My Favorite Handwork Books

By category…

Welcome to the new subscribers from my Beginning Sashiko class yesterday. What a group of students they were! Everyone of them were very skilled needleworkers.

I have sprinkled titles and photos of some of my favorite books throughout various Substacks since I first started publishing these newsletters. But never have I really sat down in front of my bookcase and compiled a list by category and published them in one newsletter.

But first I have to explain why I have so many books. I am a reader. Ever since I first started reading a Golden Book sentence by sentence (which I marked with a pencil so I could go back to last sentence I parsed and not have to start all over again ) books and reading have been the backbone of my life. When I fill out forms that require you to list your hobbies, I don’t think of listing reading as a hobby. Reading is as much a part of my existence as breathing. It is just that physical an experience.

I am so invested in books that I think if I follow all the steps listed in a project, or recipe, or exercise, I will magically become successful in whatever category is listed. So if I follow all the steps in a diet book, I will become healthy. If I follow all the steps exactly in a quilting project I found in a book, I will end up with a beautiful quilt that will win awards in shows. Pitiful, isn’t it?

So reading becomes a tad obsessive, and I have to be careful not to fall into the perfectionist side of my personality. This also leans into blaming myself for not following the instructions exactly. I have to be careful about that also.

But these almost obsessive qualities do not deter me from buying many books and handwork books just seem to multiply in my bookshelves until they crowd out the room that I have allocated for them, namely two shelves of enormous book cases in the spare room. When that fills up, they get culled and go to the free table at one of the guilds I belong to. Needles to say, this same free table provides even more books for me to collect.

I have gotten way off the track here. Some of my favorite books by handwork category.

Hand Quilting:

1. Encyclopedia of Designs for Quilting by Phyllis D. Miller I love this book so much that I would grab it as I run out of my house in a fire (along with the parakeet). I love it so much that I did a separate Substack about it. Link. It is the source of my creativity for hand quilting patterns. Enough said.

2. That Perfect Stitch by Dierdra McElroy who is the daughter of Roxanne, the inventor of all those needles, glue, etc. that you see on notions shelves in your local quilt store. She is my kind of obsessive and devotes her energy to telling us everything about hand quilting you would ever want to know, from batting to thimbles and beyond. And she gives explicit instructions on how to do the rocking stitch. An excellent reference book.

HAND PIECING

1. This is the only book I have found about hand piecing. Jinny Beyer has been an innovator since the 1980’s and was one of the first quilters who used print fabrics as borders and fussy cut them to create kaleidoscoping designs. She also hand pieced all her quilts. If you look at the photos of her quilts, I don’t need to say anything more about this book. It is inspiring to say the least.

SPECIALIZED QUILTING

1. The Border Workbook by Janet Kime After I read this book, I began to understand how to use borders in a different way to really give some oomph to a quilt. There are plenty of patterns to get you started thinking outside the box when you add a border to your quilt.

2. Great Sets by Sharyn Craig This book helped me a lot when I first started quilting because I had problems getting my blocks to the correct size and make them square. I didn’t understand the whys and wherefores of correct sizing and what you can do to adjust different sized blocks. And this book also gives many examples of the settings you can use to avoid the problem altogether.

CRAZY QUILT BOOKS

1. The Crazy Quilt Handbook Revised 2nd Edition Judith Baker Montano’s books are a good bridge between historical patterns and contemporary patterns for Crazy Quilts. All her books have good photos for inspiration but this one also contains directions for embroidery stitches you can use for pictorial figures and to decorate the seams. Make sure you get the second edition. The first edition has black and white photos.

2. Quilting …Just a a Little Bit Crazy Allie Aller’s book is for the contemporary Crazy Quilter. It also contains good embroidery directions and wonderful photos to spice up a crazy quilt with embellishments you would never associate with crazy quilts.

   

Sashiko

1. The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook by Susan Briscoe This book has beautiful projects to make using Sashiko patterns as decorations combined with Japanese fabrics. Not really for a beginner, but very inspiring as you get more experienced with Sashiko.

2. Any of Susan Briscoe’s books are excellent. One that I have is Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match that combines Sashiko and quilting patterns for stunning quilts. There is also an accompanying book that features Taupe Japanese fabrics but I don’t have a copy of it.

That’s it for now as I have run out of space on Substack for today. I’ll also do a list of embroidery books I like maybe next week.

The self promo section: My Hana Fukin class at New Pieces in Berkeley has been listed on their website. Call the store to sign up. It is on March 8, Saturday, from 10:30 to 1:30 and here is the Link