Sunday 15 April 2012

Book Review: Sew it, Stuff it

Today I'm reviewing Sew It, Stuff It by Rob Merrett, which includes 24 soft toy designs to sew from fabric.


This book has been in my "to review" pile for a while... when it first arrived I took it along to my old knitting club to see what everyone thought of it, and it was a big hit, especially with the ladies who love to make special presents for their grandchildren.


Not having kids myself (or any nieces or nephews) I feel a bit out of touch with the sort of toys kids like, but there seems to be a nice mix of designs in this book. The toys are divided into five sections: toys for babies, toys for the nursery, "activity" toys, animals and dolls.


Lots of the designs have a slightly retro feel to them - there are some "traditional" dolls & some animals that remind me of picture books from the 1970s - but the book also hits several recent trends on the head with an owl and a trio of little Matryoshka dolls.



Each product has step-by-step instructions with illustrations, and then at the back of the book there's a techniques section which is referred to throughout.


One of the big selling points of this book is the tear-out patterns section. All the patterns are printed at full size so it's easy to trace the pattern you want and get sewing without having to enlarge patterns at a print shop or your local library, etc. The patterns are also colour-coordinated and include seam-allowances on the templates.


Sew It, Stuff It is published by CICO Books. RRP £12.99. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

[Disclaimer: CICO Books sent me a free review copy of this book, and the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links which means if you click on them and then make a purchase I get a very small % as a referral fee.]

7 comments:

RetroSandie said...

It looks like an interesting book! It's also great that it has the full size patterns!!!

Clare said...

Sounds like a great book, thanks for sharing. Love the double rag-dolls.

Jumbleberries xx

homemade@myplace said...

This book is really nice! I made the cat with the fish for my sister (she is a vet)!!
xxx Alessandra

Lissa (Bellenza) said...

Looks like a great resource!

Bugs and Fishes said...

RetroSandie - yup, it seems to be quite rare for a sewing book to have pull-out patterns like this, it's a great selling point!

Alessandra - what a sweet gift for your sister :)

Kay said...

This looks great for me and I particularly like the full size patterns which is really useful but considered a bonus usually.

Bugs and Fishes said...

Kay - The full size patterns = pretty awesome. I don't think I've seen another book that has them.