oooh! LOOK! a new book

It's a yarn crawl in a book, brought to you by the people who have organised The Great London Yarn Crawl for the last three years.  And it's all you need to organise your very own London yarn fondling and buying adventure (there are hints for fabric and haberdashery buying and some lovely out of London adventures too)

it's pretty, the photography lovely and at around A5 size it fits in your bag 

Perhaps, like me, you just don't need any more yarn enabling in your life but a book like London Craft Guide provides many sorts of delights. Certainly it is THE go to hand-book for yarn buying but it is much more

It is a thing of beauty.  Flick through the softly coloured pages, admire the photography, take note of good places to pause for coffee and cake, perhaps lunch, in between the yarn yearning

check out the coloured boxes for other nearby attractions including refreshment stops

Fill your dreams with new projects (the book contains nine in all) that justify buying that single skein, bought simply because it is soooo pretty

This gorgeous shawl, designed by the lovely Anniken Allis really does take only one skein of lace weight

Travel in your daydreams around London or further afield, picking out one or two crafty shops as you visit the main sights

Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton are amongst the towns and cities mentioned

You can even satisfy your conscience when you are going cold sheep by yarn related purchases that are not actually yarn, there are fabric shops and places to buy ribbons and buttons too...

The book also takes you slightly off piste in more ways than one as it tempts you to wander off the main drag of Oxford Street and fondle the fabrics in the shops in Brewick Street. Nearly all the shops in this street are crafty related, but although you can find every sort of haberdashery there is no yarn.  

Not the only place described in the book for fabric and haberdashery but much to please in one street

The book is published by my clever friends, Alli and Rachel, who together are Yarn in the City (I may have mentioned them before) and can be bought from their website, Or, if you are going to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, Rachel will bw there with her gorgeously coloured spinning fibre (Porpoisefur) and will also be selling the book.

xx

c

PS there are also a couple of sewing projects, this is a sneak peak of the one I designed, a tool roll for all your notions

Sewing Stanley

Whenever I am reviewing a book that contains instructions on making things of apparent loveliness I always try out one of the projects myself.  I  imagine I am an absolute beginner who has chosen to make something for its sheer desirability.  I don't think anyone, greedily gobbling up all this colour and flowery delightfulness comes over all sensible and selects something on the basis that it was suitable for a novice.  It is so disappointing if a book promises more than it delivers

The biggest difficulty I have with the three gorgeous books by Cath Kidston, Sew! Stitch! and Make! is the huge choice.

A union flag pencil case perhaps...

It may look as though I have already made this perfect Cath Kidston take on our national flag but I have not.  It is all down to the great photography and clever styling in this book that all the pictures of the projects look as though you could just reach into the page and appropriate the pieces of Cath Kidtson's whimsical cleverness for yourself.

Perhaps I should make the little purse, all the materials for which are tucked into the cover pocket of Stitch!

In the end I chose Stanley

Each book has some extra goodies in a pocket inside the front cover

As well as the little kit to make the purse described in Stitch! and a needle case filled with needles and a needle threader inside Sew! there are patterns and charts to help make birds, flowers, a plane...

And of course a pattern for Stanley

The model for this  little soft canine bean bag, and a number of the CK doggy fabric prints, is Cath's wire haired fox terrier Stanley.  I wanted my project to be made entirely from my stash of fabric and trimmings and it just so happened I had some Stanley print.  I didn't have any suitable 'beans' for filling so I had the idea of putting  a layer of polyester wadding either side of a piece of heavy duty interfacing, as well as applying a piece of iron on interfacing to each of the outer fabric pieces.

Allocating last evening for making up my project I wanted something that was  hand sewn.  Friday night is not a time for setting up the sewing machine and working away in my craft room while JTH sits by the fire sipping wine and watching something not very challenging on television.

The instructions are simple and very clearly explained.  Any tricky techniques and the reader is referred back to the clearly illustrated section at the front of each book which explains all the basics .  This section also contains more lovely photographs of the equipment everyone needs (or perhaps desires) for a well stocked work basket, set out like beautiful collages. 

