Review.... One Piece of Fabric by Lena Santana

This book is written by Lena Santana, and it's purpose is to teach you how to make 15 items, with relative ease even if your a beginner. It also shows techniques in it to help you build the pieces, and the patterns are in the book as well as the instructions with step-by step pictures.

This was given to me for Christmas, and I've since tried to make the "Cute Culottes"  which are shown to the right, since I've not made shorts before and the ones in the book looked so nice. Now this may have been one of the harder projects I fear. However it was completely the opposite of what Lena desired, I followed the pattern exactly... it forgot to mention that you need to cut 2, pieces of the fabric on the pattern page, also how wide to make the crotch wasn't mentioned, but I roughly estimated. The step-by step pictures were also very unhelpful, they've been taken so close up that you can't tell what seam is what, and the pictures are useless in that regard, they are focused and good. The instructions are fairly good and very straight forward with no real fancy language, which can often be found in this type of book and makes them un-usable. There are also not lots of steps for you to follow, this makes it a little easier to do since it means that it looks like there is less to do and can be a bit motivating.

The idea's in this book are excellent. The patterns seem easy enough to make, though I recommend a ruler,calculator and some squared paper. The pattern hasn't got numbers telling you how big the lines are for each size, but you can easily measure them and just times them by 6, which the book does tell you to do since the scale is of 6. The book caters for all sizes and the patterns are clear on the page. The pictures meanwhile being useless for the step-by step process can help you if you can identify which area they are.
The pictures in the book that are taken of the items are clear and quite inspiring as well as showing their simplicity off. The book has mostly summer wear in i.e. bikini's, shorts and simple cami tops. The instructions are clear and detailed enough that if you take your time you can easily make the product and the techniques that are in the book are well written so that beginners can follow them.
Over all this book is good, however a little knowledge or help may be needed on the pattern making part of the book although there are instructions to go with them and they do seem clearly instructed just perhaps a little common sense is needed which could be where I went wrong.

If you wish to buy it then the cheapest place I've so far found is:
Amazon - One piece of Fabric by Lena Santana

I will be using this book to make little projects from that I will post up here with twists, or just for people who don't want to buy the book or find it hard to follow.

Hope you enjoy the book if you buy it!

xoxo

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