If you were one of the seventy lovely people who attended our last Handmade Crafternoon (in May—eegads, so long ago!), then you know already what a wonderful time it was.  Natalie Chanin encouraged us all to take up needle and thread and make sustainable fashions entirely by hand from the humblest scraps of soft cotton jersey.  She filled the afternoon with stories, practical advice, and enthusiasm, and Maura and I couldn't have imagined a better way to wind up our spring series.  And of course, there were plenty of books from the stacks to share too, and the day's selection represented a combination of Natalie's own favorite inspirations as well as a variety of historic and international guides to the techniques that Natalie uses in her work: stencil, applique, and embroidery. 

Although this event's booklist is admittedly long overdue, I do hope that you find it useful if you want to investigate further. I also hope that your summer includes some free time to make stuff!

GENERALLY INSPIRING BOOKS

• Crafternoon : a guide to getting artsy and craftsy with your friends all year long / Maura Madden.
• (un)Fashion / by Tibor + Maira Kalman.
• Horst Keining : Mariakirchen / mit einem Text von Stephan Berg und einer Übersetzung von Stephen Reader.
• Poiret / Francois Baudot.
• By hand : the use of craft in contemporary art / Shu Hung and Joseph Magliaro, editors.
• The elements of Japanese design; a handbook of family crests, heraldry & symbolism / John W. Dower.

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

• Environmentally responsible design : green and sustainable design for interior designers / edited by Louise Jones. 
• Rural Studio : Samuel Mockbee and an architecture of decency / text by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean ; photographs by Timothy Hursley ; and essays by Lawrence Chua and Cervin Robinson.
• Handmade houses; a guide to the woodbutcher's art / Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro.
• Design for a living world / editors, Ellen Lupton and Abbot Miller.
• Designers, visionaries and other stories : a collection of sustainable design essays / edited by Jonathan Chapman and Nick Gant.

PHOTOGRAPHY

• Vanishing America : the end of Main Street / Michael Eastman.
• Louise Dahl-Wolfe : a retrospective exhibition / Sally Eauclaire.
• Uncommon places : photographs / by Stephen Shore.
• Sleeping by the Mississippi / Alex Soth.
• Dog days Bogotá / Alec Soth.
• Subsistence U.S.A. Text by Carol Hill. Photos. by Bruce Davidson.
• America & Lewis Hine : photographs 1904-1940.

STENCILS AND OTHER PAINTED EMBELLISHMENTS

• Japanese stencil dyeing : paste-resist techniques / by Eisha Nakano, with Barbara B. Stephan.
• Japanese stencil designs; one hundred outstanding examples collected and introduced by Andrew W. Tuer.
• Folk art motifs of Pennsylvania / Frances Lichten.
• Stencil-craft; colour decoration by means of stencilling, by Henry Cadness.
• From old stencils to silk screening; a practical guide. Full basic instructions, with a historical sketch of the craft from the earliest examples to the present-day, and 200 selected designs.
• Early American decorative patterns and how to paint them by Hilda Borcherding. 
• Stencilling for craftsmen, written & illustrated by W. G. Sutherland. 
• Stencilling, by F.R. Smith.
• Early American design motifs / Suzanne E. Chapman.
• Design from peasant art, by Kathleen Mann.
• Hmong batik : a textile technique from Laos / by Jane Mallinson, Nancy Donnelly and Ly Hang.

EMBROIDERY AND OTHER SEWN EMBELLISHMENTS

• Blackwork embroidery / Elisabeth Geddes and Moyra McNeill.
• Embroidery : Italian fashion / Federico Rocca.
• The needleworker's dictionary / ed.: Helene Von Rosenstiel.
• Feutres : regarder le ciel et créer / Françoise Tellier-Loumagne.
• Hemslöjdens handarbeten : Utarb. på uppdrag av Svenska hemslöjdsföreningarnas riksförbund / av Maja Lundbäck, Gertrud Ingers [och] Mattis Hörlén.
• Modern designs / Gabriel Prevot.
• Applique craft of Orissa / Bijoy Chandra Mohanty
• Signs in the designs : blue and white embroideries from China / Michele Nielsen.
• Die decorative Kunst Stickerei / Frieda Lipperheide.
• Bulgarian national embroidery : western regions / Rossitsa Choukanova.
• Bead embroidery; written and illustrated by Joan Edwards.