Congrats to Ros and Joy!!!
You are the winners of the giveaway!
Ros, you’ll get a copy of KNIT NORO 2, and Joy, you’ll receive a copy of 60 Quick Knitted Toys!
The lovely folks over at Sterling Publishing will get in touch with you soon, to send you the books. Have lots of fun knitting!
Thanks everyone for your lovely comments!
Have a great week everyone!
xx
Charlie
Happy knitting!
♥
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…or, as those of you eagerly awaiting the Game Of Thrones Season 7 start tonight know: Winter has come.
To be prepared, I’ve checked out some cool knitting books for you! And I teamed up with the lovely folks over at Sterling Publishing to giveaway a copy of each book! (As always – all opinions are my own! My reviews are completely honest and I only giveaway products that I genuinely love.)
Let’s have a look!
Sixth&Spring Books
First, there’s Knit Noro: Accessories 2. It’s a beautiful hardcover book full of easy, mostly quick to make accessory patterns: gloves, socks, hats, shawls, ponchos, and more. The patterns themselves are fairly simple but show off some really great techniques and colourways. Projects in this book are certainly achievable for beginners and still interesting enough for more advanced knitters.
What I love most about this book is the photography. The Noro yarns come in beautiful rich colours and the projects are styled in a really cool way. The whole book has a really fresh look about it and inspires to start planning your autumn projects right away! It would certainly make for a great present, as well.
The knitting instructions are very detailed and clear, all marked on a 1 to 4 stars skill level.
All thumbs up!
Don’t these projects look lush? I love these cabled boot toppers!
Sixth&Spring Books
The second book I checked out for you guys is definitely my favourite of the two: 60 Quick Knitted Toys.
If I was able to show you all 60 of these projects, I would have! It was super hard to narrow it down to just a few sneaky peeks. This book is full of amazing knitting projects to make for kids: stuffed animals, toys and even games, which I had no idea you could knit! (Such as fishing or ball games, Tic-Tac-Toe, baby blocks etc.)
The book includes super cute stuffed animal patterns and some really fun, unusual knitted toys, such as a tool set, building blocks, a guitar, a peace hippie van, baby rings, numerous hand puppets and a castle set complete with a dragon, king and queen. (Also great for some Game of Thrones reenactment!) It’s all just very adorable and flipping through the books the projects get better and better. The projects range from super easy to really complicated-looking, so there’s definitely something in there for everyone.
The only drawback to this book: There’s simply not enough time to make all of these! But have a look yourself:
Super cute, right?
I simply LOVE that adorable little dragon. Which brings me back to the topic… dadam dada dadam dada dadam, dada daaaaaaa… Are you watching the GoT season start tonight?
No, sorry, I got distracted there. I wanted to let you know how to get a chance at winning a copy!
First, this giveaway it open to US and Canada readers only!
I’m really sorry, if this means you cannot enter. There will be more opportunities to enter giveaways in the future. If you really love the books, both are available to order online or in your local bookstores.
Together with Sterling Publishing I’ll giveaway one copy of each book to two lucky winners! To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below letting me know which one you prefer and which GoT characters you’ll think will die this season. Oh, right – that last part isn’t mandatory!
The giveaway closes on Sunday 30 July 2017 at midnight (UTC) and I’ll announce the two winners shortly after on the blog.
Good luck!
xx
Charlie
Please note: Two winners will be selected at random from all entries entered before midnight on 30 July 2017 and the winner will receive the prize described above. There is no cash alternative, and your prize is non-negotiable, and not refundable. If the prize isn’t claimed, another winner will be selected at random.
Happy Knitting!
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Hi everybody! Today I want to share with you a lovely – brand new- sewing book as I’m taking part in the Little Lady Liberty blog hop. In case you haven’t heard about it yet, Little Lady Liberty (or Sew Pretty for Little Girls in the US) just arrived last week – for you to get your hands on it in time for the Easter holidays!
It’s a gorgeous little book with more than 20 sewing projects for little girls (and everyone who likes sewing for little girls)! 128 pages full of beautiful photos and fabrics.
The projects are mostly easy (flouncy skirts and pillow cases), some are a bit more advanced (quilts and bags and cute soft dolls). The book includes detailed instructions and some pattern – but most projects don’t even require one. There are so many projects in this book that I’d love to make for my niece (or even myself) or to give away as little birthday gifts. My personal favourites are the reversible Mia doll and the quilted Orla pencil case.
I haven’t had time to make any of these yet, but they are the perfect project to keep in mind for a rainy Sunday afternoon or when you’re sitting on a massive pile of fabric scraps and don’t know what to do with it!
It’s also one of those books and you can keep on your coffee table just to flick through and swoon at the gorgeousness of the photographs!
You should also make sure to check out the author’s blog which is full of great sewing projects all using the most beautiful Liberty fabrics. Alice also sells those fabrics if you want to recreate these projects in detail.
I love the new addition to my sewing (e-)book collection and hope you’ll like it as well! Now I am preparing for the holidays (and a week without my sewing machine).
If you wan to read the LLL posts of the other blog hop bloggers, you can find a list here.
Happy sewing!
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Hi everybody! Today I want to share with you a book that I pre-ordered on Amazon a couple of weeks ago. And since I got it last month I’ve been making plush animals!
And if you’re asking whether making plush animals is different from making clothes: Oh my, yes it is! But more on that later.
The book “Sew Cute to Cuddle” by Mariska Vos-Bolman includes 12 easy soft plush animal patterns and step-by-step instructions to make them. The book came out 8th September this year, so it’s basically brand-new! The patterns are full-size and in the back of the book. All you need to do is copy them and then cut them out, some bigger pattern pieces will also need to be glued together.
Above you can admire the two little fellows I made using the book and its patterns, Larry and Marvin (left to right). According to the book they’re called Mary and Daron, but the Mr. decided otherwise. Next on my sewing list are the owl, the dog (too cute!) and Gronk, the monster. These little friends are just perfect for killing some leftover fabric scraps! And they make cute presents, too. But believe me, once they’re stuffed, you don’t want to give them to anyone anymore!
So let’s talk about Marvin first! (Who would have been named Drogon, if it was up to me! But apparently I’m not the one making the decision when it comes to naming stuffed animals.)
Making Marvin the dragon took longer than expected! Actually, it took as long as making a dress!
The thing with those cute little fellows is, that they don’t use up much fabric, but then they are also awfully fiddly to sew with! For the dragon, I had to sew some seams by hand, especially very tiny curves, as they were too difficult to sew with the machine.
The feet and arms were probably the hardest part to sew.
For the dragon, head and body are sewn and stuffed separately and then attached at the neck. You can see the little seam where the stuffing for the head went in at the back of Marvin’s head! (Yes! Between those cuuute little ears!)
The part that I probably enjoyed most, was sewing the quilted wings. They are just the cutest little detail on this little man.
Here you can see the chubby legs and feet which were the hardest part. Luckily, the instructions are illustrated and very detailed. So I think even a confident beginner could tackle this project. (The dragon is actually the last project in the book – the other ones are certainly better for absolute beginners!)
I followed the instructions step by step and threw in some handsewing where I had to because things just became a bit too fiddly at some point. I ended up having something that looked like legs and feet, so I’m quite satisfied (although the ones in the book look a tiny bit different).
Look at those nostrils! Marvin would’ve made a formidable Drogon.
Next up is Larry, our hippo with a sweet tooth. (Rumours came up that he might be gay)
Larry turned out to be bigger than I thought, if not to say massive. There are no finished measurements in the book, but I should have guessed by just looking at the size of the pattern pieces. Well, usually they turn out to be much smaller in the end after stuffing and all that, but not so with this guy here.
This one just became bigger and bigger and his behind ate up three quarters of the stuffing from that Primark pillow I bought. Nothing left for the owl or the dog!
Well, now I know better and will just copy the pattern smaller and make a mini version of this big guy.
For both Larry and Marvin I used leftover fabric scraps, which you might even recognise from previous projects. The cupcake fabric was left over from a toddler pinafore I made last year and the flower and cherry fabric I had used for making an Anthropologie inspired kitschy kitchen apron.
I really enjoyed making these projects and would recommend this book to anyone who wants to try making their own stuffed animals. No matter whether you’re a pro or a beginner. I love that the projects are quite unusal and not just the typical teddy bear project you would expect.
Have you ever made stuffed animals? Would you like to try?
Happy sewing!
♥
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Two weeks ago I got Tilly’s Love at First Stitch in the mail and on the same evening read it from cover to cover. Although I love Tilly’s blog, I had my doubts about buying the book. I have so many sewing books that cover all the basics and as I consider myself an advanced seamstress by now, I thought this book just wasn’t for me. However I saw all these gorgeous Megans, Lilous and Mimis popping up over the interwebs and wanted to get a hand on these patterns myself.
Even if I don’t like the book, I thought, it would make a perfect prezzie for a novice sewer. All I can say is I wasn’t disappointed. Quite the opposite! Although the book covers all the basics more advanced sewers will already be familiar with, it’s super entertaining to read. I love Tilly’s voice in there and you will find her distinctive style on every single page in the book. I even found out that my cheapo-machine has a thread cutter, which I had never noticed before. Win!
The book itself is absolutely adorable and I won’t be giving it to anyone. I will keep it. Forever. HA! But I might get a second copy in the future, should I ever need a sewing-related gift.
Since I was eyeballing the Megan dress from the beginning, this was the obvious first choice. I traced the pattern before even knowing what fabric I would use. I found two fabrics in my stash which were leftovers from previous projects.
Basically the same fabric in different colours. I don’t quite know what fabric it is though. It’s quite heavy-weight, but stretchy and seems to be a woven. It’s probably a blend which definitely contains polyester. Any ideas?
I used the navy fabric for my Audrey Hepburn dress and the green fabric was leftover from my wiggle dress. Stash diet ahoy!
The dress was stitched together in just a few hours, with no alterations. I cut out a size 3, which according to the measurement table should’ve been rather wide, but it ended up being a bit too tight, although the fabric is quite stretchy. There’s a bit of gappage at the back when I lift my arms, so I have to keep reminding myself to pull the dress down every once in a while.
I started the dress the night before the John Lewis Sewing Bee and still had to put in the zip in the morning. But I managed to finish it on time and wore it that day.
I actually wore it twice already, on a hot sunny day last weekend but I noticed that it’s a bit too warm for those incredibly warm days outside. I will probably sew it again using some light-weight cotton.
Oh, and a Lilou pattern hack is on its way 😉
Are you planning on getting Tilly’s book or have you already tried some of the patterns?
xx
Charlie
Happy sewing!
♥
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