Great Book Offer

If you are a crafter there is a great offer at Magmaker at the moment. You can buy my book "Paper Punching" by Julie Taylor (me), along with "Stamping" by Lindsay Mason and "Decoupage" by Amanda Fowler all for a total of £9.95 including p&p.
There are some great projects to suit all ability levels in each of these books.

The punches I've used are available in  most countries, not just the UK. There are step by step photos for all the projects, which include punching and colouring metal shim, punching Pelmet Vilene to make jewellery, 3 D manipulation of punched shapes, and masking shapes, to name just a few.
Follow this link to see the great offer:
http://www.magmaker.co.uk/books/3BookOffer/
The p&p is for UK only, but I'm sure if you email them they would be able to ship to other countries

Crazy by nature

Its a crazy world we live in!
All through the summer I was lucky enough to have home grown fruit in the garden which I would pick a little of every morning to add to my breakfast. But come the autumn when I expected my raspberries to be in abundance there were none!
Now, its the end of November, we are having a cold snap in good old central England, and guess what - my raspberries are in full fruit!

The problem is - it takes a lot of willpower to walk down the garden and pick the fruit when its really cold. This morning I made the effort however. The temperature was in the minuses, there was a hard frost on the ground, but I did get my bowful of fruit - even though they were frozen solid and I had to pick them still attached to their stalks. They did taste good though!

What's news on Etsy, I hear you ask. Well, I played around at the weekend with a new design of baby shoe. I'm very pleased with the result, so you shouls see them appearing in the shop quite soon - they are nice and chunky, so I think they compliment the aviator hats better than the crossover style. But, that's my opinion, it will be interesting to see what you, the customers, think.

Cables, cables, cables

Its been a really busy week in Etsyland, and its all been the same thing - my cabled aviators.
I had meant to make these last winter, but I held off for some reason, but I got a few done for this season and they really are proving very popular.
They are good fun to make too. I would get very bored making the same thing over and over, but you are constantly counting the rows, checking when the next cable row is coming up, and before you know it the little hat is finished.
It is pouring of rain here today, it has never properly got light! That said, I  think its the sort of day for curling up on the sofa with my knitting needles and making another one of these. I am so close to the £750.00 mark in my money raising quest for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research. A few more sales of these and I think I may reach it, so do I feel guilty about spending the afternoon knitting - definitely not!!

New hat designs

I love finding time to knit some new designs and I'm really pleased with this one that I shall be listing on Etsy in a few days time. I've used a technique called Fair Isle to create the pattern which has a total of three colours, but never more than two colours in the same row.
It is named after a tiny island in the north of  Scotland called Fair Isle, which is part of the Shetland Islands. There was a strong tradition of knitting on these remote islands, where people worked mainly on the land or as fishermen and warm sweaters were essential to everyday living.
Fair Isle patterns are believed to have gained a wider popularity when King Edward VIII wore sleeveless sweaters (or tank tops as they were known).
It is funny to think that, just as the celebrities of today have an influence on what many people choose to wear, the same thing was happening, almost 100 years ago!!
I have lots of lovely colour combination ideas, so make sure you check out the shop to see what is available in the next few days

Thinking outside the box

These are the little boxes that I now use to gift wrap all my first size knitted items. The idea came to me when I was desperately trying to find a way to store my fabric so that I knew where everything was. I was feeling frustrated about the amount of room that my ex-demonstration card and paper was still taking up in my workroom. There is far too much of it, and it is far too good to just give away, but it was taking up prime space that was needed to house fabric. So the LoveFibres gift box was born. 

  Hopefully, I've found the perfect solution. I get to gradually use up a lot of my old card and paper, and so free up more storage space, and my customers get a free gift box and card. You can request a box for larger sizes too, and if the gift is for Christmas - just let me know. I've plenty of Christmas themed card to use up too!