{day 17} three things on Thursday :: books that inspired me

For someone who crafts a lot, I don’t actually have a lot of craft books. There’s a handful on my shelf, and some I’ve decluttered, but for the most part I tend to learn by googling, and by doing. My motto for a lot of stuff is “how hard could it be?”. Sometimes, though, books are helpful, or just plain fun. Google can be a bit hit and miss – I saw a meme the other day that said the best way to get info is to google and then scroll until you find a ten year old post from a guy named Dave on a message board that hasn’t updated their format since 2008. That’s where the real gold is. And it’s true. So much of googling now is the same stuff regurgitated on a million results from Pinterest. Easily fixable with the addition of exclusionary search terms, but sometimes you just want to throw something at google and see what washes up, y’know? But also, sometimes I don’t know what I don’t know, and that’s where books on a specific subject are handy.

The other way I find books useful is inspiration and pushing me to try new things, or build my skills in ways I hadn’t expected. Being a multidirectional maker, I do tend to prefer to source my books from the library where I can, simply because if I had a book for every new thing I that I felt like trying, my bookcases would be collapsing under the weight of my failed ambitions and I wouldn’t have room for my novels, all our school books, my reference collection; all the books that make for a well rounded personal library. To be honest, my book collecting habits are very much like my craft collecting habits – follow the whims and try all the things.

Which is a long winded way to say: these are three books I’ve found really helpful and inspiring.

_{(Boy2 thought I was joking when I told him I would publish his photo bomb. I WASN’T)}

MY FAVOURITE YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW BOOK
Yarnitecture (Jillian Moreno) // I borrowed this from the library a couple of months back when I was spinning, and it was SO helpful, to the point I think I’m actually going to buy a copy. It broke down all the steps in the spinning process, showed different ways of spinning and why, and how to create different effects. It helped me really get a handle on spinning, and is a big part of what made my most recent spin so much better than previous attempts.

MY FAVOURITE UNEXPECTED SKILL BUILDING BOOK
Keeping A Creative Sketchbook (Emma Block) // bought on a whim while waiting for the kiddos to finish pillaging the bookshop at the beginning of last month, I found this book really helpful in giving me different ways to look at my sketchbook (something I want to spend more time playing in), and really simple, fun and useful exercises to get me comfortable working in my book and trying new things. Grabbing the link above from Amazon, I did see it’s available on kindle, but I would highly recommend the hardcover version, it’s a beautifully produced book and all those illustrations and photos need to shine in full colour!

MY FAVOURITE INSPO + NEW THINGS BOOK
The Handmade Book (Angela James) // I can’t believe it’s been a decade since I borrowed this book from the library! Looking it up on Amazon, it was actually published in 2003, so can be hard to find a copy – if the library ever weeds it, I’ll be stalking the bookstall table because I loved this book! I made a couple of the projects, but would love to revisit the book and try another couple. It included some really fun types of binding to break me out of my standard coptic bind, plus shared some different types of covers and closures that I found really inspiring.

Honourable mentions should also go to Patons Learn To Crochet in the category of Favourite Teach Me New Things That The Internet Couldn’t, and The Creative Family in the category of Favourite Reminder I’m Doing Ok In Raising Crafty Kids And Also It’s Ok To Craft In Front Of Them. All Day.

What books have you loved that you think I should add to my list to check out?

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