Arts and Crafts Books

I just received this book a few weeks ago, and am half way through my first afghan. I love the way the pattern looks and the speed at which I am able to go with it. Also the instructions are very easy to follow, and the book has clear and beautiful pictures. I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys beautiful patterns that work up quickly and easily.

this book has a lot of really neat very simple patters that are easy to follow and work up really quick. I definately recomend this book to anyone who likes afghans that work up quickly but look complicated and time consuming.

I've had this book for over a year now and I am so glad it is in my collection. I have only made one afghan from it so far, but I have made swatches for a couple of other afghans I'm considering. (I would love to try one of the cable afghans.) I sometimes enjoy just looking at the photos in the book. All the afghans are great looking and are nicely photographed.

There is a great variety of afghan styles to choose from among the 52 (!) afghans: classic, bold, lacy, serene, intricate, simple, handsome, and sweet. Some afghans are done as a whole cloth, others in squares or strips. Some patterns even include weaved strands of yarn to form a plaid look. The color pattern on the Blended Rainbow afghan is very clever.

Most patterns call for worsted weight yarn or worsted weight brushed acrylic yarn. None call for one of the trendy premium yarns, which while fun to use, could be unavailable next year. The instructions are relatively simple, most fitting on just one page of the book. (Only a few are a bit more complicated.)

Because you are working with two strands of yarn (either two of the same color or two different colors at the same time) and because you crochet with a large hook size...typically size N or P... the afghans work up quickly.

The one afghan I made was called Golden Waves, which called for a four-color pattern of soft waves. I made it for my nephew in blues and earth tones. He picked out the pattern himself from this book after looking through all my afghan books! It was fun to make and my nephew is very happy with it. Check out the photo I posted here.

Can you tell I like this book?! So did a couple of co-workers who looked at my copy and then went out to buy their own!

I like several patterns from the book but still trying to get the hang of crocheting with double yarn. The book contains many patterns and the explanations are clear and easy to follow.

This is a wonderful book for quick beautiful Afghans! From very basic to more advanced, there is something for everyone. All patterns are worked with two or more strands at a time, while still providing a wide range of patterns! There are basic filets, granny square, 'mile-a-minute' type, and everything in between, there are even baby patterns. Tons of fun and hours of enjoyment! Enjoy!

Joanna Gollberg does nice books. I've got some experience with metalsmithing and this book didn't have a whole lot of new information for me, but she explains techniques very well. The projects are interesting and her gallery shots (pictures of work from other artists) are just incredible.

This is a really nice instructional book with great gallery photos and interesting and apealing projects. I particularly like the soldering instruction in this book over the others I own.

Great book. Will appeal to those just starting out with metal-smithing, particularly the tools lists and the projects associated with using each new set of tools. The gallery of work accompanying each chapter is amazing. The projects are easy to follow and the photos allow you to see exactly what should be happening at each stage. I enjoyed the book as a reference.

and great motivator. This book gives a general overview of many techniques of metalsmithing and has projects that work with each lesson. I think I would have liked more details but I'm also very new to this and need confidence. However I feel like I can complete each lesson successfully after reading this book.

I got this book out at the library and fell in love with it sooooo much i had to go out and buy it. It's great!! It has visual pictures to get you through each step and it has many examples of other jewelers works. It even had works of my teacher in it. Great book and great guide. I recommend it to anyone!!

One of the best beading books I have seen to date. Wonderful beaded beads featured which I have already made. Well presented with lots of detailed descriptions to follow. Extremely happy with purchase.

This book is absolutely inspiring! It is wonderful what sophisticated designs can be created with these techniques and simple beads. The author is a woman after my own heart (she asks, "Can any one person own too many beads?"), and her knowledge and passion show in her writing. I think this book may overwhelm someone who is an absolute beginner, someone who has never done any beadwork before. To get the most from this book, I think you need a little experience. But her illustrations are the best I have ever seen, and her instructions are very clear. This book is worth the price just for the gorgeous color photos of projects. Another thing I like about the book is the fact that she gives many pointers for variations in the techniques, and encourages you to take off on your own. If you like seed beads and want to get beyond stringing, this book is essential.

