Each week throughout the summer we’ll hear from a designer about a pattern or book that caused them to head in a new direction and helped form their career. This is the fifth post in the series. You can read all of them right here.
Cintia Gonzalez describes herself as an all-around crafter. She’s the author of the popular Australian craft blog, My Poppet, where she publishes a steady flow of original, beautiful, and fun tutorials for everything from braided t-shirt rugs to cross stitched chairs to woven yarn bangle bracelets. Cintia has a colorful, vintage-inspired style and she often incorporates upcycled elements into her projects. I love Cintia’s blog and I’m thrilled to have her as my guest today to share the pattern (or, in this case, craft book) that changed her life.
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The book that changed my life is a reference book called Readers’s Digest Complete Guide to Needlecraft. It is an amazing tome that explains every possible stitch, technique and process you’d ever need to know when it comes to needlecraft. I’m talking embroidery, crochet, knitting, macrame, tatting, rug making, quilting, appliqué…and the list just goes on. It was my mother’s book and I loved it.
As a girl I would spend hours pouring over the pages and studying the illustrated step by step instructions for the embroidery stitches and other crafts. I was especially drawn to the sections on design and creating your own work, choosing colours and finishing projects for practical use.
Later when I moved out of home, I asked my mother if I could have it. She said no, of course, and there was a little crafty hole in my heart that I thought would never be filled. The book is out of print and as hard as I looked I never found a copy of my own, until…one day I went to a craft meet up where the idea was to bring along unwanted craft supplies for a swap. The supplies were wrapped up and all put in a box like a lucky dip. I chose a big heavy parcel and to my delight it was the Readers Digest Complete Guide to Needlecraft. It was meant to be!
I think this book has had a huge impact on me since my childhood. It not only taught me specific skills but has helped me understand how to make things without having patterns because I understand the fundamentals of the processes involved. As a reference I still use it all the time to refresh my memory for a stitch or technique I haven’t used in a while or want to learn, as well as to find inspiration when I am looking to create a new project for myself or the blog.
A sampling of some of Cintia’s projects. Her skills are eclectic and you can see how she applies the various techniques from her life-changing book in each one.
Once you understand the foundation of how something is made, there is a million ways to reinterpret it to make an original piece or design.
If I could only ever have one craft book, this would be it.
Cintia and her daughter, Emma, get crafty together.
My daughter Emma who is five, now enjoys looking though the book too. I think I’ll need to keep an eye out for another copy as I don’t think I’ll be able to let go of mine when she gets older.
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The Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Needlecraft was the craft book that changed Cintia Gonzalez’s life.
What’s book changed yours?
Now I have this brilliant book. I don’t think it changed my life though as I was already doing crafts from a young age, without any books. I got it about 30 years ago as ot had everything I needed and more and seemed to supply all the gaps in information that I had. It got me through knitting cardigans and bootees for my daughter when I had knitted only squares before. In fact it was literally the only craft book I bought until about 5 years ago, so although not life changing it was my crafting bible. I would always look at other books and come to the conclusion that they just didn’t add anything and they just didn’t have many appealing projects in them.
Now though, I have so many other craft books – far too many to count and too numerous for my bookshelves. That’s because things started to change and people got imaginative and books started to be original and different and beautifully produced. And now I want them all the time and have to disappoint myself for lack of space. What changed my life was the internet and craft blogging and so much inspiration that just had not made it to books before that point. I mean beforehand I had loved doing crochet, knew how to do it but just didn’t know what to do with it. That has now all changed. I still think that the internet showcases far better than magazines in particular, but now many of the same bloggers I admired so much have published books.
Those first bloggers that reignited that somewhat dimmed glow were Posie gets cozy, (I was desperate for a ripple blanket like hers), Hen house handmade and then later Attic 24. I came upon one of them by accident, I had no idea they existed and I was in heaven. It was that ripple blanket that got me hooked to blogs. Before that I hadn’t even had the stamina to make a scarf. I did make one too, taking 6 weeks. Now my biggest love is embroidery and yes there has been lots of inspiration for that, from Charlotte Lyons to Posie gets cozie and I have purchased both their work. Sometimes the how to isn’t enough to make you want to. Seeing everyone else’s work is what changed my creative life. I am a total blog addict!
Thank you so much for sharing this perspective. Blogs certainly have had the greatest impact on my crafting life as well.
Thanks for having me Abby. It was lovely to share my favourite craft book with your readers.
x cinti
That book looks amazing, and I don’t even embroider much beyond teddy bear noses!
I actually have a copy of this book and love it. A friend of mine found it at the take-it-or-leave it area at our town dump and brought it to me!
I loved this book as a child and also treasure it. In a similar vein, A to Z of Smocking from Country Bumpkin, and Ottobre magazine both emboldened my sewing and encouraged me to see patterns as interchangeable parts.
What a great series of posts!