Crafty Monday ~ Reviewing a book!

When I'm having a craft-block I tend to turn to my crafty books for ideas, and my frquent 'go to' is "Generation T: Beyond Fashion: 110 T-Shirt Transformations" so I thought I would share my attempt at an unbiased review with you! You can get this book from Amazon, I got mine from TopShop.

An eclectic collection of all sorts of projects for your tshirts that are too small, too big, stained or old.
A good book for the open minded crafter, rather than the fashion conscious stitcher as some designs are beyond hippyish, an example is the 'knot above the rest' shawl that I can only imagine would be good as an addition to a witches Halloween costume, and the gaucho pants which I would only wear as Jammies and therefore probably not go to the effort to make them.
A problem with the designs in the book is that lots of the ones that appeal to me require multiple tshirts in size Large, therefore to make the design I would have to go out and purchase several tshirts in that size- which goes against the recycling message of the book.
Despite this, there's a lot of sweet and very wearable ideas in the book, I found the children's section to be the most inspiring and innovative in terms of variety of designs and just downright good ideas. Many that I could and would make as they're practical fun and appropriate for little kiddies that grow fast. Contrastingly, I thought the home-wear section was the weakest and would only appeal to those who can't get enough of 70s interior design, the most memorable being the fabric square coasters stitched with a raw edge, the table runner which is essentially the coasters stitched into a long line and the fluffy toilet seat cover that is probably the most unsanitary concept I ever saw.
It became apparent in many ways that the author was running out of ideas in every category, which detracts from the 50% of very good, and inspiring ideas. I would think more favourably upon this book had it been half the size and containing just the best ideas. Perhaps its extensive range was a way of appealing to as many people as possible, while I may think the 'legalise pot holders' were gaudy, of course many out there won't.
To widen its potential market further there is a large selection of 'no sew' options and designs that could be stitched together by hand making sure that no one with a bit of a creative flair is excluded.
As a whole, the book is an original concept with many good ideas that encourages a tshirt crafting party with a playlist at the start of each chapter, but nothing will blow you away, nor is anything suitable for wearing as anything other than very casual- everything is made from old tshirts after all!

I just want to reiterate that I do love and use this book really often, but I also know that for this to be any use to anyone else, I'd have to find things to criticise too sot that you get the full picture because not everyone is me, or has my taste!

Loading...

Loading...