Since it's a dull Monday, shall we have an over-excited book review and a giveaway? Yes? OK, here goes:- Somewhere in Greenland, there are small birds living in more luxury than you do. See this nest? It's lined with pure qiviut - you know, that crazy-expensive luxury fibre from the tummy-fluff of the musk ox. Lucky birds. That said, after such a pampered start in life, the chicks will probably grow up completely unable to cope with the harsh realities of the world. You and I would have to Continue Reading
Book Review: Crochet Therapy by Betsan Corkhill
Now this has been an interesting one, this book review. It involves a rare crossover between two major areas of my life: yarn and clinical psychology. Yes, really. Please allow me to explain. The book is Crochet Therapy by Betsan Corkhill, to be published on July 7th in the UK (eg Amazon.co.uk) and slightly later elsewhere (e.g. the North American edition will be available from Amazon.com on 6th September). But I have a copy, right here in my hands - hurrah! Know-ye that I didn't pay for this Continue Reading
Booky Giveaway! Hurrah!
Woah, it's cold. Like, wearing-woolly-hats-inside-the-house-all-day cold. The Stoic Spouse is sporting headgear that makes him look like a burglar, but he refuses to be photographed for the blog. Anyway, who's in the mood for a giveaway to brighten up a dull grey-brown day? Do I see a hand raised at the back, there? (It's hard to tell through all this mist and drizzle.) Yes? So let me tell you about a children's book that's just this minute been published by Bloomsbury. Look! It's called Continue Reading
KnitPro Zings Review
My fine fibrous friends, may I thank you for your comments on the running post. I know that your recommendation of yoga is wise, but I have an irrational aversion to yoga, much as I respect people who do it. I am not bendy, except in the middle in order to sink melodramatically on to a chaise longue with the back of one hand pressed against my furrowed brow. I do however like the sound of the pursued-by-zombies running app, and will take a peek. So today, the Tyrannical Twinnage started school. Continue Reading
Book Review: Colo(u)rwork Knitting
Would you like to share a peek at a brand spanking new knitting book? Sarah E. White got in touch and offered to send me a copy of her latest publication: Colorwork Knitting for review, as it’s just this nanosecond been published. With a book title like that, I was pretty much powerless to resist, although this will be the one and only time I ever spell colourwork without the reassuringly British presence of a ‘u’. Sarah’s previous books have been about knitwear for babies and felting your Continue Reading
Book Review: James Norbury, The Penguin Knitting Book
It began with a postcard. I've always loved the traditional Penguin paperback covers, and I have a lovely box of postcards of some of the old covers, and often choose one to include in parcels or notes to friends. (It's getting tricky though, now I've used up the uncontroversial ones. I always find the most deeply inappropriate cards when I'm looking - I suspect that sending Woolf's A Room Of One's Own with a birthday gift to a divorcing friend would not be clever, nor would sending De Vries' Continue Reading
The Near-Perfect Crochet Book
Oh goodness, I think I've just fallen in love. (Apologies Stoic Spouse, for this small lapse in fidelity.) But it's love. You know, the sort of love that gets mightily on your friends' nerves, and which results in a structurally-unsound pile of unwashed laundry because who needs to worry about the mundanities of regular life when you're in lurrrrve? Like many such love affairs, its start wasn't so very auspicious. I discovered that there was a book all about how to join crochet shapes together. Continue Reading