There is only 1 other book at this level and that is the author's Creative Bead Weaving. Buy either one or even better both. Not only are the instructions excellent but the pictures and the projects are creative and inspiring. Please - when is your next book coming out.

Great book for instructions for all types of bead weaving. The beads are numbered so you have exact directions on where to go next. A "must have" book for any beader.

I found this book at the library and I was enchanted. I ordered my book from Amazon and thankfully received it before I had to return my copy to the library. I made many beautiful Christmas gifts from the ideas I got from this wonderful book. This book has challenged me and showed me the way with clear directions and diagrams. I am inspired to build on the techniques I have developed with the guidance of this excellent book.

Terrific book, excellent book on fair isle, Scotland and well written. Would recommend it for anyone's knitting library.

I have this book on audio & knit while I listen. The knitting/listening process actually concentrates my attention on both. This is a five-star book!

This is my first book on Fair Isle, and I'm very happy and satisfied with my purchase. The book covers a great deal of history on the art of Fair Isle and the section on color selection is marvelous.

I'm fairly new to Fair Isle Knitting and this book is one I'm glad I purchased. The directions are easy to understand and the book is beautifully laid out and full of color suggestions.

This book is an essential resource for anyone contemplating or doing Fair isle type kintting. For beginners it is detailed and easily understood, for experienced fair-isle knitters it is inspirational and will lift your knitting into another class.

This is a great book to add to your collection. There is lots of information and pictures. I bought this book for my husband who has done a little blacksmithing and is wanting to set up a shop at home. He has several other blacksmithing books and really liked this book.

A good beginners book, But as a working smith I enjoyed it and found some good tricks, and ideas for my own work.
Great illistrations, good projecte.

This is a good beginner to intermediate book to help someone understand and start blacksmithing. The suthor is well versed in her art and provides good pictures for students to better understand the forging process. Like most books of this kind, however, a student is best served having taken a ahort course in blacksmithing to better understand the terminology.

Although I am very familiar with working with Metal, and many other forms of crafting, I knew little of Blacksmithing. I have always been interested in Blacksmiths since I was a child, but knew nothing of their background, history, and the tricks of the trade so to say that they used to form beautiful and more importantly, useful items that they created.

I recently had the opportunity to work in a blacksmith shop, but I had to do so alone, as the former blacksmith had moved on. Hence I purchased several books to learn of their ways.

I was very interested in this book for one just because it was written by a female blacksmith, something I found to be unheard of, as I never in my life saw a female blacksmith working any forge I ever encountered. I felt that I had to have this book over all others as it would give me not just knowledge of blacksmithing, but a woman's point of view on it, which I felt could be very enlightening.

I could not have been more correct. This is so far the best book I have purchased on blacksmithing, and I have purchased 8 here through Amazon. This book is very well written, depicted, laid out, and explained. I loved the mixture of some of the history, and more so the insight of the craft. For example a simple account of how you will keep getting burned, I laughed over for some time, and yes, so far, I have gotten burned twice. Yea, I'm a newbie, read the book, you will laugh and only then really understand this statement. Also how the Blacksmith bug will bite you and you know it has if scraps of iron start to almost call out to you, grabbing your full attention since as you look at it, you depict in your mind all the things you could make that piece into. I for one remember that line in the book since I have already noticed that the Bug has fully bitten and infected me.

Out of reading the whole book, I was only left with 2 or 3 items that I didn't understand, and that may have been that I missed something in my reading of it, since I did so in a hurried piecemeal fashion. In other words, when I had to put it down or get fired from work, I hurriedly picked it back up as soon as I could to read more!

This is an awesome book. If you are to buy only ONE book, then make it this one. Even the projects in the back are as good as or better than a Project book I purchased. LOL... Enjoy!

The author clearly put a lot of time into this book, and it shows. Clearly explains the basics of blacksmithing without jargon and with useful illustrations. It is entirely on the level about the pros and cons of blacksmithing, the dangers, the rewards, and it is written with engaging humor at times. Great job. I recommend this highly for the beginner!

The book was better than I expected, and arrived before I expected it to.
Great buy. Thanks. :D

This book is so much fun. I'm a digital artist and use Illustrator as my tool. I learned so many techniques from this book. The pictures are big and bold and the author teaches without making you feel like a novice.

