Double Book Reveiw: Yeah! I Made it Myself & Lovely Things to Make for Girls of Slender Means

 Yeah! I Made it Myself and Lovely Things to Make for Girls of Slender Means are both by Eithne Farry and are two books that take a different view to sewing than most books on the subject (at least I think they do).  They are written in an informal style which makes you feel like you are just having a chat with Eithne.













Between them the books contain around 150 projects which are mostly sewing with a few sections with felting and knitting projects (none of which I have attempted yet).

Yeah! I made it myself (or DIY Fashion for the Not Very Domestic Goddess) is split into eight chapters with an introduction and an epilogue.  The first two chapters are devoted to the equipment and the basic techniques for both hand and machine sewing. The rest of the chapters are each themed towards a different type of project, like bags, skirts, dresses and even designing your own fabrics. The epilogue has a humorous attempt at making a draught excluder in the shape of a sausage dog taking seventeen weeks.

Lovely things to make for girls of slender means (or Having Champagne Tastes but a Lemonade Budget) has almost 100 projects divided between four chapters and based around each season. The book has the same introductory chapters on equipment and techniques as in Yeah! as well as an epilogue but instead of the lengthy sausage dog draught excluder tutorial there is instructions for making a dress covered in live scented sweetpea plants.

The books are very similar in terms of the style as the methodology of the projects are laid out in paragraphs rather than a list of steps and include high levels of encouragement to diversify taking the way you dress completely into your own hands.

The way that Lovely Things differs from Yeah! is the more complete images of the finished projects allows you to see what you are aiming to make. If it does go awry then you can use the images see if what you have can be salvaged or made into something completely different. The images in Yeah! are partial shots of the finished projects that don't give you any idea as to what you are trying to make. This is the only one of a few problems I have with the otherwise really good books.

A large chunk of my problems with the books are the inaccuracies with the instructions for the knitting projects. The instructions tell you to use a pair of No.4 needles with Double Knitting yarn (a US size 4 needles are 3.5mm and a UK size 4 is 6mm) however, Eithne is not American and has used metric measures for all her other instructions and so I assume she means 4mm needles. This is a tiny problem that would only cause problems with an inexperienced knitter who had inherited needles but it never fails to annoy me when reading the projects. The only other problem I have is that some days I just want the instructions to be given to me straight no frills or whimsical anecdotes.

I bought both of these books in a Waterstones Store I got Yeah! for £14.99 and Lovely Things for £12.99.  They can also be found on Amazon Here and Here