Sunday - Book Review

Happy Sunday - Especially all the Mums out there - as today is your day to be lavished with love and attention.
Haven't bought your mum a pressie yet? Well, you could do far worse than furnish her with Scandinavian Needlecraft by Clare Youngs which is the chosen title in this week's book review.

The book covers 35 sewing projects each with a Scandinavian feel. These projects include bags, clothes, slippers, Christmas crafts (never too early to start planning!), and home accessories.

First things first, the book looks beautiful. The photography is clear and uncluttered, nicely drawn instructions are included as are templates for you to resize and use yourself.

Some of the projects are simple - providing sewing instructions for the base item (think pillow slip, apron, table runner, Christmas stocking) and then instructions on how to beautify your creation the Scandinavian way - embroidery, bobbles, cutwork, applique.

The embellishment designs are lovely and would be easy to use in many other projects.

There are many projects in the book that I want to start making straight away - but this one especially caught my eye...

These reindeer are beautiful and I can't wait to have a go.

Also on my to do list are these...

and a couple of these egg cosies....

My 3 highlighted projects (and the front cover) all feature felt as the main fabric, and it would be one of my few criticisms of the book to say that it does seem to rely heavily on this material. But having said this, I am sure that we will be able to make strategic substitutions to use more variety from our existing fabric stash.

So are there any projects in the book I won't be making? - Very few, but these two are not on my must make list...

These are perfectly lovely ideas, but personally speaking, my life is too full for coat hanger covers and way too messy for chair covers that are thinner than hankerchiefs. So these, I will pass on - thanks anyway.

A couple more projects that I am very keen to try out...

Mittens with the lesser spotted no loss string - hooray!!!

The most darling baby booties ever.

Definately a book full of ideas and inspiration and if you don't buy it for your mum - don't you think you deserve a present yourself?