Pretty Primer: Crafty Books

Friday evenings, sometimes S and I go out for dinner and head to the bookstore--it's one of the best dates, hands down. We dream about travel, art, nature, music...there's simply nothing better.

This trip I found some lovely new sewing books: Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby by Lotta Jansdotter, Handmade Home by Amanda Blake Soule and Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross and John Gruen. I just adore the aprons and baby bloomers in the Ross and Gruen book--patterns included. So many great projects, now I just need to learn how to run a sewing machine--this girl can hand sew like there's no tomorrow but...! Most of my clothes were handmade as a kid--isn't it great that the trend is returning and with style?

Browsing the shelves, I also leafed through How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith and she has come up with such a refreshing list of 'explorations' (one of my favorite words, by the way!)--many of which would be great for the kids, too. Take this one for example:

Exploration #46: "Found Patterns -- Collect or document as many patterns as you can find while on your travels. You may decide to use only patterns in nature, or human-made, or both. Pencil rubbings work well for this."

You could write, collect scraps, draw, paint, record audio descriptions...so many possibilities. Once upon a time, when I was in ed school, I had a professor who had a whole lecture class--I'm talking 100+ people--observe the moon. Those were the instructions: 'observe the moon.' It was simply remarkable how many ways we approached the assignment. I've never forgotten--what a lesson in the range and depth of human curiosity. What are your favorite explorations?