Books! Books!

Despite the Ratings Issue currently causing a furour, I am still shopping on Amazon. There are so many books that I would like, in a variety of crafts, but my Must Have list is as follows:

• Stitch, Cloth, Paper and Paint


• 1,000 Artist Trading Cards: Innovative and Inspired Mixed Media ATCs


• The Decorated Journal: Creating Beautifully Expressive Journal Pages


• Collage Sourcebook: Exploring the Art and Techniques of Collage

I'm going to have to get these just as soon as I can afford them!

Oooh! Shiny!

Browsing forums is a dangerous business. Reading the latest on cross-stitching.com, I encounted yet more posts about something that keeps coming out - ATCs.

ATCs - or Artist Trading Cards - are collectable cards the same size as regular trading cards (think Pokemon and Doctor Who) made by an artist and can use just about every media out there. The ones on cross-stitching.com have cross stitch (well duh!)

It's something that I find absolutely fascinating. I like making cards and other papercrafts, so I think this is a natural offshoot of that. I've also been looking at altered books and there's a book about artist journals on Amazon that I'm going to buy just as soon as I can afford it.

Crochet and Quilting

I love eBay!

Yesterday I bought a crochet pattern for a lovely bag and the wool needed to make it (bless the seller for noting the colours required!)

I've just bought a lot of Laura Ashley material to do some quilting and I'm sat on another auction for some more. I need to try signing up for the subscription to CrossStitcher magazine again as they're giving away a Mini Stitch sewing machine, which I'll need as I don't have one and sewing a quilt by hand does not sound like much fun.

I'm ridiculously excited by the world of craft that's opening up to me. Heh.

First Post // New WIP

While talking to my mum last weekend about Rachael doing sewing at school, she dug out all her old cross stitch. She has quite a collection of magazines and part-sewn kits. Looking through them, I felt an urge to start cross stitching again.

On the way home we had to call into Tesco, so I used that as a chance to buy a couple of new magazines.

Today I went to Hobbycraft and bought Heritage's Northwood Farm.

As you can see, it's a lovely, monochrone design. Very moody, heh.

It's quite reminiscent of Lani's work, which I completely adore. I would like to chart one of his. I'll have to ask Jean about that (if I can work out how to phrase such a request without sounding like a n00b).

Anyway, I looked on Amazon and found charting software for £8, which is nice. I think I might get that soon (and a few books into the bargain ;) )

It makes me happy :)