Too often, books about hand crafts and other art forms are based around specific projects instead of techniques with ideas and suggestions for projects. I get so very tired of reading magazines and books that tell me how to make a very specific thing dreamed up by someone else, while looking for inspiration to create my own ideas.

This book, however, is simply amazing. The Art of Manipulating Fabric, by Colette Wolff, is well worth its cover price (though you can get a good discount on Amazon).

This is definitely a book about technique, not projects. Very clear, well-illustrated instructions for each type of fabric manipulation, and then stunning galleries of ways to push the technique to its limits. What impresses me most is the balance between absolute precision in the samples to the wilder creativity of the more advanced ones. Tucking to pleating and smocking, quilting, trapunto, gathering, ruffling, using cording for filled reliefs — I’ll be pulling ideas out of this one for years to come.

This entry was posted by Jess on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 8:07 pm and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.