Stanley is sewn together on the outside with slip stitching.  This might sound rather labour intensive but as well as the actual act of hand sewing being soothing (well I find it so) it also helps in easing the pieces together to get the shape right.  I also think details such as the curvy tail would be very hard to achieve by the 'rights sides together, seam and turn right way out' method. The instructions were simple straight forward and easy to follow

As I began to sew my little dog up I remembered while I didn't have any polystyrene beads, I did have lavender so I abandoned my poly wadding idea and used lavender following the stuffing method in the book (use a small teaspoon and add a little at a time). 

I didn't have any felt to make the collar and identity disc.  But I did have ribbon and a tiny silver dime, with a hole in it.  I found it on the pavement near my home when I was a child, the dime has been kept with my jewelry and moved from box to box ever since.  I knew it would come in handy one day!

All three books are a real joy.  Full of wonderful projects, good just to look at as well as make and fill your home with happiness. No 1 daughter (whose kitchen contains china and linen in Cath Kidston pinks, blues and greens) spotted the books when she came to call this morning and poured over the illustrations with many oohs and ahs.

As the sun shone briefly this afternoon I nipped out into the garden with Stanley and photographed him amongst the crocuses

The knitter's year by Debbie Bliss

One of the truly exciting things about blogging on something I love doing so much is that occasionally I am asked to blog a review of a new knitting book.  It has happened a few times now but I still get excited when a large envelope from Yvonne at Quadrille Publishing is sitting on our hall table when I get home from work.  I know that after supper I can flick through the pages and plan my next project.  After all I think it is only fair before reviewing to test drive the instructions given in the books.

However, I could recommend The Knitter's Year by knitting designer and producer of gorgeous yarns, Debbie Bliss  as a book that gives pleasure just in the way it looks, feels and in the way she writes.  Why not? I often buy a book about art or architecture (more often than not as a present for JTH ) and there is never a guilty thought about not tackling a project (what would I do? paint a portrait, build a house?) but with a knitting or sewing book I have to make a real effort not to have that guilty feeling that I should only buy if I am also going to make.  But if you are not a knitter please remember you can still buy this beautiful book for the sheer pleasure it gives the senses (you can always persuade someone like me to make something for you!)

Look at the cover and the pretty baby cardigan and coat hanger in front of the shabby chic set of drawers (wouldn't this be just great for my wool stash?) and you know you could love this book for purely aesthetic reasons.  Like lots of Quadrille books it has high quality thick mat paper. The photography is very very good, with a limited colour palette, punctuated by one or two gentle splashes of colour.

I was very pleased with the image above then reminded myself that it is just a photograph of a photograph and someone else did all the clever stuff.   I spent a lovely evening turning the pages and reading the little introductions to each pattern.  Even as a knitter I could  just love the book for its looks and the way it makes me happy to see something so elegantly set out, season by season, but I also want to make up so many of the projects it was quite hard to choose.

Perhaps a necklace from Spring

Or a chunky scarf from Winter

In the end I chose to make the  lavender bags from Summer

Ever since the Summer Of The Moth Infestation I like to have as many nice smelling things in my wardrobe and chest of drawers.  At the time we had to resort to the 'agent orange' version of household insecticide as  the moths had even eaten holes in our carpets!  But since then I have learned that plenty of cedar wood and lavender smelling stuff around is a good preventative.

The little lavender bags don't take much yarn so I suppose I could have made them from stash but I wanted to make a little set in the coordinating colours from the Debbie Bliss yarn range.  I did add some twiddly bits of my own as I wanted to be able to hang the little bags from coat hangers.  The spotty ribbon seemed perfect and comes from RE-found objects . The lavender came from The Lavender Fields .  Now a few words of warning, lavender is very light so a small weight comes in quite a large box.  I did not pay proper attention to this little fact and now have plenty of yarn, ribbon AND lavender to make quite a lot more bags.

I was perhaps a little more pleased with the results than I should be to stay within the bounds of modesty but I do think they look very pretty. 

If you are someone who looks very closely at pictures on blogs you may have seen the yellow bag making an early appearance here two weeks ago.  I found it was a perfect partner for the suit carrier I made, in fact I made three more suit carriers and they each have their own lavender bags.

Happy weekend everyone

xxx  C