vol 3

Welcome to volume 3 of Golden hands: the complete knitting, dressmaking and needlecraft guide. There's 'Fashion Flair: capes tunics and skirts' circa 1974, an introduction to the feather stitch family including double feather stitch, quill stitch open cretan stitch and threaded herringbone stitch, and an introduction to tatting. I love the visuals of that top photo on the embroidery page with the matryoshka dolls and the strong primary colours. Sure, the 1970s could be garish but they could also be beautiful.

So while volume 3 is only just introducing tatting it is up to part 13 on embroidery. Understandably, a greater part of the volumes are given to knitting, embroidery and dressmaking (and to a lesser degree crochet) with less common crafts appearing infrequently.

Tatting has never really appealed to me although, having said that, I do own a fabulous book called The Art of Tatting by Lady Katharin Hoare. And there you go - feel free to download it yourself from the University of Pennsylvania library. Lady Hoare's work has incredible intricacy, depth and texture and comments from the Queen (the Roumanian one, I think). I find the visuals quite inspirational.