Customer Reviews

Pretty Little Pincushions (Pretty Little Series)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The cover of the book is a good indication for the contents. Lots of pretty and out of the ordinary pincushions to make, many good to give as small presents. Takes the commonly overlooked and boring pincushion and makes it something you would want to set out, inspiring you to be more creative!

There is always a chance that craft books can get too cute or too vintage-that is not the case with this book. The projects are fun and easily made personal. A fun gift for anyone who sews. These pincushions are fun little pieces of personal art. Enjoy!

The joy of creating something beautiful or quirky is quickly realized when you indulge yourself following the directions and hints in this little book for creating small pincushions. I'm a quilter, but sometimes I want to do something really quick but satisfying. I want to use beautiful colors, perhaps in startling combinations, I want the fun of using sequins, beads, ribbons, and buttons. This book fulfills that desire and sparks one's imagination for further fun creations.

There are a lot of designs in this book that use materials that you already have in your sewing room (mostly felt), and they are quick to make. My favorites are the bottle cap pin cushions, they are addicting! Some of the designs pictured in the book give you ideas of how to modify the basic pincushions, but there are no specific instructions on how to make those modifications. It may be a problem if you want to recreate a particular design and don't know how to start. There are also suggestions on how to decorate the pins themselves. Overall, it is a very fun and well written book with lots of illustrations and photographs.

I have to divide this book up into thirds - it's one-third 'that's silly', one-third 'seen that', and one-third 'that's interesting!'

Starting with the most negative, the silly ones are the ones like the pillows. Seriously, two rectangles of fabric sewn together and stuffed. Not exactly rocket science, don't need a book for that.

Then there's the 'seen that' category, with the bottle cap pincushions and the ones made with teacups and the like. Instructions for those are all over the place (though I admit the eyeball/bottlecap one was pretty good), and it's nothing terribly amazing.

Finally, about a third of the book was pretty interesting. The sweater pincushion, in particular, is really nifty. This is the part of the book that makes it worthwhile, sadly, there's not enough of these to really make it worth it for me.

I think this would be a good book for someone who needs a creativity kick, or needs to churn out a bunch of little gifts with supplies they have on-hand. The instructions may require a few read-throughs (a few of them were a little hard to understand the first time through) but overall they're understandable and once you get them pretty easy.

This book is pretty in itself. Photographed beautifully, creative and inspiring. Instructions are complete, but can sound more confusing than they need be. I look through it every night just for the joy of it and, have been inspired to two designs already whilst accumulating the bits and pieces for more. It's addictive.

Well this book has it all. It carries a variety of different pincushions. Made from many items like a bottle cap, a cuff sleeve or using old pieces of china and stuffing it to make a pretty little pincushion. Hum.... I like that. Pictures are very good in this book. Well design and good "tips" on many pages. Even talks about those little needle pins we stick into them. How to make your own tops! I would recommend this book.
Cheers Fran MusettiPretty Little Pincushions (Pretty Little Series)

PLP has some great ideas for pincushions in it, with decent instructions. It would be more helpful the patterns were actual size.

Because the Look Inside feature is not available for this book it is not possible to judge the designs before purchase, so here is another opinion to consider. The title, Pretty Little Pincushions, and the cover photograph do not represent the contents well. Though the book itself is well done in that it provides adequate instructions to complete the projects, several of the designs are impractical and a couple of them are even grotesque rather than pretty as the title implies, and there are others that are so simple that instructions seem unnecessary. The product description is fairly accurate, but the actual projects left me unconvinced that a "talented designer" was necessary to create them. Too many of the designs yield a tacky or even weird pincushion not approaching the quaint or whimsical that the cover art suggests, some are just repurposed junk, and not very many are pretty little pincushions that I would enjoy making or be pleased to present as a gift.

I was very disappointed in this book. I should have sent it back. Some of the designs are dumb. I only found 2 pincushions I would even consider making and one was on the front cover. What is really sad is that some of the patterns in this book can be found online for free!! If you are looking for really unique pincushions, this is not the book for you.