Pretty Little Patchwork

Dear Shayne,

A few weeks back, you and I talked about doing a craft-along. You suggested we make projects from the book Pretty Little Patchwork and, since I had some credit in my Powell's account, I went ahead and ordered it (send them your used books [they pay the shipping!] and they'll give you credit to use for more books -- love that!)

When I got the book, I sat down and looked through every project, thinking about what fabrics I would use to make some of them -- I'm pretty excited about it! (We'll need to figure out a Project Timeline at some point, but I know we've both got other stuff going on right at this moment, so it can wait... perhaps we can begin in the fall?)

At any rate, the reason I am posting here is to say that I like this book and many of the projects in it. In fact, I like most of them, which is pretty impressive for a craft book.

But I was blown away by this weirdness that I just have to share. Check out this hat:

The hat's okay, but I probably wouldn't make it. I glanced at the list of supplies and it included interfacing and fusible webbing and realized that I would make an absolute mess of it. I'm useless with fusible webbing on a large scale. Pucker, pucker, pucker, blech.

You can see the list of "What you need" right here:

I was a little confused about where it says "Notions, such as interfacing and fusible web, based on pattern," because I thought, "Don't they know how much I'll need to use their pattern?" And then I thought, "Oh, maybe it's a different amount for different sizes..."

So I poked around to find the pattern (I don't know why, since I probably won't make this hat anyway... just curious, I guess) and I couldn't find it. So I looked again more carefully at the "What you need" list and...

What you need to make the hat shown in this book is... a pattern for the hat. Whaaaa---?

Isn't this a book of projects? I don't understand. I guess this project is actually "How to incorporate patchwork into a hat pattern you already have." Which I... guess... is... okay. Sort of. Still seems weird though.

Even if you can get past that, they do not tell you what pattern they used to make this hat. Now that just seems super strange to me. What if I wanted to make that hat? They have not given me nearly enough information.

Not that I was going to anyway, but still! I wonder if anyone has bought this book intending to make that hat. And I really wonder how well that went for them. My guess? Not well.

love,
kelly