Book Review – Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts

Before I dive in to  tell you  about what I think about this book, I just want to let  you know that on the page called Current Crafty Chores 🙂 we will try to keep you up to date with the projects we a currently working on.  It may be one or, as  most of the times, there will be more. We will have post about each of them anyway, once they are finished. It just might take a long time to  show up, depending on long it will take to deal with that particular project.

So, I have chosen the fist book with projects that I bought.  (I bought it from The Book Depository – the UK site)

I picked it because as the sub-tile says, it has 150 inspired projects; and that was  what I wanted at the time, which was about two years ago.

I was impressed when I got the book as it contains a lot of techniques that help you  in creating lovely original projects, from soft furnishings to simple clothing.

The book is structured into two main sections ‘Basic Techniques’ and ‘Projects A to Z’. Although  the first section is  interesting, I was more attracted to  the second section of it, with all the lovely projects. And there are all kinds of projects.

It also comes with a  CD , which has lots of patterns and templates for your projects, not just the ones used in the book, but so many more.

My  first project from the book, was the Flowering Branches. First  thing I  did was to  go and get some twigs and so I went for a walk in the park. No worries, it is close to where I live, the ‘back entrance’ is practically across the street.  Then,  I had to go shopping as I did not have any ribbon. It did not take me long to find some lovely ribbon. When I got back it took me some time to figure out,  it will be time consuming to wrap the ribbon around  my branches and I’d better pick  with the ones that do not have too many branches.  Otherwise, I’d be at it for a long time and I did want a quick project. Once my twigs we all ribbon-ed, it was time to make the flowers. In no time they were ready. So only the thing left to do was to put them on to the branches. I just pinned them to the branches, you  can not even tell  the pins are there.

I also made loads of aprons. I chose to use the ‘Baker’s Apron’ as an inspiration.  Just made it shorter and for the D ring one of the ends of the neck straps was loose so depending whom  it was intended for, they could have it adjusted by pulling it or loosening it so it was not to long for them.

Some other projects I made from this book are grand dad’s (by hubby’s  side) wall organiser, that I made for Christmas. For his present  I was inspired by two projects in the book. The ribbon-striped bulletin board and the multiple-pocket bulletin board. It did not come out as I wanted it to, but  it was a good try. Most of all Grand dad seemed to like it.

I have also made some pillow cases, both with zips and without. My pillowcases all have openings, so I can wash them. Made more than the ones Bella is defending by I do not have pictures of them.

I tried to get Bella away, but she likes her spot on the puff . Well at least she is a good model. Not like Ginger, who  turns  away when you  want to take a picture of him. Most of the time, I have to follow him for quite a long time to get a good snap.

However the book has many more projects. these are some  I will be making in the future.

So if you  are a novice and want to try your hand at some projects I think this book will help you. The only trouble with it is that it does not have that many diagrams. I tend to construct my projects by  the diagrams, that’s what I tend to do with the Simplicity and Vogue patterns in UK, anyway. Sometimes I struggle with the written instructions, maybe because my first language is not English.