Saturday 7 August 2010

How To Sew - Book Reviews

I saw this post over on The Sewing Directory and thought I would try my luck.  I was successful (yippee) and was sent four ebooks to review.



They were called How To Sew Basics, How To Sew Machine Sewing, How To Sew Patchwork and How To Sew Applique.





First of all and most importantly for me, as I'm not that technologically minded, the pdfs were very easy to open.  They opened in just the right size to read too which is a great advantage as I hate having to mess with zoom and unzooms to get it so it isn't too small or too big to fit on the screen.

The first thing I saw was the well set out contents page on each which was where I wanted it to be (right there straightaway).  Some books have them a few pages down and that usually loses my interest in those first few pages instantly but that isn't the case with this.

Each section is informative and contains just enough information for beginners of each topic without getting too involved. 

As someone who used to sew many years ago but is just coming back into it these books are very good as a refresher.  I also found useful information on newer products such as disappearing ink pens for marking on fabric which weren't around in the days I used to sew before.

There are step by step instructions on some great projects and I can't wait to get started on the pig in the picture above.

There was one quite big downside for me though with these books.  The backgrounds and the actual photographs are blurry and whilst the font and the little embellishments (needles, sewing pics) are in focus, the blurry photographs distract from them.

To sum up - the books are well set out, informative, the font is easy to read and the little embellishments to the pages are a nice effect but the photographs and background are out of focus.

1 comment:

Maria Ontiveros said...

Great review. My sister is teaching her nieces (including my daughter how to sew) and these look good. I'll forward her the info. Thanks!
Rinda