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.]

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.]

Giveaway Winners: Heart-Felt Holidays

It's time to pick the winners of the two copies of Heart-Felt Holidays!

The UK winner is Jacqui who said  said... "Looks like a lovely book. Please enter me for the uk draw."

And the US winner is Janet, who said "I love your felt-tastic creations and would love a chance to win your book. Don't you love Lark books?"

Thanks to everyone who entered! I've got a couple more book giveaways coming up this week, so keep your eyes peeled :)

Birds, PDFs and a Sky Blanket Update

Being self-employed, Bank Holidays don't automatically mean "no work" for me but because my local Post Office was closed for a few days over the Easter weekend I couldn't post any parcels so I got a chance to work on some other projects instead.

I tackled lots of "almost finished" projects in my WIP box and got them actually finished, including a whole bunch of robin and greenfinch brooches. It's always so lovely seeing a whole bunch of finished birdies all lined up together:

In between sewing, I made a start on something that's been on my To Do list for a while - putting together PDF versions of some of my most popular tutorials. All the free tutorials I share here on my blog are for non-commercial use only, but I know some of you guys would like to be able to sell what you make with them at craft fairs or in your Etsy shops, etc... so I've decided to sell PDFs which will allow you to do that.

The new PDFs will be a few £s each, and when you buy one you'll then be able to sell the things you make from it (as long as you credit me for the design in your shop listing or on your packaging) and to use the templates to teach sewing classes.

I'll announce it here on the blog when they're available, but in the meantime I'd love to know if there are any particular tutorials that you'd be interested in seeing in PDF form! You can leave a comment on this post or get in touch via my website.

I also got to spend some time working on my sky blanket. I was so busy in March that I got a bit behind with my blanket-square-a-day project, but I made sure that I was still looking at the sky every day and taking note of the colours. I had a big catch-up knitting and sewing session over the past few days and now I'm totally up to date with my knitted squares and I've sewn the blanket together up to the end of March - a quarter finished already!

It's still quite tricky photographing a long narrow strip of blanket, but I took a quick snap so you can see how it's progressing.

I am continuing to love how the blues and greys look together, and the pretty patchwork effect that's developing. It's also quite surprising how many blue skies we've had so far this year. Who knew the skies in England were so blue??



UPDATE: My robin and greenfinch designs are now available as sewing patterns! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns