You may have noticed that I have posted up some links to books in the sidebar. I wanted to let you see what books I reference for patterns or inspiration, and using a link to Amazon seemed to be the easiest way to do it.
I do have a lot of crafting books, as well as reading books (and now a pile of Kindle books too!), so I will add to the list as time allows.
Of course, many of the books I link to come from our library, so please remember to check yours out! I have found it very helpful to be able to see what you're getting before deciding to actually buy, as some books are very disappointing in content.
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
26 Jan 2012
4 Jul 2010
20 May 2009
Share the love
The Toy Society
You have to love the idea - sign up, leave toys in funny places, make people happy. It's a winner in my book. We'll be trying this one next week in the half term holidays.
Green Metropolis
Books - do you love 'em? I do, and I can't ever get enough. The library's ok up to a point, but sometimes you need more. At Green Metropolis you can buy and sell for a fixed price. They'll send you an email if you want a book and they get it into stock - I love it. Also, trees may be saved.
Herewith some marketing puff from the site
"Imagine if you could earn money and help the environment at the same time… well now you can! Join a growing community of buyers and sellers, where the more unwanted books you buy and sell, the more trees can be saved and planted - we donate 5p from every sale to the Woodland Trust."
We like them a lot.
Book Crossing
Another one a bit like the Toy Society - leave books hanging around for people to collect. It's a fun idea - and yes, I have seen some lying around (I already had the titles I saw unfortunately or I would have pounced on them). A great way to have a closet clear-out, and maybe refresh your collection without spending any of the those very scarce pennies!
Happy swapping!
You have to love the idea - sign up, leave toys in funny places, make people happy. It's a winner in my book. We'll be trying this one next week in the half term holidays.
Green Metropolis
Books - do you love 'em? I do, and I can't ever get enough. The library's ok up to a point, but sometimes you need more. At Green Metropolis you can buy and sell for a fixed price. They'll send you an email if you want a book and they get it into stock - I love it. Also, trees may be saved.
Herewith some marketing puff from the site
"Imagine if you could earn money and help the environment at the same time… well now you can! Join a growing community of buyers and sellers, where the more unwanted books you buy and sell, the more trees can be saved and planted - we donate 5p from every sale to the Woodland Trust."
We like them a lot.
Book Crossing
Another one a bit like the Toy Society - leave books hanging around for people to collect. It's a fun idea - and yes, I have seen some lying around (I already had the titles I saw unfortunately or I would have pounced on them). A great way to have a closet clear-out, and maybe refresh your collection without spending any of the those very scarce pennies!
Happy swapping!
11 Oct 2008
post and run
Hello
It's a real quickie today - I'm up to my knees in fabric at the moment - my son's school has a Ladies Shopping night coming up and I decided to book a table with a friend - now I have to fill it up with handmade stuff! So far I've done 3 handbags, 2 soft clutches, 1 zippered bag, 4 crochet hats, and cut out a load of christmas (I know, a bad word) type fabric decorations. Photos to follow, when I can stand up without falling into pins/cats/small children.
My main reason for posting was to let you know I received my first copy of the new sewing/crafting magazine called Sew Hip. I pre-ordered it a couple of months ago, and have been anticipating it ever since. It was worth the wait - a refreshing take on sewing, really contemporary ideas, and interesting interviews with the latest generation of crafters. I had to peel it away from a couple of friends who I stupidly let look at it! Lots of really good ideas, clear instructions, and not too much advertising to wade through either. I'll be taking a subscription, please.
Look here to see the front page, and here to pre-order or subscribe.
And that's it..... running now.
It's a real quickie today - I'm up to my knees in fabric at the moment - my son's school has a Ladies Shopping night coming up and I decided to book a table with a friend - now I have to fill it up with handmade stuff! So far I've done 3 handbags, 2 soft clutches, 1 zippered bag, 4 crochet hats, and cut out a load of christmas (I know, a bad word) type fabric decorations. Photos to follow, when I can stand up without falling into pins/cats/small children.
My main reason for posting was to let you know I received my first copy of the new sewing/crafting magazine called Sew Hip. I pre-ordered it a couple of months ago, and have been anticipating it ever since. It was worth the wait - a refreshing take on sewing, really contemporary ideas, and interesting interviews with the latest generation of crafters. I had to peel it away from a couple of friends who I stupidly let look at it! Lots of really good ideas, clear instructions, and not too much advertising to wade through either. I'll be taking a subscription, please.
Look here to see the front page, and here to pre-order or subscribe.
And that's it..... running now.
18 Sept 2008
Birthday Swag (or Book Review Night)
Ah, looky, longtime no post. Sorry, been busy, y'know, up and down the hill to school and back 4 or 5 times a day ...... Leggies are a bit tired, back protests, knee totally wonkered. Mummy has to sit down and do a lot of nothing each afternoon in order to recover...
That aside, last month, I posted a pic of my birthday swag, which mostly consisted of a good pile of books! In no particular order, I received:
The Littlest Matryoshka (Corinne Demas)
All Year Round, A Calendar of Celebrations (A Druitt, C Fynes-Clinton, M Rowling)
The Children's Year (S Cooper, C Fynes-Clinton, M Rowling)
Bend the Rules Sewing (Amy Karol)
One Skein (Leigh Radford)
Fashion DIY (Carrie Blaydes and Nicole Smith)
Omiyage: Handmade Gifts from Fabrics in Japanese Traditions by Kumiko Sudo
All really interesting. On my birthday, I looked at the pictures in most of them, and since then, I've been reading them properly. Already I've made one of the gifts in the Omiyage book - the marble bag for a friend's son's birthday, and it was very happily received, and I'm currently working on a popcorn stitch crochet bag from the One Skein book.
