Craft-Themed Jigsaw Puzzles for Sewing, Knitting, Quilting, and Crafting Fans!

I have totally fallen in love with jigsaw puzzles and was delighted to discover recently that you can buy crafting-themed jigsaws. They're so colourful and cosy, I adore them.

Obviously, when I set up my new Amazon Influencer page (a little "storefront" where I can curate lists of things I love and where if you end up buying something I earn a small amount of commission for the referral) a list of craft-themed puzzles was one of the first things I had to put together!

(In the US? Click here to view my page on Amazon.com)

There are puzzles decorated with art and craft supplies...

 

... sometimes with the addition of cats!

Puzzles featuring quilts and quilters...

 

 ... granny squares...

... and haberdashery shops.

There are also puzzles depicting dream creative workspaces, including a lots of cosy craft-filled sheds!

 

I want to move into that last picture immediately.  

Click here to view the whole list of puzzles on Amazon.co.uk, or click here to view a similar list I've put together on Amazon.com. (All the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links).

How To: Sew A Crochet Hook Roll

UPDATE: this tutorial is now part of my Patreon pattern library xx

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Today I'm sharing a tutorial for using felt, fabric and ribbon to make a roll for storing your crochet hooks or other creative tools like pencils, pens, or knitting needles.

 

This project originally appeared in docrafts Creativity magazine in 2014 and was made using cute heart fabric from this bundle, ribbon from this pack and coordinating felt.

The measurements listed are for a crochet hook wrap. To adapt this project to fit different tools you’ll need to draw your own templates. This is very easy! Just lay out your tools on a piece of squared paper and measure the size you need for the pocket. Then draw a larger rectangle for the wrap template, leaving at least 1cm space around the bottom and sides of the pocket and plenty of space for the tallest of your tools.

 

 

Unravel Festival of Knitting 2016

Last Friday, after a walk around the centre of Farnham (exploring the town's history and architecture), I headed to Farnham Maltings to visit Unravel: an annual "festival of knitting" which also celebrates crochet and other fiber arts.

As any regular reader of my blog could tell you, I am not the world's best knitter (or crocheter). I've made a couple of big projects like my Sky Blanket and my Granny Square Blanket but I mostly stick to very small, simple things like basic scarves and plain squares for patchwork blankets.

But I'd been to the textile-themed Thread festival at the Maltings a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it, so when an old friend said she was visiting Unravel and did I fancy coming along? Well, a day of nattering and tea and cake and lots and lots of yarn seemed like a pretty good plan to me.

There was a lot of beautiful yarn for sale, plus books and patterns and kits and knitting/crochet accessories and loads more crafty goodness. The whole building was jam-packed with stalls, but here are just a few that caught my eye.

The Little Grey Sheep had such a fabulous selection of colours! Passion for their product was something that radiated from every seller at the festival, and this family farm was no exception. They have a flock of sheep which they shear themselves, the fibre is washed and spun within the UK and then returned to the farm where it's hand-dyed in all those lovely colours.

Charming kits and patterns for your dog, from Redhound for Dogs. You'd be knitting the coats for the dog, of course, as I'm not sure even the most talented of pups could master knitting. 

(Do excuse these slightly blurry photos, my camera was struggling a little with the lighting!)

Fabulous pompom yarn (handmade in Chile) from Añañuca. How much fun would this be to knit with?? 

Needle felted awesomeness by Jenny Barnett. I love that little sign: You CAN make these.

 

Spin City had roving and other spinning supplies in some magical colours! And sparkles, too! Even the product names are magical: Mermaid's Hair, Cinderella's Slippers, Nebula.

Cute and quirky faux taxidermy and other knitted animal fun from Sincerely Louise. I especially love the triceratops and the little mole door stop.

More beautiful yarn in delicious colours, this time from John Arbon Textiles.

 

 

Finally, beautiful patterns and kits by Jane Crowfoot.

The flower blanket on the top right is called Frida's Flowers, and has been designed for a "crochet along" with yarn company Stylecraft. Kits to make the blanket will be available from March, and the free patterns will be published in instalments over 4 months, starting from early April.

I really don't need to start another project (especially one as big as a blanket) but I have to admit to being very tempted by this one!

