BiblioCraft

Starred review from February 1, 2014

Pigza, a rare-books librarian at the New York Public Library, connects her two passions--libraries and crafting--in this collection of book-inspired craft projects. Each project uses books and library collections (often vintage) as a jumping-off point, turning things as commonplace as marbled endpapers into a pretty sewn pouch or drawing inspiration from children's book illustrations for a fanciful child's dress. Photographs of the primary sources that provided ideas for the projects are incorporated, allowing crafters to see the "ancestry" of each item. Pigza has assembled quite the cast of crafting luminaries, such as Gretchen Hirsch (Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing), Liesl Gibson (Oliver + S Little Things To Sew), and Heather Ross (Heather Ross Prints), and these varied projects include everything from sewing and embroidery to papercraft. Copyright issues relating to craft making--a frequent cause of heated arguments in crafting communities--are concisely and intelligently covered, and there's plenty of material on types of libraries and ways to use libraries as a source of creativity and information. VERDICT Though bibliophiles and fans of libraries will be drawn in by the theme of the book, crafters who haven't visited a library since childhood will be thrilled with the wealth of talented artists whose projects are featured. (Bibliophiles will also be pleased that no books are harmed in the making of these crafts.) [See author Q&A, p. 74.--Ed.]

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