Happy Birthday in a Sewing Way

It was my birthday recently, and although at my age I should be saying I'm not interested in presents, it just wasn't true this year! Among lots of lovely gifts from my family (including praline chocolates which I've hidden from the kids) I received some delightful sewing presents that I thought I would share with you:

1) This book:

Now I'm not a quilter but this book is gorgeous. There's some mad history (such as the 70-year banning of printed Indian cottons! Who knew???), inspiring photos (for example, white corded quilts, quilted silk and satin petticoats, and colourful cotton toiles piquees), and even projects and resources. If I suddenly get a lot of time on my hands I may well take up this sort of challenge - otherwise it's a joy to look through.

This book looks to be available through Random House in Australia, and of course is also available on amazon, albeit with a different jacket. 

2)  This book:

which is the follow-up to the hugely popular "Meet Me At Mike's", and contains 25 funky and cute projects for grownups / kids / house. It includes patterns (and they're not all drawn on top of each other like in the Burda mag), lovely and very Melbourne-like photos. I'm probably going to make the broad-brimmed hats rather soon, and I definitely want to make the shirt-front cushion covers too if I can find some ex-shirts that aren't too dull - as I do enjoy cushion cover therapy (excepting the zips).  Although these projects are straightforward they are very appealing for those times when you want to make something that you don't have to think too hard about - but that you know will end up looking good. The pictures are also very useful references for non pink=girl, blue=boy sewing for kids.

In Australia I'm pretty sure this book is sold through the major booksellers, and the Meet Me At Mike's blog also refers me here.  Amazon should have it, but at the time of writing they say it's Out of Print - Limited Availability.  I wonder what that means.

3) These patterns (thank you self, how kind), during the brief $4.99 pattern sale at Vogue patterns, starting with my fave, and ending with those I'm less sure of:

V1186 Issey Miyake (good reviews)

V1202 Donna Karan (no reviews)

V1025 Anne Klein New York (good reviews)

V1133 Guy Laroche (no reviews)

V1158 Tracy Reese (no reviews)

V1207 Cynthia Steffe (no reviews)

V1174 Cynthia Steffe (good reviews)

I should have checked out their reviews first, but when I came across the sale it was ending soon, and patterns here in Australia are SO, SOOOOOOOOOOOO expensive all the time, and I kind of panicked. Actually I think I'm safe - they all either have good to very good reviews or no reviews (as noted in the brackets of the captions above).

I can definitely see myself making the first three (the pants, then the skirt, then the dress), but I'm wondering if the Guy Laroche may be a bit hard. The last three may be a lower priority too due to lack of reviews / boning (gulp).