Category Archives: BOOK REPORTS

English Holidays.

It seems that the summer has slipped past me completely.  But while it may be true that the season’s almost over, I continue to think back on my June vacation in England and am so grateful to have had the luck to take a true holiday before July and August disappeared in a whirlwind of [...]
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My Log Has Something to Tell You.

Ever since I read Todd Oldham’s Kid Made Modern and talked with him about what inspired him to create it, I’ve been recommending this book to just about craft-curious person I know, both those with kids and those without.  The book’s genius lies in how it fits DIY projects—sewing, painting, stamping, paper sculpture, even architecture, and more—into [...]
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Hand-Stitched Felt.

So, perhaps you consider yourself to be a jaded crafter.  And as far as you know, toymaking doesn’t have a regular place in the crafting repertoire you’ve created for your oh-so-grownup and cynical self. Maybe you even tend to make only what you deem to be useful items like clothing or, on a particularly whimsical day, [...]
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My Wordy Valentine.

My handmade valentines in past years have often been of the “a picture’s worth a thousand words” variety, with paper cuts or found images.  But this year I decided to let the dictionary speak for me.  This valentine includes definitions of words (like together, pair, gaga, etc.) that evoke the holiday, clipped out of an [...]
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Mulled Claret for Heroes.

I am keenly devoted to warm drinks all through the winter, but on unusually blustery days like today—especially when friends come visiting—my ambitions go beyond pots of strongly steeped tea. On such days, I might make up a batch of steamy, citrusy mulled wine. And my favorite recipe for mulled wine comes from The Week-End [...]
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Flannery O’Connor, Seamstress.

In Flannery O’Connor’s high school home ec class, “all the other girls busily sewed aprons, or underwear, for weeks on end, while O’Connor sat idly off to the side, not particpating.” On the day the big sewing assignment (to make a complete outfit of clothing) was due, O’Connor astonished her teachers and fellow students by [...]
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Savoring the Language of Lost Crafts.

Over Christmas I received a copy of Una McGovern’s Lost Crafts: Rediscovering Traditional Skills. From its cover (with evocative art by Rob Ryan) and all the way to the last page of its lush interior, illustrated with scenes of handicrafts both past and present, this book is a treat. McGovern’s approach is part [...]
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