Show & Tell #14

One of the best bits of my job is seeing what people have been making from my books and free tutorials. I love seeing the photos of finished projects that people share with me, and I love sharing them with you guys too as part of my ongoing (though somewhat infrequent) Show & Tell series.

It's been a while since my last Show & Tell post, so I've got lots of crafty goodness to show you...

Holly stitched a fab cassette phone case using my pattern from Mollie Makes #41.

Lisa shared this in-progress photo of an angel bear she was sewing from my first book, Super-Cute Felt. Her daughter helped trace the pattern and was "very insistent that the colours are as close as possible" to the ones in the photos.

Kate bought a big bundle of felt from my shop and used it to create two colourful patchwork projects, which she shared as tutorials on her blog.

Felt patchwork table mats...

... and a rather fabulous felt patchwork blanket.

 

Louise emailed me these photos of a cute woodland garland she'd sewn using patterns from my second book, Super-Cute Felt Animals. It looks like lots of happy hours of sewing went into this!

 

Liz used my vintage felt baubles tutorial to decorate her Christmas cards last year. Look at all those baubles!

Liz said she made the ornaments "then attached them to cards using a brad, so the recipients can take the ornaments off and keep them when they are done with the card" She "made the cards from a very heavy cardstock so they wouldn't tip over" and "sewed on the coordinating borders with my machine". Such a great idea.

Linda wrote a lovely review of Super-Cute Felt Animals. "The day the book arrived in the mail our granddaughter was here and we had a wonderful time looking through the book and picking out animals I would make for her. She chose a cat and a dog"

Instead of stitching eyes (which can be quite fiddly at this scale) Linda added cute googly eyes instead.

She also stitched a pair of blackbirds using my free pattern.

The delightfully named "A Foolish Twit" tweeted photos of a whole bunch of things she's been making from my books. She said "Without your patterns I would never have got back in to crafting, now I love it!" which makes me very happy.

She combined two projects in Super-Cute Felt to make this bee needlecase...

 

... stitched lots of safari animals from Super-Cute Felt Animals...

... and made a whole army of mice finger puppets (I wonder what the collective noun would be for finger puppets?). You can also spot one of my floral projects in the bottom pic - patterns for the mice and the flowers can both be found in Super-Cute Felt.
 

My previous Show & Tell post was all about the sky blankets other people have been making, inspired by my sky blanket.

Here's Leanne's finished blanket - congrats, Leanne!

 

Amy is making a fab crochet version of the sky blanket, crocheting a granny square a day and using cheerful yellow yarn for sunny days instead of sticking with shades of blue.

She's blogging about the blanket as it grows. It's looking great, and has a surprising amount of yellow in it.

Amy wrote "I can't actually say just how much I love this project - it is great seeing how it grows, as I have no idea what colour the squares are going to be from one day to the next" ... "this blanket is bringing me nothing but pleasure" - which sounds a lot like how I felt when making my sky blanket. Such fun!

And last but by no means least, Polly stitched a tree stump pincushion using this guest tutorial shared on my blog by the talented Manuela.

Polly adapted the pattern slightly, using French knots to add the white spots on the toadstools which look great. She says "I'm really pleased I made this! I like having practical items which are also visually pleasing, and this makes me happy every time I use it." What more can you ask for from a crafty project?

You can see see all the previous show and tell posts here. My archive of free patterns and tutorials can be found here and you can read more about my books here.   

If you want to share what you've been making from my patterns (or from supplies you bought from me back when I still sold them, or when I've done a destash sale) please do get in touch. If you just want to share your work privately and don't want to be included in a future Show & Tell post that's totally okay! :)

You can leave a comment and link here on this post, send me an message via my contact form or share a photo over on my Facebook page.

Please note: the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links. 

Cosy Knits Needed...

Today I'm sharing a message from my crafty friend Sally, who is looking for people to knit and crochet things for a very good cause:

"Got some bits of yarn hanging around? I work with a charity who, among other things, provides a food bank for people in the East Lancashire area. We'd really like to be able to give out hats and gloves, maybe the occasional blanket with the food. Could you knit or crochet something for our collection, for men, women or children of any age? 