I bought this book for my husband and he loves it. He is constantly drawing little pictures for me. It will certainly bring out the inner artist in you. This book is easy to follow along with.

A casual glance through this book originally made me think it looked too cutesy and not what I wanted. I'll still say that too many of his characters and examples are cutesy, and rather stilted. But there's a lot of excellent material here. I found several tips that I (so far) haven't seen in several other books. I've had several nagging questions: Exactly how do I get things done? How is a finished cartoon created? On what size and kind of paper, using what tools? Blitz walks you through all of that stuff. The section on drawing backgrounds and perspective was also really handy.

I'd say this is the single best book I've seen to get started on cartooning. Even if you want to draw some other, very different style (like, some kind of dark Batman comic or something), if you have little or no cartooning experience, this book will be helpful.

I don't consider my self to possess any artistic abilities when it comes to drawing. I wanted to enter a contest on YouTube where I had to draw pictures of things. I got this book. Followed the easy to use instructions, drew my pictures, entered the contest and won the $5,000 grand prize. I would definitely say I got my money's worth from this book and much much more. Highly recommended.

This is a great reference for any artist or art teacher. I learned design as a freshman in college. That was about 20 years ago. Design is still a very important part of what I do especially since now I must teach it. This book will help any artist improve her/his work. It will also enable teachers to better instruct their students in the elements and principles of design. Highly recommended.

Great book. Easy to understand and use.Great for anyone yearning to learn about design in the 3d aspect.

As a beginning student of design, I've been looking at a number of texts. This is the best I've come across so far. The concepts are presented concisely and in a well-organized format. The illustrations are superb, drawing from a number of crafts, media, and styles. The tone is friendly and encouraging. Recommended highly!

The book is well-written and the examples include some stunning and unusual pieces of art and craft (including painting, photography, pottery, needlework, quilting and more). It is an excellent introduction to design for beginners (artists, craftsmen and art-lovers) but even intermediate readers will find it useful.

This book is a very good choice if you are looking to broaden your horizons in design. There are lots of pictures for examples, and the text is easy reading.

Just like her other books this is a great book. If I had any problem it not being able to find some on the canvas counts (23 ct coin net.HUH? I'm just going to use 22 ct (hope no ones counting) But seriously this is a great book. Easy to understand with beautiful pictures

This is a book every miniaturist/needlework lover should have in his/her library. It's full of great projects for every room of the dollhouse. I highly reccomend it.

simply wonderful. I spent hours just looking at the pictures showing the samples. i'm looking forward to begin my first work. Great expectations for tiny masterpieces

I expected the tiny samplers & rugs, but tiny crocheted & knitted clothing?! Excellent, excellent, excellent from beginning to end! Too many wonderful things to name.

This is a wonderful book, but I'm a little wary of giving it too good a review. The projects all look great, but I found a mistake in the first project that I tried. If you work the Turkoman rug exactly as the chart, it will not turn out the same as the picture. The border, in fact, will not even be symmetrical (as the picture is). As an experienced crafter, I picked up on this and was able to correct it, but I was disappointed to find the error in the first place. I look forward to trying other projects and hope they are error-free.

A must read for all new woodworkers before accumulating all the power tools they think they need.
More than a great instructional book; it is also a philosophy.

Some people just call it furniture - author and craftsman James Krenov, however, believes it be an art form. "The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking" is a guide to turn what's nothing more than storage space to some into a work of art that can be appreciated for something far more than just a place to put things. Going over everything readers need to make a masterpiece of a cabinet, such as wood quality, good hinges, and more, "The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking" leaves nothing to guesswork, making it highly recommended to any woodworking enthusiast and community library woodworking shelves.

Mr. Krenov's work speaks for itself. What is great about this book is he shares with us his feel for wood , and it's spirit. He is a wood fanatic. He is excited by its touch, look and feel. How long should I keep a piece of wood before I use it? Moisture content? Integrating the wood and the piece I am making?

Each persons experience of wood and woodworking is different. I have technical books, written well, and some poorly.

This could be called "Zen and the art of woodworking."

