Winning at lounging!

Hi there!

I’m very excited today to be joining the blogger book launch tour for Wendy Ward’s new book, A Beginner’s Guide to Sewing with Knitted Fabrics.  My review of the book is live on the Minerva Crafts blog now.

Whilst I was provided with a copy of the book and a contribution towards the fabric I used to make a project from the book, the opinions are entirely my own.  And I genuinely can’t recommend this book enough.

It’s interesting that there have been two very popular books about sewing with stretch knits released within a short time frame; this book and Tilly’s Stretch.  But I think they are both wonderful but very different from each other; you could definitely justify having both on your shelf.

Wendy’s book is beautifully laid out and explains very clearly all you need to know to get going on sewing with knitted fabrics.  There are gems of information in there even for those used to sewing with knits; it’s basically the book I wish had been available when I first wanted to sew these fabulously comfy fabrics.

The projects in the book come on full sized printed pattern sheets inside the back cover. A word of warning: you are going to have to trace these out.  The patterns are printed one over the other and larger pattern pieces may run across more than one sheet. However, they are clearly printed and colour coded and there is a handy reference in the book showing which side of which sheets the various patterns are printed on.

I was genuinely spoiled for choice but, since this review was written around Christmas last year, all I wanted to do was hibernate. Consequently, I  chose to make the Monsal lounge pants in some fab, star print, fleece backed jersey.  I chose the size according to my hip measurements and made a couple of standard mods such as adding a couple of cms to the length of the centre back seam and they are PERFECT!

I am wearing these trousers to death; they are absolutely the business for relaxing at home. For full details of all the bits I loved from this pattern and the book in general, head over to Minerva now.  And should you have chance to get hold of this book, I would genuinely go for it!

Becca x