Send them to or drop them in at Pendle Helping Hands, c/o Barrowford Primary School, Rushton Street, Barrowford, Lancs. Thank you"

If you need any more info or have any questions, you can get in touch with Pendle Helping Hands via their Facebook page. If you live a long way from East Lancashire, maybe there's a charity near you that needs a hand this winter? :)

Crafty Ladies: Meet Stacey Trock

Time to meet another awesome Crafty Lady... say hello to Stacey from FreshStitches!

Stacey is a prolific crochet designer who sells adorable amigurumi patterns and kits, teaches online workshops and blogs about her work and personal projects. She's also the author of three books: Cuddly Crochet, Crocheted Softies and Modern Baby Crochet.

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Hi there!

I’m Stacey and I’m the girl behind FreshStitches Amigurumi Crochet. I design the patterns, run the website, write the blog posts and package & ship the kits. I also teach knitting and crochet at national events and on Craftsy as well as write books.

I live in Minneapolis, MN with my sweet hubby, and we’ll have a baby girl in January! I’m really passionate about urban self-sufficiency. I love cooking, baking, canning, sewing, knitting... you name it! I also enjoy running and yoga.

Recently I’ve been making…

Since we’re expecting a baby girl (our first!), I’ve been devoting my crafting time to baby things. I just love knitting little baby sweaters... they’re small, so it’s easy to feel very accomplished! I’m not sure I’d ever take on a fully-cabled sweater for myself, but it seems not so daunting in a miniature version.

I do a little sewing, but it’s usually a summer activity for me. I just finished a faux elephant taxidermy head (designed by Abby Glassenberg) that I’m just totally in love with!

Since winter is quickly knocking at our door (it comes fast and cold here in Minnesota!), I’ll probably squeeze in some hats and socks (knitted). I love wearing hand-knit socks. They’re so warm and they always put a smile on my face.

I’ve been working on…

I just finished designing a mummy for Halloween.

I always try to design a few seasonal items each year... and just recently, I was struck with the perfect technique to do for this mummy! Basically, you crochet the base of the mummy, and then do a type of surface stitch to make his little wraps... I’m really pleased with it!

I’ve been blogging about…

I’ve been blogging at FreshStitches for over 5 years now! Whoa! For the past few years, my focus has been on daily posts, updating folks on what I’m doing and such.

However, recently, I feel that the nature of blogging has changed. I think twitter and instagram are filling the niche of ‘telling us what’s happening now’, and blogs are becoming more like archives of great information. So, I’ve shifted to blogging more tutorials and substantive posts. Ones I hope that will be reference points for years to come.

I’m not only interested in blogging crochet tutorials, but also advice for small craft businesses and also advice for time management. Even if you’re not terribly crafty, I think we all feel that managing our work, family and hobbies is a delicate practice!

I’ve been reading…

I know it sounds non-crafty, but I really enjoy reading Apartment Therapy. I don’t live in an apartment, but they have some great DIY tutorials and someone who writes there has a real eye for crafty stuff. I also really enjoy Abby’s blog and podcast, Mollie’s blog and MochiMochiLand. 

While I craft, I’ve been watching…

I’m addicted to documentaries and the History Channel! Or news. I don’t watch much fiction (in fact, it’s so bad that I usually don’t even know the names of the shows that my friends are talking about), but I’ll watch a show about the borders of the American States over and over again.

Since I’m usually crafting, it has to be something that I don’t really need to pay attention to!

 
Stacey’s 3 Top Tips for Making Business Work with Life

1. Set an end time. You need to get off of work. Seriously. Schedule something at that time, if you have to. I typically hit an end-of-day yoga class.

2. Eat the frog (that is, do the hardest thing first). It means that at the end of the week, all the must-dos will really be done, and you’re not likely to have wasted hours putzing on the internet.

3. Schedule by the week, not day. Each week, I pick a few key things I need to do. Scheduling my week means that I still give myself flexibility, which is much better than feeling really bad on a Tuesday because things didn’t go as planned.

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Click here to visit Stacey's website where you'll find her blog and online shop. You'll also find her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Ravelry.

Click here to read more posts in my Crafty Ladies series.

Please note: the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links.