When I need inspiration I look to the masters. Mr. Kenov connects me to the wood.

I love all of Krenov's books. It's easy to find better books on tools or techniques but nowhere will you find books that breathe a love for wood and craft more than Krenov's (Nakashima's "The Soul of a Tree" comes closest.) I've read through each of his books several times and always pick up on something new. "The Fine Art of Cabinet Making" is a bit more advanced than his earlier works in that he covers coopered doors and frame-and-panel work but his philosophy is always evident. Krevnov's love for wood is infectious. After reading his books you find yourself `playing' more with wood. Wondering how things will work if you move this one way and that another. Instead of churning out furniture I instead start to think about the piece I want to make: what wood would look nice? What kind of pulls will fit? How will it sound when the door closes? Somehow all of this combines to make the journey (the making) as nice as the end product. Frankly I think most furniture makers will go broke trying to work like this unless you have a whole lot of cash behind you or can charge very expensively for your work. I really think, though, that these books should be on every woodworker's shelf.

James Krenov is one of woodworking's treasures - an acknowledged master craftsman who is open about both his aesthetics and his techniques. For many of us he is a role model who started out on a shoe string in Sweden and has gone on to create a whole style all his own. He is as devoted to teaching as he is to his work and has a gift for inspiration and straightforward exposition.

Unlike A Cabinet Maker's Notebook, The Fine Art of Cabinet Making spends most of its time talking about technique. The first 50 pages is a vast, rambling essay on wood and how to relate to it. His point, an important on, is that the process of selecting and using wood is every bit as important and any other creative process. If you pay attention you will get a deep dive into the way Krenov's designs come to be - a whole new level beyond buying some dimensioned lumber and whipping up a cabinet.

Then he introduces you to his workshop and tools. Krenov actually does use power tools, but sparingly. Many of us have been taught to value the clean, sharp edged work that a modern power woodshop can produce. Krenov is just the opposite, to him the marks of craftsmanship are part of the harmony of the work. Krenov makes his own planes, and spends a great deal of time explaining how to do the same yourself. I have to admit I'm quite happy with my Lie-Nielson's, but one has to admire the intensity of a man who wants everything 'just so.'

The remainder of the book covers details of Krenov's cabinetmaking, and it is here that you discover the extent of his quality. Whether it be dovetails, delicately curved doors, or cabinet backs, Krenov never settles for less than the best he can do. I admit to a few moments of extreme jealousy when he explains that he never clamps dovetail joints, but, as his discussion demonstrates, his attention to detail is such that he shouldn't have to use clamps. I just wonder how many years of practive it will take to accomplish the same thing.

For all that this is a technically focused book, it is also an inspiring one. A book that will have you eyeing potential lumber completely differently, and making yourself take the time to get things right.

This book is so fun, so colorful. Everyone, from begginers to experts, can learn from it or get creative new ideas.

'Polymer Clay for the Fun of it!' is a perfect title for Kim Cavender's
book as it promises and delivers fun projects in a fun and lively way from
start to finish.
She adds personal notes, quotes and useful tips throughout.
It's just like being in one of her classes; you learn, have fun
and at the same time make something to take home and show off.
The book is much more than 20+ projects because all its decorative clay
techniques can be used for other projects of your own choice.
An entertaining and very versatile book - well done, Kim Cavender.

Carol Blackburn, author of Making Polymer Clay Beads

This is one of the most delightful new polymer clay books! I have been working with polymer clay for 12 years, and still found this book full of fun, colorful ideas. Kim Cavender is a wonderful, creative clay artist and this is a book that everyone can learn from and get creative new ideas. Kathy Weaver

Cavender is a talented polymer clay artist who really knows her stuff. While I prefer the bead making side of polymer clay, I find techniques in this book to be easily adaptable for my purposes. Techniques and tools are thoroughly explained and projects have apt photos. Beginners will not be overwhelmed as Cavender has a knack for simplifying the most intricate looking pieces.

I have several polymer clay books, and Kim's books is one of the best! Her projects are easy to do and colorful. The directions are easy to understand, and the photos are clear. The book has jewelry projects, projects for the home, and more.

Kimberly Miller