HandmadeRetro: Books, glorious books!

Note: There are various links in this post. They will (mostly) take you to Amazon. If you buy the book in the link, or any others I will receive a tiny commission, certainly not enough to retire on. I am providing the link so you can get more information about particular titles if you are interested as well as other reviews because my opinion is certainly only one, not to encourage you to buy the book from Amazon or anywhere else, but I thought it was only fair you should know.

I love books. I can't really articulate why, I just do. I like to read and so I love novels and biographies but I also have an alarmingly large collection of recipe books, gardening books and crafting books. I once swapped a large number of books at a second hand book store and regretted it almost immediately. I still sometimes go looking for some of those books on the shelf and feel a little pang of grief.

So to share the love I thought I'd share some of my more recent buys. There are a few so I thought I'd share a picture or two for each and a thing I love about it and one thing I might have changed if it was my book.

Section 1:
Recently I read a review of a Japanese craft book on Badskirt and then saw a range of garment books in person at Tessuti fabrics in Melbourne within the space of a few days. I was hooked.
1. My title: The skirt book ISBN: 4309280021

+ I love the finishing attention to detail in these books. They add interest without being overly fussy.

2. My title: The other skirt book ISBN: 9784579109494

+ I bought this book almost only because of these pockets!

- The down side of both of these is that I am not a tiny Japanese woman, and certainly not the skinniest of minnies. To make these work I am going to have to adjust them a lot to fit.

3. The girly dress book. ISBN: 9784529048163

+ There are so many great, cute but simple patterns in this book. I love this jacket.

- The down side. The instructions and pattern markings are all in Japanese. I hope I can follow it....

4 & 5 - Handmade Zakka (ISBN: 457911017X) & Machine Made Patchworks (ISBN: 9784579110209)

+ I love the simplicity and colour in these projects, Perfect considering the images are great inspiration where the instructions are unreadable to me.

- There are a lot of really similar projects.

6. The Practical Guide to Patchwork
Recently released and written by Elizabeth Hartman of Oh Fransson! it is full of projects and some really great instructions.
I love that it shows and tells you how to hand sew binding at the back.

And I love this quilt.

- The minus is one I find with most craft books,there are very few advanced projects, although there are some tin this book which is a significant point of difference.

7. Amy Butler's In Stitches

+ These two projects