Cat Lover's Craft Book

September 3, 2018
Cuteness abounds in this compendium of feline-themed pillows, purses, and pins with a distinctive Japanese pop culture sensibility. The author is actually a collective of Japanese crafters who own (or admire) cats, and their feline muses are depicted on a delightful author credit page. Cat silhouettes bordering the pages add to the book’s pleasing design. From catryoshka pouches—an imaginative take on Russian nesting dolls—in graduated sizes to knitted umbrella handles resembling cats’ tails, this collection proves that almost anything can bear a feline motif. Projects require appliqué, embroidery, knitting, sewing, and/or crocheting, so it helps to have multiple skills, as well as a shelf’s worth of such craft supplies as seam sealant and really sharp scissors. The project sizes are small, which makes them less taxing but also demands accuracy. The guideline noting that metric measurements are exact and their translation into U.S. standard inches is approximate might cause some to work more slowly or with magnification on projects where the scale requires one-eighth–inch precision. Beginners beware: the lessons here are cute, definitely. Easy, not so much. Cat fanciers who also have a number of needlework and fabric art skills will most enjoy these quirky projects.

September 15, 2018
Cuteness abounds! Any crafter with even a minimal appreciation of cats will seize these 17 designs, which are customizable in almost infinite ways. A group of 13 like-minded Japanese stitchers?knitters, sewers, embroiderers?banded together to create these appealing objects. All are decorative and even useful to some degree (though a case could be made against umbrella-handle covers). In typical Japanese-craft-book fashion, color photographs precede the instructions, followed first by details on specific how-to's, such as how to make the cross-stitch buttons, then by the written directions for each design. Careful husbanding of pages means that, for the most part, the instructions might need to be read with a magnifying glass, and occasionally a detail or step seems missing. (For instance, a fine variegated brown yarn is too broad a choice for most.) Yet all issues can be surmounted to produce some unusual coin purses, cat dolls, and knitted pillows. Appended with general guidelines and embroidery techniques specific to this book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)