So Pretty! Felt - Blog Tour

Remember I mentioned a while ago that there was a new felt craft book out called So Pretty! Felt... and that it included a couple of projects designed by me?

Well, tomorrow is the start of the blog tour celebrating the launch of So Pretty! Felt.... so I get to show you guys my projects! Yay!

Here's the full schedule for the blog tour - if you follow the links for each day over the next couple of weeks you'll get lots of sneak peeks at the projects included in the book and I think there are going to be some giveaways and tutorials too :)

Monday, May 6 – Whip Up & Bugs and Fishes

Tuesday, May 7 – Mom Inc. Daily & Studio DIY

Wednesday, May 9 – Coquette & Studs and Pearls

Thursday, May 9 – The Sweetest Occasion & Ambrosia Creative

Friday, May 10 – West Coast Crafty & One More Mushroom

Saturday, May 11 – Mod Podge Rocks

Monday, May 13 – Handmade Charlotte & Fabric Paper Glue

Tuesday, May 14 – MINT & A Spoonful of Sugar

Wednesday, May 15 – Positively Splendid & Hart and Sew

Thursday, May 16 – Rouge and Whimsy & So You Think You're Crafty

Friday, May 17 – Aesthetic Nest & Dollar Store Crafts

Making Stuff & Making a Mess

It's amazing just how quickly my studio space can go from "super neat and tidy with everything put away" to "looking like a crafty bomb went off with piles of stuff everywhere".

This usually happens when I'm brainstorming some new ideas, as I go rummaging through lots of boxes of supplies looking for the perfect material and try to get half a dozen different ideas out of my brain and onto paper / into prototype form all at once. I love making sessions like this: so much creativity and crafty fun!

Tidying up afterwards = less fun, but never mind :)

Luckily I have a dedicated studio space at the moment so I can leave the desk, coffee tables, sofa and floor covered in heaps of crafty stuff, shut the door on it and come back and tidy up later! After years of working from the kitchen table or in the living room in my old flat it is a delicious luxury to be able to really throw myself into making things / working on new designs and not have to worry about tidying up straight away.

Lots of Blue, White and Grey Squares

Remember a few months ago I blogged about the big pile of yarn I had leftover from making my sky blanket?

Well, after many relaxing hours of knitting most of that yarn has now become blanket squares - I've got about two and a half balls of yarn left to go and, so far, have knitted about 60 squares.

I have had so many nasty bugs this year that I've had an awful lot of afternoons and evenings where I've not been up to much except curling up on the sofa and watching some DVDs. Knitting these squares has been the perfect simple project to entertain my sleepy brain (I have to be either really ill or watching something really amazingly gripping to not feel the itch to make stuff while watching TV) ... and it's wonderful to have produced this big heap of squares during time that otherwise would have been "wasted".

It's funny though that I've almost finished knitting squares from the leftover yarn from my sky blanket before I've finished sewing together my sky blanket itself! It's just so much easier to just pick up a ball of yarn and knit a few rows than it is to get out my (by now quite large and heavy) sky blanket and all the squares and the chart showing me what goes where and to spread it all out and carefully sew on some squares in their correct order. Ah, excuses, excuses. I Must Try Harder and actually get it finished!

Starting and Finishing

This week I've been doing lots of work involving piles of paper and pencils.

Starting a possible new project by sketching designs for project proposals (fingers crossed some of them get accepted!)...

... and finishing up the work on my new book. Working through the proofs to check all the text is correct = a pretty boring job, but it's great to see how the finished book is going to look. Roll on the autumn! :)