Fun-to-wear Fabric Flowers, by Elizabeth Helene Searle, Published by Lark Books.

Who knew there was so many ways to make a fabric flower, so many considerations and decision to make. What fabric; texture and colour, what shapes; petals, scrunched, layered etc etc, so many embellishments and uses and pinning options. My head is spinning just thinking of it all. Some of the techniques described in the book include ‘drawing’ with your sewing machine, stitch gathering to make different shapes like leaves and yo-yo’s, and folding fabric. There are lots of fun, classy and pretty flowers in this book, for all occasions and to add to any outfit, including flowers for shoes, hair, lapels, bags and frocks. Some of my favourite ones include a fuzzy furry felted flower attached to a beanie, pastel raw silk flower attached to the waste band of a formal frock, a tweed layered petals flower with small buttons in the centre which is shown attached to the label of a silk jacket, and the red poppies attached in abundance to a velvet scarf. There are lots of fun ideas in the book with which to experiment and only basic sewing skills are required.

Exquisite embellishments for your clothes, by Valerie Van Arsdale Shrader, Published by Lark books.

A very nicely designed book that I had really high hopes for. I was a bit disappointed however as how basic the techniques in the book were, nothing new here if you are an old hand at embellishing and reconstructing your clothing. But for the newbie there are some good basics here. Beginning with lots of ideas of trims to make use of, sewing techniques to use such as embroidery and altering and other crafting techniques to incorporate such as crochet, weaving and felting. However to make use of these techniques you need to already be familiar with them. Some of the simpler ideas suggested include making fabric flowers and pinning them to clothing, attaching some ribbon and rick rack with top stitching for a bit of sparkle, and a bit of cross stitch or embroidery around the neckline. There were a couple of good ideas that caught my eye such as the adding ruffles to a skirt,, sewing a button decoration on a plain wool hat, and decorating shoes with fabric and flowers. There a few projects that require a bit more skills and daring to actually pull off successfully (and I am not sure they really work in the book) such as appliquéing fabric onto a tailored jacket (its a white jacket with black check fabric attached to the sleeves and black fabric added to the labels and striped fabric added to the front - just a bit over done I thought). There is also a deconstructed sweater with an a-symmetrical lace trim added to the neckline. I think this one sort of works, mainly because it has been done quite subtlety. Many of the projects I can’t quite see the point in, with not much difference in the before and after photos, a couple of beads added or a bit of cross stitch on the edging might not be worth the effort. But there are a few fun projects here worth giving a whirl.

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