One Piece Wearables & Canvas Remix

I ordered these two books from Fishpond recently, having seen them both on blogs.

One Piece Wearables is a book of garments made from one pattern piece (and the patterns are supplied within a pocket in the cover), using ties or elastic and avoiding zips and/or buttonholes – though I did spot one zipper. Having one piece of fabric make up a garment is meant to keep the process simple for new and time-poor sewers. I’m not entirely convinced that the patterns always achieve that, but most do and, well, you don’t know until you try them out. The book uses illustrations rather than photographs which is nice, but while some illustrations are well done, others aren’t as successful and it detracts a bit from the book overall. There’s also a theme of men fawning over women that’s a bit cheesy. Still, the approach of the book is interesting with a range of patterns to try, and there are definitely a few garments in this that I’d like to make.

Canvas Remix is a book written by Alisa Burke, an artist whose blog I follow. I’m drawn to her bold, painterly style with its graffiti inspired spontaneity, and the book explains her techniques well and has a range of tutorials for fun projects. I want to explore the layering demonstrated in this book, but I can’t decide whether I want to produce fabric to make things with, or paintings. Maybe both. I’m thinking that, either way, it has all the satisfaction of playing with texture and layers that attracts me to art journalling, without the journaling part that doesn’t interest me as much.