craftbook info motherlode

 Just dropping this link here for other people into craft books, especially vintage needlecraft: Something Under The Bed. I haven't even searched out the full depths of the site, I just ran through the soft-toy pattern book pages....and I found a book I had been looking for for years (but did not remember the author) and so I was able to use it as a clue to get me to a used copy for sale from another site.

One thing I've slowly done down through the years is search out the toy pattern books I remember checking out of the library as a kid (and other craft books: I bought the Woodstock Craftsmans Manuals because I had happy memories as a tween of stretching out on the living-room sofa and reading about needlepoint and quilting from those hippies).

I remembered for years and years a book I had checked out a few times, of stuffed animals heavily encrusted with embroidery (and, IIRC, sequins and beads) but never could find a copy after it was discarded from the library. I was remembering it as Winsome Douglass (herself a well known designer and embroiderer) but when I bought a reprint of one of her books from Dover, I knew it wasn't the right one - it didn't have the fantastic stag beetle I remembered, nor the dragon. 

Turns out it wasn't Winsome Douglass at all, but Barbara Snook.

When I saw a couple scanned pages from her book (on the sales site i bought it from) I realized: yes, this is the one. (Also the cover of the copy I ordered has that dragon on it).

I am still looking for a book I remember vividly looking at in a used bookstore in Ann Arbor: 70s-fabulous style, I got the sense it was maybe a British publication, and I remember there was a pattern for a centaur (with either embroidered or tufted chest hair! which at the time put me off a bit but I think I would just find funny now). I admit I keep looking for that book, occasionally cruising the "vintage toy book" listings on Etsy and the like; I would like to find a copy (if I could locate an affordable one). (and yes, Google is useless for finding anything related to it: it's sufficiently obscure and there's enough more-recent centaur content that it would be way, way down in the page count, if it's there at all)

(One thing I miss about Ann Arbor - though maybe that's changed in recent years there - were the many, many used book stores, which just had the most random selections of things. A lot of the Nero Wolfe books I have carted with me through several moves were Viking book-club editions from one of the used bookstores there.)