Vintage Notions by Amy Barickman: Book Review and Giveaway

There is no denying that the words of a book - the information it transmits and how we walk away from our interaction with said book - matter immensely, but there is a great deal to be said in favour of visually appealing titles, too, especially when it comes to the realm of how-to books.

As a voracious reader, primarily of non-fiction books, I come in contact with many volumes each year that fall into one camp or the other, but far less that nail stellar content and sublimely beautiful pages between the same two covers. The most recent title that knocked it out of the ballpark for me on both fronts is the tremendously lovely Vintage Notions: An Inspirational Guide to Needlework, Cooking, Sewing, Fashion and Fun written by esteemed craft industry leader Amy Barickman (who you may know from her companies Indigo Junction and The Vintage Workshop, amongst many other places).





I was sent a copy of this book, which was released in 2010, from its publisher to review and can't begin to thank them enough for this lovely gift. I had three other books on the go when Vintage Notions arrived, but they all quickly went on the back burner because I honestly could not put this title down once I'd started reading it. Every free moment I got, I poured over another chapter and lapped up this book with immense gusto.

Author Amy Barickman created a whimsical, yet very partial, book that focuses on the wisdom, work and life of Mary Brooks Picken (pictured below), who was at the forefront of the early domestic arts and sciences front in the early twentieth century. Ms. Picken was a leading authority on many topics pertaining to homemaking, sewing, and fashion, and was the founder of the Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, Pennsylvania (as well as being one of the founding directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute).

{Photo of Mary Brooks Picken via Wikipedia}

The Woman's Institute offered very affordable at-home courses that readers from across America, Canada and further afield could avail of to better their own sewing skills, and by extension, their lives (be it sewing their own wardrobes, making clothing for their kids, working as a paid seamstress, etc). The Institute also published magazines and pamphlets on a wide variety of subjects pertaining to the domestic arts and it is amongst all of these sources that Amy gathered the information that makes up the bulk of her beautiful book.

In it, one finds instructions, patterns, and advice on topics pertaining to sewing, crochet, cooking, housekeeping, parties, the holidays, and timeless wisdom to help us navigate the waters of life that first appeared in this extensive Woman's Institute literature during the 1920s and early 1930s. Accompanying the text is a plethora of original vintage illustrations, as well as a gorgeous overall design to the book that includes things like page borders that are images of charming vintage fabrics.

No matter if one is a sewer or not, this book is worth its weight in gold for the history it contains and important page space that it devotes to an institution that was once at the forefront of domestic like in America. Divided into twelve chapters, one to correspond with each month of the year, Vintage Notions also includes a heartwarmingly lovely prefix at the beginning of each chapter from Amy that covers some of her own thoughts on that month and the subjects covered within it by the Institute.

{Take an exciting peak inside Vintage Notions in this engaging YouTube video from author Amy Barickman herself.}

The Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences operated from 1914 until 1938, and though a focus on domestic arts remained a key point for many ladies in the ensuing two decades, by the 1960s, as the sands of society were shifting on many, many fronts, the age old arts of homemaking, sewing, knitting and similar crafts were no longer at the forefront of many women's lives in the ways that they had once been. As a result, the wisdom that the Woman's Institution had gathered, created, and shared largely fell out of the public eye, yet even in the 21st century much of it reminds poignant and practical - and for those of us who sew and sport vintage fashions, extremely handy on that front as well.

Amy Barickman has done a hat doffingly commendable job of gleaning some of the most enjoyable and practical information (and patterns) that the Woman's Institute offered its students and brought it to life in today's world with the help of her own notes and a book that is so beautifully designed, you'll not only want to keep your copy out on display, but to give this book to all of the sewing, history, vintage fashion and cooking fans in your life.

In addition to sending a copy my way, the publisher also very generously offered to give away one copy of Vintage Notions to a lucky North American Chronically Vintage reader.

If you'd like to try your hand at winning a copy of this awesome book, please feel free to do as many of the following seven things as you'd like, ensuring that you please leave a separate comment for each method that you enter with.


1. Leave a comment on this post letting me know what your favourite type of domestic art is and at least one of the ways in which it has impacted your life.


2. Blog about this giveaway on your own site, linking back to this post.


3. Like Amy Barickman on Facebook and post about the giveaway on your own Facebook page.


4. Follow Amy on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway, including the hashtag #vintagenotions in your tweet.


5. Sign up to follow Amy's blog by email (you can do so at the top of the right hand sidebar).


6. Follow, or be an existing follower, of Chronically Vintage on Instagram.


7. Like, or be an existing fan, of Chronically Vintage on Facebook.


Giveaway details

This giveaway is for one copy of the book Vintage Notions by Amy Barickman. It is open to readers from Canada and America, at the request of the publisher (apologies to my wonderful international readers), and will run from today (January 27th) until February 3, 2015.

Once the giveaway has closed, I will select a winner using a random number generator and announce that person's name on Facebook and/or Twitter shortly thereafter. If doing so is possible, I will also try to contact the winner directly by email or Facebook private message to let them know that they won and to obtain their address, which I'll pass along to the publisher who will send your prize to you directly.

♥ ♥ ♥

I genuinely adore Vintage Notions and would have happily reviewed and penned every last word that I said in today's post regardless of if I received it as a review gift or not. It is en elegant, sweet, wholesome, timeless tome and homage to the domestic arts that deserves a place in homes and lives of those with a passion for any branch of this field and/or history in general - plus, those who sport 1920s and/or 30s fashions are bound to especially love that the patterns in it hail from those decades.

Thank you, Amy, for writing this book and introducing Mary Brooks Picken’s wisdom, advice, and knowledge to a new generation for whom - as I'm certain Mary herself would have known – it remains as pertinent today as it was more than eighty years ago when it was first presented to the world.