3KCBWDAY3 - My crafty heroes

Day Three: Your Knitting or Crochet Hero

In the first year of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, I talked about knitters whose work I enjoy. Of course, this is a somewhat similar idea but today I'm going to talk about people whose work I am inspired by and admire. It's far too difficult to whittle it down to just the one, so I've chosen my top 5 (in no particular order)!

· Kate Davies

I really love the beautiful designs of Kate Davies and one day hope to make her "owls." If you're a fibre enthusiast, I highly recommend her blog, needled.

· Anna Hrachovec

You may well have heard of knitter extraordinaire, Anna Hrachovec, of Mochimochi Land. I'm a huge fan of her creative and whimsical world of knitted critters and characters, not to mention her wicked sense of humor! Below you can see a tiny pigeon I knitted from one of her patterns :)

· Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I've long been a fan of the witty fibre-infused banter which can be found on Stephanie's Yarn Harlot blog (and books, for that matter.) - read and enjoy - 'nuff said.

· Carol Meldrum

I was lucky enough to work with the lovely Carol during my time at Rowan. As well as being a published author and workshop tutor, you can find her Beatknit designs here. I also think her book of Knitted Icons is a lot of fun.



· Stephanie Dosen

I have adored the creations of Tiny Owl Knits for a while now. You may be familliar with the incredibly popular Beekeeper's Quilt Stephanie designed and created - I do love seeing all the different colours of "hexapuffs" people have been knitting.

I look forward to reading about everyone else's crafty heroes!

3KCBWDAY2 - Snap Happy

Day Two: Photography Challenge Day!

Today is about getting creative with craft and a camera, so I thought I'd share this pic which I took a while back. I'd had this rough concept idea for such an image for a while & experimented with different yarns to achieve what I had in mind.

The idea was to create something eye-catching to use as a flyer for that year's Etsy craft party, as you can see below :)

Oh...and just for fun, here's another snap - the rock chick in me couldn't resist :)

3KCBWDAY1 - Colour Lovers

Welcome to Day 1, year 3 of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week! (3KCBWDAY1)

Day One: Colour Lovers

Colour. Truly one of those things which (in my humble opinion) makes life worth living. As you can see below, I even seem to have a full colour wheel within my stash!

Although I appear to have an abundance of different colours overall, I am definitely drawn to certain colours, with a real fondness for rich, jewel-like hues and in particular teals, cobalt blues, evergreens, ruby reds and wonderfully saturated shades of purple...

...not to mention aquatic colours and vibrant fuschias. I've even been known to buy yarn simply because I loved the colour! Case in point: this ball of Noro Iro :)

When it comes to making a new knit, the part I deliberate over the most after choosing my pattern (or inventing it!) is the choice of colour. Suffice to say that one of the reasons I love certain brands of yarn, aside from quality and availability, is their selection of a wonderful range of colours.

As far as playing around with colour combinations (something which I really do enjoy), I know from my time working as a Design Consultant that many knitters have an inherent fear of straying from the original colour a pattern has been knitted/photographed in. Fortunately I don't seem to have any such issues and mix things up with merry abondon! Above, as an example, is my recoloured take on Dauphine (currently still a WIP; it's kind of hibernating if I'm honest!).

Eastery Wishes

I do hope you all had a happy easter weekend! I had fun making these delectable little lovelies...

...and nibbling on other assorted chocolate treats :)

It has been a wee bit quiet around here for a little longer than I'd like, I won't go into all the details but one major reason is that I've been busy beavering away on several websites - one of these will be a brand new portfolio website for my web/graphic design work. I can't wait to show it off, it's not quite ready yet but it will be here soon!

In other news, was excited to see that the topics for Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2012 have been announced - check this post on Eskimimi's blog for more info.

I'm also thrilled to be heading off to Geneva later this week to visit my sister and get a wee change of scenery - I will be taking my camera (and Ray-Bans, here's hoping for some sun!!) with me for sure! Hopefully I'll have some fun stuff to tell you about when I get back.

I've been taking part in this month's Photo a Day challenge, organised by the lovely Chantelle of Fat Mum Slim. You can find my submissions on my Instagram feed (look here to see my pics). I seem to be doing every other month so far! Are any of you lovely readers out there joining in this month too?

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2012!

The observant among you may have noticed this pop up on my blog sidebar recently:

It's back! This year Knitting & Crochet Blog Week is even bigger and better than before - with prizes and everything! All the more reason to participate, if you ask me. See the image below for details of the dates and tags - more info, including details of the prizes also available here.

I've participated since the first one in 2010 and I'm happy to say I'll be blogging along again this year. Looking forward to checking out what other fibre fanatics write too :)

If you want to find out more, and/or get involved yourself, check out this post on Eskimimi's blog.

My Sketchbook Project - Part 1

Good news - I did indeed manage to finish my sketchbook on time for the Sketchbook Project (but only just!). Now that it's done & dusted - and has safely arrived at its new home in the Brooklyn Art Library (yay!) - I thought I'd show you a little bit more of it.

I really enjoyed working on this project because I treated it as a kind of fun exploration of pattern and texture via drawing, painting and collage. It so was nice to do something that was about inspiration and an exploration of creativity (and not about making a product for sale, for a little change).

If you haven't come across the Sketchbook Project, it's an annual art project open to everyone worldwide which encourages people to get creative with a standard sketchbook.

The brief is really up to you (there are suggested themes, and my chosen one was "It's winter where you are" but I used it fairly loosely and really as more of a starting point!) and the final submissions go on tour, eventually being housed at the Brooklyn Art Library in New York.

For more information, and to see the dates of the 2012 Sketchbook Project world tour, visit the website.

Knitting Rock'n'Roll!

Enjoy! :)

Sharing the Love

Today I'm sharing a little love, as it seems like the right thing to do on Valentine's day. I thought it would be nice to tell you about some of my wonderfully talented and creative friends :)

Andrea is an avid knitter (much like myself!) from Canada who has recently gotten into spinning yarn too.

Above you can see one of her lovely handspun yarns, find it here in her etsy shop, AndiSocial's Twist.

I also love cats...and I really like Julia of Materialised's kitty creations. Meet Kimberly the cat!

From stitched felines to fluffy birds: Mel is the brains - and the needle-felty hands! - behind Feltmeup Designs, aka The Felt Menagerie. Some of you may well be familliar with these cute little birdies.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed those :)