.

There’s also a lot of nice innovation in the project designs. I love the structural quality of these storage bins – what a pretty way to organize craft-room shelves, and the handles make them portable. Great touch with those chalk-cloth labels.

Kelly also does some cool out-of-the-box thinking with this applique pillow project. That bumblebee is created by assembling cut-outs from other oilcloth prints, which is a really fun idea that has me taking a mental inventory of all the scraps I own and what’s pictured on them.

If you have kids to craft for, there’s also a nice selection of bibs, mats, and aprons. I could totally use this art smock myself! But there’s a cute grown-up apron in the book that would work the same way.

I’m also a fan of the overall usefulness of these project designs. As you can see from the cover above, there are also some cute party ideas, but I loves me a day-to-day workhorse item, like this wallet. Which may finally replace the one I’ve been carrying since (no lie) 2006.

This is my favorite project in the book – a roomy messenger bag with a ton of internal pockets. I’d make it in a nice background print like you see here, and then add appliques like the ones on that pillow above. Perfect for riding busses and trains in rainy weather, which is how I spend ten months of the year.

Definitely, check this one out if you’re into oilcloth. Some other blog-tour participants are giving copies of the book away, so visit the blog tour page to find out who!

(Incidentally, if you want to see some of my oilcloth projects, go here, here, here, and here.)

(Hey, it’s disclosure time! Wiley sent me a review copy. The title links above are affiliate links. I hope you have a great week.)

CraftyPod is a blog about making crafts and making media. If you're seeing this post on another website, I'd love to know. Thank you!