Happy New Year!
I have a rigid-heddle-weaving book review for you today!
I received Creative Weaving by Sarah Howard & Elisabeth Kendrick this week (thanks Mom & Dad!).
It was written for rigid heddle looms and has a nice section in the front covering warping, beginning weaving, a few techniques including using a pick-up stick, and a short bit on cardboard looms and peg weaving. There is an index in the back.
The rest of the book serves as inspiration for colors and materials in your weaving. It doesn't have projects per se, but it does have very minimal instructions for weaving the patterns/colors shown, and ideas of what to make with the fabric you create.
As the cover indicates, the photography is beautiful. But... the pictures are very close-up of small sections of fabric, so it's hard to tell what the fabric will look like more than 6 inches from your nose. There is a gallery at the end, showing some of the fabrics used in projects (and sometimes you just see a corner of the fabric), but the pictures are very small - those are the pictures I would've like to have seen larger.
All-in-all, it strikes me more as an art book. Someone who is more imaginative than I am would probably get something out of this book, and perhaps this will help stretch my imagination a bit, but I probably wouldn't not have bought it at Amazon's current full price if I had seen the book first. Very pretty, but not especially useful to me. But perhaps my opinion will change once I try to make one of the fabrics from the book.
Spinning stuff:
I also received two spinning books for Christmas - Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning by Judith MacKenzie McCune, and Spin to Knit by Shannon Okey. I haven't had a chance to look them over very thoroughly yet, but so far I am impressed with the McCune book - I wish I had it when I first started spinning, and I'm sure it will be useful to me now and in the future. There are great pictures in there!
I've barely looked at the Okey book so far, but a brief glance leads me to believe its another good and useful spinning book. If anyone is interested in spinning book reviews, leave a note in the comments and I'll do a bona fide review in another post.
Hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year!
I received Creative Weaving by Sarah Howard & Elisabeth Kendrick this week (thanks Mom & Dad!).
It was written for rigid heddle looms and has a nice section in the front covering warping, beginning weaving, a few techniques including using a pick-up stick, and a short bit on cardboard looms and peg weaving. There is an index in the back.
The rest of the book serves as inspiration for colors and materials in your weaving. It doesn't have projects per se, but it does have very minimal instructions for weaving the patterns/colors shown, and ideas of what to make with the fabric you create.
As the cover indicates, the photography is beautiful. But... the pictures are very close-up of small sections of fabric, so it's hard to tell what the fabric will look like more than 6 inches from your nose. There is a gallery at the end, showing some of the fabrics used in projects (and sometimes you just see a corner of the fabric), but the pictures are very small - those are the pictures I would've like to have seen larger.
All-in-all, it strikes me more as an art book. Someone who is more imaginative than I am would probably get something out of this book, and perhaps this will help stretch my imagination a bit, but I probably wouldn't not have bought it at Amazon's current full price if I had seen the book first. Very pretty, but not especially useful to me. But perhaps my opinion will change once I try to make one of the fabrics from the book.
Spinning stuff:
I also received two spinning books for Christmas - Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning by Judith MacKenzie McCune, and Spin to Knit by Shannon Okey. I haven't had a chance to look them over very thoroughly yet, but so far I am impressed with the McCune book - I wish I had it when I first started spinning, and I'm sure it will be useful to me now and in the future. There are great pictures in there!
I've barely looked at the Okey book so far, but a brief glance leads me to believe its another good and useful spinning book. If anyone is interested in spinning book reviews, leave a note in the comments and I'll do a bona fide review in another post.
Hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year!
Labels: books, RH weaving
posted by CL at
10:48
2 Comments:
Happy New Year CL!
I agree with your review of Creative Weaving (I borrowed a copy from the library) Lots of pretty pictures but lacks any serious content. I'd like to know where she got the 14 dpi heddle she used for the fine fabrics but that info isn't in there. Maybe she used two heddles we'll never know for sure. I'm sure glad I borrowed if though! :)
C
Happy Weaving (and spinning and knitting . . .)
By
Anonymous, at 1/05/2008 3:27 PM
Thanks C!
I'm glad it's not just me that thought this book was not so useful. I kind of wondered about the 14-dent heddle too, but we don't know which loom she is using so it could've been an old one that came with a 14.
I think I'll pour a Pepsi and get out ye olde Babe and do some spinning while watching my other Christmas present - season 2 of Hawaii Five-O. :-D I really need to do some weaving too - I'm getting rusty!
By
CL, at 1/06/2008 10:53 AM
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