Comprehensive step-by-step instructions cover everything from cutting out patterns to making sleeves and fitting zips, and are accompanied by thousands of colourful illustrations, diagrams and photographs. This encyclopaedia of sewing includes detailed directions, practical advice, time-saving tips, essential techniques and hundreds of creative touches to bring out the best in your needlework. There are 20 projects to help you put into practice what you have learned, with ideas for creating clothes and home accessories in classic styles which can be easily adapted to changing trends.

    To celebrate the anniversary, we are pleased to publish an edition featuring a new cover that celebrates I Saw a Purple Cow's status as a classic in the field. The contents remain the same. The lists of useful things to buy and save are still current and useful, and the activities, such as making rock creatures, fun with sounds, and how to create tube and clothespin puppets, are as easy and intriguing today as they were when the book was originally published. Here is an essential tool for today's caretakers of young children.

    And you are going to sew well. You may open this book as a beginner, eager to make an absolutely smashing dress; or you may open it as an experienced sewer, determined to master tailoring. Whatever you reason, we believe the book will satisfy you, for it aims to teach the novice basic sewing skills and help the advanced seamstress perfect her ability.