Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts: Basic Techniques for Sewing, Applique, Embroidery, Quilting, Dyeing, and Printing, plus 150 Inspired Projects from A to Z
Product Description
Whether you just bought your first sewing machine or have been sewing for years, Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts will open your eyes to an irresistible range of ideas. A comprehensive visual reference, the book covers everything a home sewer craves: the basics of sewing by hand or machine, along with five other time-honored crafts techniques, and step-by-step instructions for more than 150 projects that reflect not only Martha Stewart’s depth of experience and crafting expertise, but also her singular sense of style.
Encyclopedic in scope, the book features two main parts to help you brush up on the basics and take your skills to a new level. First, the Techniques section guides readers through Sewing, Appliqué, Embroidery, Quilting, Dyeing, and Printing. Following that, the Projects A to Z section features more than 150 clever ideas (including many no-sew projects), all illustrated and explained with the clear, detailed instructions that have become a signature of Martha Stewart’s magazines, books, and television shows.
An enclosed CD includes full-size clothing patterns as well as templates that can be easily produced on a home printer. Fabric, thread, and tool glossaries identify the properties, workability, and best uses of common sewing materials. And, perhaps best of all, when you need it most, Martha and her talented team of crafts editors offer you the reassurance that you really can make it yourself.
The projects are as delightful as they are imaginative, and include classic Roman shades, hand-drawn stuffed animals, an easy upholstered blanket chest, a quilted crib bumper, French knot-embellished pillowcases and sheets, and Japanese-embroidered table linens, among many others.With gorgeous color photographs as well as expert instruction, this handy guide will surely encourage beginners and keep sewers and crafters of all experience levels wonderfully busy for many years to come.
$23.10
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This is just what it says it is: an encyclopedia of sewing and fabric crafts, and it’s the perfect gift for a new homeowner, newlyweds, teenagers, or your best friend.
Included in the book is a CD with patterns and templates for 150 projects, including aprons, bags, bath accessories, bed linens, book covers, clothing, coasters, curtains, decorative pillows, dolls, flowers, nursery items, organizers, quilts, shades, slippers, table linens, upholstery, wall décor, and even projects for your favorite pet! The patterns are in pdf format and print on 8-1/2 x 11 paper. For large projects, you will tape the pages together to create the full size project. Numbers printed on each page make it easy to match the pages.
The book provides basic techniques for sewing, appliqué, embroidery, quilting, dyeing, and printing. For instance, there are several pages containing photos and instructions just for embroidery stitches. Looking through the book alone will spark ideas for your home, office or gift giving. It might even inspire you to try something new – like creating your own purse or pet toys!
The only thing I thought was missing was the mention of a serger. A serger takes your sewing and craft creation to a whole new level. I think it should have at least mentioned what a serger is and what it can do. But, other than that, this is an excellent resource. Definitely 5 stars! You’ll want to keep it nearby for ideas and instruction.
Rating: 5 / 5
As a dressmaker, I was excited to get the chance to review this book, but it fell flat of my expectations. Like the title says, the book is very basic, intended for those who have little experience with sewing. Essentially, it’s a primer for sewing and related hobbies, such as embroidery, applique, and quilting. It does include a few useful techniques that you won’t find in most remedial sewing books, such as instructions for dyeing fabric. There are quite a few projects that you can make, such as Roman shades, stuffed dolls, baby clothes, pincushions, etc. So, on that front it’s a decent book. However. . . .
I realize that I was given an advance copy, but I have no way of knowing which elements are temporary and which will actually be included in the publication of this book. If these things are fixed before the book is released, then I will certainly revise my opinion! First off, it says there is a CD attached with patterns for the many projects, but my copy didn’t include the CD. Hence, the majority of the book is useless to me. Second, all of the illustrations are black & white, which in and of itself would be okay, except that the photos are of extremely poor quality. They look like cheap photocopies: grainy and out of focus. If the illustrations are cleaned up, and the CD included, then I would say that this would be a fair book for someone unfamiliar with sewing or crafting. If you have any experience whatsoever, you might find some of the projects interesting, but overall you’ll find the book too remedial.
