Read it... and weep :(

Over recent months I have been looking through craft books for inspirations or in the vain thought that maybe I could do it better.  Usually I try to get them from the library so that I can see whether it is worth investing my hard earned pennies in a copy for me or if it is never going to cross my threshold ever again.

However in recent months I have been getting rather peeved, this weekend my sister gave me a book.  It was beautifully done, smelling of that lovely uncut pages, filled with glorious images of vintage close ups of wooden cotton reels and fabric you dream about finding and to cap it all it had a ribbon to use as a book mark… I was in seventh heaven until I made the cardinal error of reading it!

Now I am not an expert but I do have a pretty good knowledge of a number of crafts – knitting, sewing crochet, quilting, papercrafts – but this woman could not be bothered with such things.   The comment about covering a jar of shop bought jam with a remnant of fabric and claiming you have made it... priceless.  I could not believe it, this is a craft book, supposedly sharing with me the secrets of amazing gifts from vintage sources.  However my current favourite was the idea of displaying plates by means of gluing ribbon onto the back of your most cherished bone china and then pinning the ribbon to the wall… the pics looked gorgeous, but then I got to thinking how long would the glue be able to cope with the stresses of gravity?

Were we back in the days of the Araldite man being lifted into the air by a chopper when he was stuck onto a billboard?  He did not fall off, I think due in no small part to the copious amounts of glue that was used!  In the States they stuck cars to billboards, I wonder how long they would last on the US highways today?

So I then posted about this to one of my fave forums, UK Craft Forum, and someone mentioned another issue.  In TV, it is known as reversioning, when you take a pre-existing programme, repackage it and release it under a new name… and yep, this has spread to books too.  Not only do we get the variety with new covers and titles, but we also get the sliced and diced versions… a few projects from one publication, others from another publication and so on.  It is so frustrating when you think you are getting a lovely new book from a tried and trusted author and all you get is a rehash… and I do like hash (note to self… this should be an item for Foodie Friday).

So here is my plea to publishers, don’t do it, we don’t like and we will stop buying it, SO THERE!