manipulating fabric

Had a great time at Oatley Cottage on Saturday. It was nice to be re-united with my passionflower cushion again. It has now been sent off to A Stitch in Time in Tasmania, for my class there in October.

While I was at Oatley Cottage I noticed a very enticing book called “The Art of Manipulating Fabric” by Colette Wolff. Probably the thing that first appealed to me was the cover, all in white fabric. It seemed rather like whitework embroidery, only in fabric.

It is the most amazing book! It goes through all manner of types of manipulating fabric, including smocking, quilting, using darts, and gathering. I read it on the bus on the way home, and got totally engrossed in the section on gathering. It was just fascinating. I learnt a lot about pattern-making, and the section on using darts was great too. It wasn’t cheap, but I figured that I recently had a birthday, and had some birthday money that I could happily put towards it.

I brought it home and showed my husband, and he said “Oh yes, we have two copies of that at school.” (He’s a school librarian.) Well… you could have told me about them! Oh well, now I have my own copy. 🙂