As an alternative, I would suggest the Reader’s Digest guides to sewing and needlepoint. They are simple, easy to understand, they have excellent illustrations in full color, and they include many projects for both beginners and more advanced sewers.
Rating: 3 / 5
I got an uncorrected proof copy of this book thru Vine. As I flipped through my copy, the very first thing I noticed were the photos. They were BAD! The photos in this book are black and white and very low resolution. Some were so bad I couldn’t tell what I was supposed to be looking at…not really a great book to preview and review IMHO, I guess color copies would have made it expensive but they should have been a higher dpi at least.
I expect a non corrected proof to be a bit rough, so I continued to go over it. It claims to be and encyclopedia of sewing and crafts, but the book is way too small to make such a claim, and the knowledge section is only one of 3 sections of this book. The first goes over techniques, materials and tools. I agree with the other reviewer it’s a good introduction to sewing and crafts but it’s rather basic. There’s enough info to get you thru the projects in the book but nothing in depth and certainly not an encyclopedia.
The second part of the book has the projects. I recognized at least 70% of them from the Martha Stewart Living website newsletter I get. What a let down, I expected to see NEW projects not the same ones. Why buy this book when you can download it all for free from the website??? And the photos were so bad, that if I hadn’t known what the projects were from seeing them online, I wouldn’t know what those murky pics were. I really hope the final edition has full color, good quality photos.
The last part goes over the materials, resources and the cd. I can not review the cd since it was not included. I assume they are the same templates as online and those are fine.
Over all, its an ok book but is overpriced when you consider the same info is on her website for free.
Rating: 2 / 5
Looking for sewing books to help teach my daughter more about sewing, this book is just the quality I’d expect from Martha Stewart.
The first part of the book is tools and techniques which explains the basic tools necessary for sewing and how to do the most essential techniques. This section covers machine sewing, seams, hand sewing and the 3 essential stitches you need to know how to do (running, back stitch and slip stitch), appliqué, fabric dye techniques like batiking and ombre shading, embroidery (including essential embroidery stitches), patchwork, and basic fabric printing using block printing methods.
After you get through that section comes the projects. The projects are mostly very simple projects that teach sewing basics in usable ways. The stuffed animals and hand sewn dolls will be my daughter’s favorite. She does a lot of hand sewn dolls now.
The projects including clothing, dolls, pincushions, quilts and a great many other things. The techniques used to create the projects make it easy to customize them to suit your own aesthetics. Instead of a leaf sewing set, you could use an apple for your basic shape to make a sewing set for a favorite teacher.
Unlike a lot of other sewing books, this one has a lot of projects that are easily hand sewn which make perfect take along projects, and many of them use smaller amounts of fabric which means you could use old clothes and vintage remnants for the projects. I love machine sewing, but I’m trying to become a lot neater at hand sewing for it’s portability.
My favorite project is probably the simplest one in the whole book. Rolled hem handkerchiefs. I can just see my daughter and I making these and hand embroidering them for friends.
There is also a wonderful section on aprons and I love aprons so much.
It will be a resource I know I’ll refer to again and again. My mother was a dressmaker and I still feel I got a lot of good ideas from this book. For my daughter, she hates following patterns and the fact so many of the ideas in this book are very adaptable will make it wonderful for her.
Rating: 5 / 5
The oversized design of this book makes it cumbersome to use as a hands-on craft reference guide. The suggestions offered in this Martha Stewart book were useful, but there’s nothing new or groundbreaking here, not even for fans of Stewart, her TV show and her prior books.
Since I was given a review copy of the book, no CD-ROM was included, and all of the photos were dim, badly focused, and in black-and-white, making this product review difficult, since I didn’t actually receive a full version of the final product.
Rating: 3 / 5
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Such a good article, caught my sympathy!