Look-alikes

There's not much reading involved in the Look-alikes books but you'll still spend hours with them. Creator Joan Steiner uses thousands of household objects to make models/collages of homes and community scenes. Pretzels become chair backs, dress shoes turn into top-down cars, dry lasagna noodles hang as ruffled curtains, a ghetto blaster morphs into a school bus with chocolate glazed doughnut wheels. Don't ignore the background - there are surprises there too.

Photographer Thomas Lindley has captured every detail in his beautifully clear photos. (Unless, of course, there are structural details we're not supposed to see.) Although your first impression is that the glove is a hill, you don't have to strain to see that the hill is, in fact, a glove.

These books are wonderful for stimulating creativity in young (and older) minds. They are fabulous for entertaining a broad range of ages all at the same time. They make you look differently at your surroundings. (They are also dangerous for anyone with even slight packrat tendencies because now everything can be saved "for a craft.") Teachers, children's group leaders, caregivers, and creative types can use these books as springboards for projects. Just imagine what you can do with a digital camera, a simple storyline, a bit of glue, some working space, and a whole lot of formerly useless stuff! (Best of all, once you have the pictures, you can ditch the model.)

Look-alikes books are by Joan Steiner. Published by Little, Brown and Co., starting in 1998. There are now at least 7 titles in the series, some, unfortunately, out of print.

Andean folk knits

I used to be a knitter. I love detail so the more intricate the pattern, the more fun I had. I played with colour, texture, and lacework, and made up a lot of my own patterns. Apparently knitting was one of the things I did too much of and my hands have protested as a result. I no longer knit but one of my daughters does so I still have reasons besides sentiment to look at knitting books and this one is a gem.

Andean folk knits is written by Marcia Lewandowski who used to live and work in Bolivia. She and her family were there for eight years doing community and agricultural development work with the Mennonite Central Committee near the end of the 20th century. During her time in Bolivia, Marcia learned a lot about local knitting both there and in the surrounding countries. She shares that knowledge with us and works in a wonderful combination of ancient and recent history, culture, and geography lessons as well. That makes it a useful resource for the soon-to-be tourist who would like local crafts information as well as an introduction to the area.

Instead of just getting patterns for specific articles, I learned who the different articles were traditionally used by, why certain fibres were used for certain projects, what regional variations might be seen, and how I might adapt the pattern for my preferences. I learned what to look for and what to look out for when selecting yarn for the various projects. Everything is well illustrated and accompanied by notes on basic techniques to accompany the patterns.

If I were still buying knitting books, this is one I would get. There are a few projects I am trying to talk my daughter into making for me so maybe I should buy a copy for her shelf instead of mine...

Andean folk knits : great designs from Peru, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador & Bolivia by Marcia Lewandowski. Published in 2005 by Lark Books (a division of Sterling Publishing). ISBN: 978-1-57990-953-6.