Omiyage is a beautiful book, gorgeous photos, clear diagrams and templates and evocative text. It is an inspiration, if only to start writing a new fabric stash wishlist - silky kimono material galore! One Skein is mostly knitting patterns, not many crochet (I will have to brush up my knitting, sigh) and all created from one skein of yarn. There are some lovely hats, scarfs, mittens, bags and socks in here, all fairly easy to follow and nice photos to illustrate the projects, but the one that really caught my eye was a rug made from a knitted tube of all the colours you could imagine - their suggestion is to use all your odds and ends up - fabulous!
The Children's Year, and All Year Round, are lovely - both illustrated with lovely hand-drawn pen sketches (no photos) and absolutely stuffed full of things to make, do, read and enjoy with your children or other family members.
The Last Minute Fabric Gifts is an inspirational kind of book, together with Fashion DIY. Although some of the Fashion DIY projects are a bit out of my style area, there are a lot of good tips for customising, altering and generally jazzing up your clothes. The gifts in Last Minute Fabric Gifts are sectioned into roughly how long they take to make - ideal when you're running around the house looking for something for so-and-so five minutes before you have to leave to go to theirs... I will be making the little fold up garden, complete with soft bunnies - so cute!
Bend the Rules Sewing is something I've hankered after for a while, and I was delighted to receive this in my birthday parcel. Amy has a relaxed approach to sewing, which really appeals to me as it's the way I do things, and there are some fantastic projects in the book (nice bags!), coupled with many useful tips, that I will be deploying on my next machine sewn project.
And last of all, The Littlest Matryoshka. Not a craft book, but a story. It's for children really, but I love Matryoshka dolls and this book so appealed to me - I'm so glad I got it - the illustrations and story are just lovely. The children love it and I have to read it to them in the morning before school. Although it currently resides on the shelf at the end of our bed at the moment, I think it will deserve a place in my pile of 'Mummy's special books' that I keep upstairs in my living room, together with Down Buttermilk Lane, Brundibar, The Keeping Quilt, and the family monster atlas! Hopefully, a classic for all to enjoy.
That aside, last month, I posted a pic of my birthday swag, which mostly consisted of a good pile of books! In no particular order, I received:
The Littlest Matryoshka (Corinne Demas)
All Year Round, A Calendar of Celebrations (A Druitt, C Fynes-Clinton, M Rowling)
The Children's Year (S Cooper, C Fynes-Clinton, M Rowling)
Bend the Rules Sewing (Amy Karol)
One Skein (Leigh Radford)
Fashion DIY (Carrie Blaydes and Nicole Smith)
Omiyage: Handmade Gifts from Fabrics in Japanese Traditions by Kumiko Sudo
All really interesting. On my birthday, I looked at the pictures in most of them, and since then, I've been reading them properly. Already I've made one of the gifts in the Omiyage book - the marble bag for a friend's son's birthday, and it was very happily received, and I'm currently working on a popcorn stitch crochet bag from the One Skein book.
Omiyage is a beautiful book, gorgeous photos, clear diagrams and templates and evocative text. It is an inspiration, if only to start writing a new fabric stash wishlist - silky kimono material galore! One Skein is mostly knitting patterns, not many crochet (I will have to brush up my knitting, sigh) and all created from one skein of yarn. There are some lovely hats, scarfs, mittens, bags and socks in here, all fairly easy to follow and nice photos to illustrate the projects, but the one that really caught my eye was a rug made from a knitted tube of all the colours you could imagine - their suggestion is to use all your odds and ends up - fabulous!
The Children's Year, and All Year Round, are lovely - both illustrated with lovely hand-drawn pen sketches (no photos) and absolutely stuffed full of things to make, do, read and enjoy with your children or other family members.
The Last Minute Fabric Gifts is an inspirational kind of book, together with Fashion DIY. Although some of the Fashion DIY projects are a bit out of my style area, there are a lot of good tips for customising, altering and generally jazzing up your clothes. The gifts in Last Minute Fabric Gifts are sectioned into roughly how long they take to make - ideal when you're running around the house looking for something for so-and-so five minutes before you have to leave to go to theirs... I will be making the little fold up garden, complete with soft bunnies - so cute!
Bend the Rules Sewing is something I've hankered after for a while, and I was delighted to receive this in my birthday parcel. Amy has a relaxed approach to sewing, which really appeals to me as it's the way I do things, and there are some fantastic projects in the book (nice bags!), coupled with many useful tips, that I will be deploying on my next machine sewn project.
And last of all, The Littlest Matryoshka. Not a craft book, but a story. It's for children really, but I love Matryoshka dolls and this book so appealed to me - I'm so glad I got it - the illustrations and story are just lovely. The children love it and I have to read it to them in the morning before school. Although it currently resides on the shelf at the end of our bed at the moment, I think it will deserve a place in my pile of 'Mummy's special books' that I keep upstairs in my living room, together with Down Buttermilk Lane, Brundibar, The Keeping Quilt, and the family monster atlas! Hopefully, a classic for all to enjoy.
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