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.]
It looks like an interesting book! It's also great that it has the full size patterns!!!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great book, thanks for sharing. Love the double rag-dolls.
ReplyDeleteJumbleberries xx
This book is really nice! I made the cat with the fish for my sister (she is a vet)!!
ReplyDeletexxx Alessandra
Looks like a great resource!
ReplyDeleteRetroSandie - yup, it seems to be quite rare for a sewing book to have pull-out patterns like this, it's a great selling point!
ReplyDeleteAlessandra - what a sweet gift for your sister :)
This looks great for me and I particularly like the full size patterns which is really useful but considered a bonus usually.
ReplyDeleteKay - The full size patterns = pretty awesome. I don't think I've seen another book that has them.
ReplyDelete