New Christmas books. Is there anything better?
The top two books are by Djerba Goldfinger, the founder of the famous online fabric store Reprodepot. Known for her love of pattern Djerba has put together two amazing books of patterns, that not only offer a huge amount of inspiration, but also give you the option of printing them out for personal use, using the cd that is included in the books which features all 225 patterns (75 designs in 3 different colourways).
After years of collecting vintage textiles, Djerba created Reprodepot, initially as a way of feeding her stash, but these days it stocks a beautiful array of both authentic vintage textiles as well as vintage inspired fabrics, including many wonderful Japanese prints. Even with the rapid increase of online stores that now specialise in Japanese and retro fabrics, Reprodepot is still a firm favourite with anyone that loves pattern as much as Djerba does.
The books themselves are beautifully presented, with the sort of photography and attention to detail that you would expect from Chronicle Books. The paper quality alone makes you instantly fall in love and then add the incredible patterns in to the mix as well as 10 craft projects and you're on to an instant winner.
The two volumes are Flora and Folk, and are equally inspiring. Flora concentrates on mostly tiny floral (obviously) prints, all with the vintage vibe you would expect teamed with a strong scandi/japanese flavour.
As well as the 225 patterns available on the cd, you can also print out templates for some of the 10 paper craft projects that are included at the back of the book.
The projects are well explained and range in simplicity from a sheet of wrapping paper to the more complex instructions for creating a stab-bound book. And I have to say that as someone that has no experiance with paper crafts I definitely found the ideas inspiring - basic enough not to scare me off whilst still varied enough to keep me interested. My only slight negative is that both books have the same projects in them, but I guess that's fair enough when it's all about the patterns rather than being actual project books.
I love the fact that there are 224 straight pages of pure pattern here. I don't know if it's just because I'm a total geek, but this stuff makes me happy. Especially when it's presented in such a lovely format and also offers me the chance to use the patterns as often as I like in as many ways as I can think of.
If you're into print and pattern then I'm pretty confident that one or both of these books will appeal to you, whether you're looking for patterns to use or just some beautiful eye candy.
