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Books Related to Leatherwork Mary Maguire - ISBN: 0754806251
Leatherwork? Not as we know it. - Rated
This utterly trivial book is aimed at the `Women's Institute' market for part-time hobby crafts and its content is three streets removed from true leather craftsmanship.
Consider. If you're a `lady who lunches', if you have an unfilled hour in your hectic social calendar between your manicurist and your Pilates class then you could hack together one of the miserable projects in this book but you'd end up with an item of dubious fashion and of no earthly use whatsoever. One of the recommended projects is a `blanket carrier' for heavens sake!!!
However my tireless ingenuity gives me an idea. With a little adaptation the blanket carrier could serve as a harness for you to carry your fat dachshund to the park on an outing to meet the other girls and their toy dogs.
Other mind-numbing projects contained in the book are suede tassels for curtain cords, coasters and napkin rings, the mandatory barrette hair slide (did you ever see a woman actually wearing one?) a tea cosy, footwear that would have been fashionable in a 1960s hippy commune but only as a use for the skin from the roadkill that was last night's evening meal. The piece-de-resistance has to be `Bunny boiled egg cosies' with shirt buttons for eyes. From leather? Good grief.
Preferably, go to your attic or cupboard under the stairs, retrieve your eldest child's Blue Peter craft kit, collect toilet roll tubes, washing-up liquid bottles, sticky-back plastic, make flour & water paste and cobble together some of the projects in the book from leftover wallpaper and felt, thereby leaving the global stocks of hide and suede intact for people who can actually work these most precious materials with true skill and care.
In my 20 years as a leather craftsman much of the available source material on the subject has passed under my scrutiny. Some volumes are truly great, some highly informative, some act to spark ideas and some are just a good read. 'Leatherwork by Mary Maguire' has only one redeeming feature, the photography by Peter Williams. They even use a hand model for the pix, for surely these hands never sullied themselves on a task more onerous than cutting the crusts off cucumber sandwiches, probably wearing Marigolds to boot.
This piffling title is an example of coffee table fluff with little interest and no substance and you may glean that I feel royally ripped off and angry with myself for having purchased it.
