December Book Reviews Part 2
Liberty Cross Stitch by Helene Le Berre
This book comes hot on the heels of the success of the Liberty Book of Home Sewing. This book combines Liberty fabrics with floral cross stitch designs in 24 projects to make for yourself, the home and for a baby. Projects include bags, a purse, cushion, photo frame, book cover and quilt.
Each project has step by step instructions accompanied by beautiful photos, and at the end of the book you have cross stitch charts and full size patterns. The designs are very pretty and take inspiration from the colours & designs used in the fabric, tying it all together. The projects would make nice gifts or beautiful touches for the home.
This book is published by Search Press and can be purchased here. You can look inside this book here.
3 Fabric Quilts by Leni Levenson Wiener
This makes quilting simple with each design involving just 3 fabrics and simple cutting and piecing & cutting, ideal for beginners. The first chapter covers quilting basics: the tools, materials, choosing fabrics, cutting & constructing the quilts.
The second chapter covers the projects themselves, split into 3 categories: one-block quilts, two-block quilts and strip set quilts. The designs are contemporary and work well with modern colourful large scale prints. Each project has several pages of detailed instructions accompanied with large colourful diagrams and a photo of the finished quilt. This book is very inspiring and for those people who worry they don’t have the time or knowledge to make a quilt it’s a great place to start.
This book is published by Krause Publications and can be bought on the RUCraft website here.
Fabric Flowers by K
ate Haxell
The latest book from the ‘Twenty to Make’ series is all about fabric flowers (obviously from the title) and is chockablock full of stunning fabric flower images to inspire you, with each design having a main image and a second idea. Would have been nice to have an image with one or two of the steps, but not essential as most of the flowers are easy to create and the instructions are well written and easy to follow.
The book starts with ideas of what to do with your fabric flowers such as hairclips, curtain tieback or attached to shoe clips to make the most of ballet flats. The follows ion with information regarding findings and the basic stitches required. There are a wide variety of flowers in this little book, starting from something as quick and simple as the ‘Simple Flower’ through to the still easy but more time consuming ‘Patterned daisy’ seen on the cover. A wide variety of fabrics are used and therefore very different flowers can be created.
This lovely little book is good value at an RRP of just £4.99 and great for all skill levels.
This book is published by Search Press and can be purchased here. Written by Beth Edmondson.
Make Me I’m Yours... Just For Fun
This book is a compilation of 20 projects by various authors to stitch, knit & craft. These cute projects feature a range of crafts including sewing, jew
ellery making, felt projects, knitting and paper crafts. Ideal if you want to try a few different crafts but don’t want to buy a project book for each.
My particular favourites are the felt jewellery (pictured), jeans bag, fabric frames and birdie book. Although this book is fairly small there are plenty of instructions, photos to guide you and templates. Plus at the back of the book there is a useful techniques section to help you along.
This book is published by David & Charles and can be purchased here. 
Make Me I’m Yours.....Cushions
Another book in the Make Me I’m Yours series, with a selection of themed projects from various designers. The projects in this book are split into 3 section, cushions for the sofa, cushions for gifts and cushions for the bed. The cushions require a few different techniques such as appliqué, embroidery and beading/embellishing, so it’s a great way to build your confidence on fairly simple 
projects.
As with the previous book there are detailed instructions, templates and photos as well as the useful techniques guide in the rear of the book. The only problem is once you make one of these cushions you aren’t going to want to give them away!
This book is published by David & Charles and can be purchased here.
