Boy, it's been a long, tiring and fun weekend! I went up to Newcastle to stay with my brother Neil and his girlfriend, along with Ben, my sister and her boyfriend and we headed into Durham for the Lumiere festival which was fun -SO busy. According to Katy's Fitbit though, we did almost 24,000 steps on Saturday, so I think I need a holiday from my weekend!  But on to the important announcement - congratulations to Dani Graves, Angie Woods, Helen Legrys, Elizabeth Geldart and Carole Cliffe - you luck ladies are heading to The Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate later this week! I ..read more

Good Sunday evening to you dear readers - I do hope your week and weekend have been lovely, and like me you are relaxing at home with homemade cookies, watching QI, and looking forward to the notion of a week at work without a short publishing deadline looming over your head. Last week was mentally busy for me at work, coming up to the final sprint of a run of 4 very short deadlines which resulted in me and my colleagues doing 5 month's of work in 4 effectively (phew) - so in  order to celebrate this wonderful news, I'm spreading the news with a fabulous free giveaway for you guys ..read more

Last weekend, I traveled down to London to head to The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace with Mary and Sacha, and because I'm trying to save money / I've outgrown my discount railcard (finally, so sad - but have you heard of the 'millennial' railcard? Score!) I traveled there and back on the coach. Although surprisingly comfortable, a journey that would normally take 2-3 hours, took in fact 6-7 hours so I would like to avoid doing that again. On the plus side, it meant a LOT of knitting (and watching The Legend of Korra) time.  And so, it may have taken a coach ride to Lon ..read more

You may recall a little while ago, at the beginning of this year, that I wrote a review for Pavilion Books' rather quietly racy book Nudinits, which I was very happy to do, and still to this day will chuckle when Nudinits continue to show up with seasonally appropriate inappropriate jokes over on Facebook. So when I was again asked if I would like a copy of their new book, I was more than happy to jump on board to share my thoughts! Edward's Crochet Doll Emporium is the brand new book from TOFT's Kerry Lord, who also wrote the fantastic Edward's Menagerie, and the book that has featured ..read more

Last year was my first trip to the (in)famous yarn extravaganza called Yarndale, and as soon as it was over I just couldn't wait to get back there, particularly after a year in my job with more experience, yarn-y connections, and the confidence to talk to new people about all things knitted. Unsurprisingly, the show (on Saturday) was busy! Just take a moment to absorb that queue. This was the first year that the show organisers had introduced bag searches, and while I appreciate their thoroughness and attempts to keep everyone as safe as possible, I mean, come on....Yarndale... I went for ..read more

We'll get right to it - I've been a stranger these past couple of months and I'm sorry, shall we start a new for autumn, the best season in the year? Run up to Christmas, such such excuses to stay inside and knit with hot chocolate and wine, mm mm mmmmmm (not necessarily at the same time).    It's been, as ever, busy busy busy in work and in life! Work's going fabulously - we've had a run of short print deadlines, and the run will continue for another couple of months, which when in the thick of it, is incredibly stressful, but I find I am thriving on the challenge and loving every s ..read more

In case you hadn't noticed, I am a touch behind on my knit-along squares, or at least I am a little behind in keeping the blog up-to-date. In fairness to me, today I am bringing you part 5 in the #enchantedcottagekal and part 6 has only just gone on sale this time last week, but of course at work I've see sneak-peeks as far as part 9 so I feeeel behind, but perhaps we can agree to disagree.     Anyway! Here we are at part 5 - lace knitting. Man, I have to tell you the Hyacinth square was a difficult one, undoubtedly feeling more so after I cruised along last month with the crochet ..read more

  No beating about the bush with this blog post title - I made a wedding outfit for my pals' wedding this month, and I'm finally getting round to bragging, ba boom. Oh, mildy unrelated brag too, I am know deputy editor on Knit Now and Crochet Now, and Ben and I are looking for wedding venues, so I'm quite pleased with June 2017 thus far! Back to the craft-and-grind though. This year, I've actually become rather obssessed with dressmaking and I am really developing a love for it. I might even go so far as to put it on par with knitting, if only because as soon as I finish a dress I'm r ..read more

Carrying on with the #enchantedcottagkal with Knit Now, this month's square is, in actual fact, a crochet square - right up my street! A few knitters might feel a little perturbed that one square in the knit along is a crochet square, but I say poopoo - this is THE excuse you needed to learn to crochet (get to YouTube!) or, if you really don't fancy it, each issue actually comes with 3 square patterns (as you may recall, I am knitting the Hyacinth Cottage blanket, aka the challenging one - girl, is it good!) so participants can whizz back an issue or 2 and choose any other square that takes t ..read more

I've finally pulled my geeky-superhero-socks up and have a post to round up my swap with my partner/s! If you want to find out how other swappers got on, make sure to check out the hashtags on Instagram - #biggeekyswap and #biggeekycraftswap   First things first, Jennifer of Pastry & purls (corr, what a blog name!) sent me the above scruuummptious goodies!! In entering into the #biggeekyswap we submitted our interests, including preferred comic book universes and favourite superheroes. Wonder Woman has to be top of the list for me, and so Jennifer knitted me an adorable pair of Wond ..read more