It has been a very challenging spring/early summer weather wise. I follow quite a few gardeners and flower growers on social media and they are all despairing of the damp dark days and the marauding slugs. How disheartening it must be to see whole crops disappear to a silvery mush. Then there must be the worry of how you can sustain a living if this is your livelihood. I say this, in sympathy and as a prompt to see the flower losses in our garden in proportion. In the last few years I have enjoyed my adventures growing dahlias. This year I don’t think we will get much joy. I have used Strulc ..read more

As part of the launch of my 10,000 Crocheted Hats, I have made contact with the US yarn company; Jimmy Beans Wool. It has been a wonderful experience. I have made one of the hats from the book in their Madelinetosh DK, which is a fabulous hand dyed yarn. Firstly I have really enjoyed learning about their history. Originally the founder Laura and her husband Doug set up their shop, which sold both coffee and yarn… and then the yarn took over. Their company has expanded and they are now based in Reno, Nevada – sort of near San Francisco. Whilst I have never been there, looking at their yarn shop ..read more

I have a lovely new book to share with you – but first a confession. I am sorry but I am completely rubbish when it comes to telling you about new books. I will tell you why. I work away in secret for months. The exciting part is the making and the creating. Some close friends occasionally get ‘behind the scenes’ photos sent to them…..’What is that Emma?’ … ‘It’s a Gerbera… can you not tell?’ That sort of thing. But it all has to be in secret. Then begins the pattern writing….arghhhhhhhhhhhhh! So if I have been a good girl, I will have made very detailed notes. The height of well behaved cro ..read more

Recently I was asked by a fellow crafter what my favourite crochet and knitting stitch is. Now if you are interested, for knitting, moss stitch is thing of textural beauty. But it is a labour of love. For crochet my usual answer is .. a shell edging. I love it with a passion. You are lucky that it does not appear on every item edge. It is so pretty and so simple. (We will get into the technicalities and the uses later). However in the past year I have been designing more. The new book 10,000 Crocheted Hats has by necessity required me to be more adventurous in my stitch choice and I have begu ..read more

I know for a fact that the garden and colour fashion has invaded my making. I don’t know when… but probably two years ago when I fell in love with the Café au Lait dahlia. Then last year everyone in gardening was going hoopla about a new Cosmos colour – Apricotta. We didn’t grow it in our garden. But I was tempted. Just looking it up now… and I promised I haven’t checked beforehand. Do you know what the pantone colour of 2024 is? Peach Fuzz! Now that is scary. Well there you go. We cannot avoid it. The garden and probably blush tones in fashion have been invading my little grey cells. Peachy ..read more

We are making a few changes in the garden, including digging a new flower bed which has extended pretty much into the centre of the lawn. Risky dramatic business – not really. But I have been thinking about this project for about 18 months. What I have discovered – pulling up turf and digging over the soil, is my oh my how full of clay our garden is. It is no surprise that our grass lawn is pretty much a moss lawn. There is very little drainage. Nowhere for the North West wet weather to go. Long ago I have put aside the plant desires of the warmer south-west. My folks can grow completely di ..read more

It all starts with left-overs. There is a nice contained discipline in thinking – what would be fun to make out of this? I know that I can’t be the only person to see the beauty of making something out of what is left. Then there is the middle of the night, crashingly early morning creative planning. Compelled by a little nugget of an idea I tiptoe towards my yarn stash and with the subtlety of a baby elephant start extracting balls of yarn and some needles or a hook, ‘to have a quick go’. These are special moments. This time it is the left-over aran yarn I have accumulated from my last book ..read more

Whilst January is a month of new starts… new promises… new/old intensions, I like to squeeze in a few little January traditions. Firstly, catching up with good friends. Whilst Christmas can be a whirlwind, I do like to sprinkle a few ‘catching up’ with pals in the diary. Last weekend I indulged in seeing my yarny best friends for our traditional laughter-advice and wisdom session. It would not be easy to speak so consistently about yarn, knitting and crochet with many other people. Understandably some of my other good friends would reach for a telephone for distraction. But when I see my craf ..read more

I have been inspired by patchwork for such a long time. Seriously it is the craft I would love to do – but I don’t. Why? I mean I love it so much and I understand the basics. I have even done some English piecing when I was young (you know covering little paper hexagons with fabric and sewing them together). Yet I never seem to carve out the time. I had lovely memories of a house I used to visit as a child. The mother of a friend had made beautiful hand stitched patchwork curtains for every room. They were mesmeric. Very beautiful and such a labour of love. When we first moved to our current ..read more

I respond well to lists – there must be some deep seated, school based reason – but lists work well for me. I am not obsessive. I can function without them. In fact most of the time I do function without them. But if I really need to get something done – a good list is ideal. Just before going back to work after Christmas I made a very prosaic list – you know boring stuff like… put away clothes, put away Christmas decorations, clean fridge, book hair cut. How ridiculous – all these things were staring me in the face, but to really get them over the line – the physical list had to be made. I do ..read more