... Maria of Dinki Dots who said: "I'd love a chance to win, many thanks!"
Thanks to everyone who entered :)
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Giveaway Winner: Sewing Made Simple
The winner of the copy of Sewing Made Simple is...
... Maria of Dinki Dots who said: "I'd love a chance to win, many thanks!"
Thanks to everyone who entered :)
... Maria of Dinki Dots who said: "I'd love a chance to win, many thanks!"
Thanks to everyone who entered :)
Friday, 13 April 2012
Giveaway: Zodiac Felties
I've got one copy of Zodiac Felties to give away... and because it's a relatively small and light book I'm happy to post it internationally so anyone can enter. Hurrah!
For your chance to win, just leave a comment on this post telling me what star sign you are. Leave your comment before 10pm on Friday 20th April, and I'll pick a winner at random on Saturday 21st April.
Please make sure you leave a name or pseudonym (no anonymous comments please!) and leave a blog link, Twitter username, Etsy username or email address so I can contact you. If I'm unable to contact the winner within two weeks, I will pick someone else.
UPDATE: this giveaway is now closed!
For your chance to win, just leave a comment on this post telling me what star sign you are. Leave your comment before 10pm on Friday 20th April, and I'll pick a winner at random on Saturday 21st April.
Please make sure you leave a name or pseudonym (no anonymous comments please!) and leave a blog link, Twitter username, Etsy username or email address so I can contact you. If I'm unable to contact the winner within two weeks, I will pick someone else.
UPDATE: this giveaway is now closed!
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Book Review: Zodiac Felties
I loved astrology when I was a teenager (I'm a Gemini, how about you?) so I was quite intrigued when I was a sent a copy of Zodiac Felties by Nicola Tedman & Sarah Skeate.
This is a cute little book that shows you how to sew 15 "astrological characters" - 12 characters based on the signs of the zodiac, plus 4 "planetary felties": the Sun, the Moon, Mars and Venus.
It probably goes without saying that if you think astrology is a load of old nonsense or you've got no idea what star sign you are, then this is probably not the book for you! If all your friends and family are similarly minded, you're probably also not going to have much need for this book as primarily I think you'd use it to make little star sign "mascots" as birthday gifts for other people.
The book actually includes a special page at the back that you can scan or colour copy to use as a background when making a card to present your felties as gifts, and the small size of the characters mean they could easily be turned into fridge magnets or brooches for gift-giving.
The designs are cute and quirky. Some of the star signs are interpreted quite literally - a lion for Leo, for example...
... and others are a bit more more abstract, like this sweet little lady that represents the moon:
There's a few pages at the start of the book explaining how to do all the different stitches, how to stuff the felties and how to use the different types of glue needed for the projects (rubber cement and superglue). The felties are all rated by difficulty (1-4 stars) and each project includes full size templates, a bit of information about the star sign, a detailed materials list...
... a page of step by step instructions and a page of step by step illustrations.
As the templates are full size it's quite easy to trace them, but if you prefer to scan or photocopy your pattern pieces you'll end up needing to copy 16 pages as the pattern pieces are scattered through the book (appearing on the relevant project page) rather than all together at the end of the book.
The designs are all embellished with things like sequins, mini pearl beads, pearl droplet beads, seed beads, bugle beads, etc. I have quite a reasonable stash of sequins and small beads but there's a lot of stuff required to make these felties which I don't have in my stash including things like "gold metal eye pins" and "brass craft wire" and really specific things like "2 gold leaf-shaped pendant beads, 10mm long" and "1 bronze metallic ring from a toggle fastening, 15mm in diameter". You'll also need jewellery-making tools like round needle-nosed pliers, eyelet pliers and metal snips. Maybe all these things are essential parts of a jewellery-maker's craft stash? I don't know.
Some of the beads and sequins could be substituted for similar things, but many of the other embellishments are pretty central to the design/construction of the felties. They do look lovely, but you may find that you have to do quite a bit of shopping to find all the necessary bits and pieces - this is not a book you can just sit down and craft from with a pile of felt and thread.
Zodiac Felties is published by Ivy Press. RRP £8.99. It's available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.
Like the look of this book? I'm giving away my copy of Zodiac Felties to one lucky crafter... Check back tomorrow for your chance to enter the giveaway :)
[Disclaimer: Ivy Press sent me a free review copy of this book, and the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links which means if you click on them and then make a purchase I get a very small % as a referral fee.]
This is a cute little book that shows you how to sew 15 "astrological characters" - 12 characters based on the signs of the zodiac, plus 4 "planetary felties": the Sun, the Moon, Mars and Venus.
It probably goes without saying that if you think astrology is a load of old nonsense or you've got no idea what star sign you are, then this is probably not the book for you! If all your friends and family are similarly minded, you're probably also not going to have much need for this book as primarily I think you'd use it to make little star sign "mascots" as birthday gifts for other people.
The book actually includes a special page at the back that you can scan or colour copy to use as a background when making a card to present your felties as gifts, and the small size of the characters mean they could easily be turned into fridge magnets or brooches for gift-giving.
The designs are cute and quirky. Some of the star signs are interpreted quite literally - a lion for Leo, for example...
... and others are a bit more more abstract, like this sweet little lady that represents the moon:
There's a few pages at the start of the book explaining how to do all the different stitches, how to stuff the felties and how to use the different types of glue needed for the projects (rubber cement and superglue). The felties are all rated by difficulty (1-4 stars) and each project includes full size templates, a bit of information about the star sign, a detailed materials list...
... a page of step by step instructions and a page of step by step illustrations.
As the templates are full size it's quite easy to trace them, but if you prefer to scan or photocopy your pattern pieces you'll end up needing to copy 16 pages as the pattern pieces are scattered through the book (appearing on the relevant project page) rather than all together at the end of the book.
The designs are all embellished with things like sequins, mini pearl beads, pearl droplet beads, seed beads, bugle beads, etc. I have quite a reasonable stash of sequins and small beads but there's a lot of stuff required to make these felties which I don't have in my stash including things like "gold metal eye pins" and "brass craft wire" and really specific things like "2 gold leaf-shaped pendant beads, 10mm long" and "1 bronze metallic ring from a toggle fastening, 15mm in diameter". You'll also need jewellery-making tools like round needle-nosed pliers, eyelet pliers and metal snips. Maybe all these things are essential parts of a jewellery-maker's craft stash? I don't know.
Some of the beads and sequins could be substituted for similar things, but many of the other embellishments are pretty central to the design/construction of the felties. They do look lovely, but you may find that you have to do quite a bit of shopping to find all the necessary bits and pieces - this is not a book you can just sit down and craft from with a pile of felt and thread.
Zodiac Felties is published by Ivy Press. RRP £8.99. It's available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.
Like the look of this book? I'm giving away my copy of Zodiac Felties to one lucky crafter... Check back tomorrow for your chance to enter the giveaway :)
[Disclaimer: Ivy Press sent me a free review copy of this book, and the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links which means if you click on them and then make a purchase I get a very small % as a referral fee.]
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Book Review: 201 Knitting Motifs, Blocks, Projects & Ideas
Back to the book reviews... did you see I've added a "book reviews" tab to my blog header? Now you can see all my book reviews in one place, if you want to, of course!
Today I'm looking at 201 Knitting Motifs, Blocks, Projects & Ideas by Nicki Trench who also wrote Cute & Easy Crochet which I reviewed last year. As the title suggests, there are a lot of different projects and patterns included in this book.
There's a brief "basic techniques" section at the back of the book, but the main content of the book is divided into "blocks" and "projects".
The "blocks" section includes 150 blocks divided into different sections: basic stitches, textured motifs, cables, ribbing, lace, stripes & colour, intarsia, fair isle, ripples, embroidery, beading and patterns for squares in the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 1-10. A few of the variations are quite similar (e.g. several of the "stripes and colour" blocks are just variations of the same stitch in different stripey colour combinations), but there's still a huge amount of information crammed into this section.
All the blocks are based on a 6 inch (15cm) square so if you wanted you could mix and match them to create something like a cushion or a blanket, or you could just use them to practice / develop your knitting skills.
The "projects" section contains 51 simple knitting projects including dishcloths, fingerless gloves, mug cosies, cushions, and scarves. Some of the projects are more detailed & complex, but most look like very accessible patterns that would be relatively quick to knit.
I rather liked the look of this fun cupcake pincushion...
... and this stripey draught excluder (love those giant pompoms!)...
... but the blocks section is the part which really appeals to me. I've got a similar book called How to Knit (now out of print, I think, my dad managed to find one for me second hand after I'd got a copy out of my local library) which contains lots of different stitch patterns and I really enjoying picking a new one and testing it out. The sheer number of blocks contained in 201 Knitting... and the fact that the blocks can be mixed and matched makes this a book I can see myself referencing again and again and spending many happy hours experimenting with the different designs.
201 knitting motifs, blocks, projects & ideas is published by CICO Books. RRP£14.99. It's available from Amazon UK
, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.
[CICO Books sent me a free review copy of this book, and the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links which means if you click on them and then make a purchase I get a very small % as a referral fee.]
Today I'm looking at 201 Knitting Motifs, Blocks, Projects & Ideas by Nicki Trench who also wrote Cute & Easy Crochet which I reviewed last year. As the title suggests, there are a lot of different projects and patterns included in this book.
All the blocks are based on a 6 inch (15cm) square so if you wanted you could mix and match them to create something like a cushion or a blanket, or you could just use them to practice / develop your knitting skills.
The "projects" section contains 51 simple knitting projects including dishcloths, fingerless gloves, mug cosies, cushions, and scarves. Some of the projects are more detailed & complex, but most look like very accessible patterns that would be relatively quick to knit.
I rather liked the look of this fun cupcake pincushion...
... and this stripey draught excluder (love those giant pompoms!)...
... but the blocks section is the part which really appeals to me. I've got a similar book called How to Knit (now out of print, I think, my dad managed to find one for me second hand after I'd got a copy out of my local library) which contains lots of different stitch patterns and I really enjoying picking a new one and testing it out. The sheer number of blocks contained in 201 Knitting... and the fact that the blocks can be mixed and matched makes this a book I can see myself referencing again and again and spending many happy hours experimenting with the different designs.
201 knitting motifs, blocks, projects & ideas is published by CICO Books. RRP£14.99. It's available from Amazon UK
, Amazon USA, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.[CICO Books sent me a free review copy of this book, and the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links which means if you click on them and then make a purchase I get a very small % as a referral fee.]
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