- oky_katie 1 Comment

Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook review

Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook
It’s worth pointing out that I’m pretty biased about the author of this book. Felicity Ford and I were both part of the Oxford Bluestockings stitch n bitch (up until I had FB back in 2008), she was the first person to buy any OxfordKitchenYarns, and when I told her my plan to start my naturally dyeing business she replied “fantastic!”

She even drove my stock and me to my first show in 2007.

And now she has created a book and put it out into the world. If it wasn’t very good I probably would have bought it anyway, but not talked about it on the blog.

But the reality is that it’s clever, and thorough and heartfelt and really creative and while I’m writing this I have no idea what images I’m going to post from it, because I want to choose all of them.

 Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook

And she did it from start to finish in a year!
I think colour work is both fascinating and daunting. It feels like there is a lot of work between having your idea, and actually picling up your needles. But Felix grabs your hand and enthusiastically leads you through finding inspiration, creating colour work patterns, creating a pallet that will work, playing with colour in swatches, and after all that gives you great pre-designed colour-work and accessory patterns in case you want to jump right in.

It’s all clear, and friendly. And you’ll come out a better knitter. Or at least I know I will.

So there you have it. I backed her on Kickstarter and it was so very worth it.

And if you want to see it for yourself, you can find out more here..

- oky_katie 11 Comments

Books that i have come into our house – August 2014 – the children edition

I really love books.

No really.

I probably buy a handful of books a week (including ebooks.)

My happy place is a bookshop, which makes Oxford an ideal place to live since we have the sprawling, multi venue Blackwells, with it’s Bond villain lair ‘The Norrington Room‘. Plus a live in a bit of the city that is full of charity shops and people who read a lot, which means that a lot of our children’s book are second hand and we have stumbled across some great books that way.

Anyway… I’ve been wanting to add a bigger book element to the blog, and so I thought I’d show you some of the books that pass through our front door each month. They won’t be ‘finger on the pulse’ brand new stories, but they will all be books that we love and which I would happily buy for someone else.

I’m still trying to work out how I want to link to the books. I’m reticent to just link to Amazon (even though that seems to be the blogger standard), mostly because I have stopped using their main site, and have just stuck to using the smaller sellers in the Amazon market place, as well as supporting local bookshops.  After reading various reports about how they treat their warehouse employees I decided that I couldn’t buy things that went through their warehouses any more. However I’m not sure that just posting the title, author and ISBN is enough?

Readers – what would you prefer?

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Off to Market by Elizabeth Dale (ISBN 978-1847804389) about a community of people who go off to market on the local bus, and a small boy’s compassion and cheerful spirit. This book made me smile and the illustrations bustle with life.

 

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A Street Through Time by Steve Noon (ISBN – 978-1409376446) My friend N recced this to me for my eldest, since her eldest was enjoying it and I agree that it’s a great over view book. Again, the illustrations are packed with drama and detail, and it’s a good over view of life in different time periods. After studying Vikings for much of this last year with FB and LR, it’s been useful for showing them what came before, and what came directly after. I can see us getting our own copy once this goes back to the library.

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Actual Size by Steve Jenkins (ISBN – 978-0547512914) i really like Steve Jenkins’ work (we also have bones and there is a Prehistoric version of Actual Size that I know will be a hit in our house.) This book show things the actual size that they are, which is great for allowing children to compare their physical selves with other animals. We spent a lot of time a gape while going through this book. 🙂

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I am blessed to have a BFF who is an educational librarian, (actually I’m very lucky she is my BFF for countless reasons. The librarian bit is only one small one. ) This means that visits sometimes include books she has picked up for us, all of which (seriously) have been excellent.

She brought Shaker Lane by Alice and Martin Provensen (ISBN – 074452234X) the last time she visited,  and it turned out to be a wonderfully simple but nuanced book about class and community.

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I want my hat back by Jon Klassen (ISBN – 978-1406338539) is another of her presents, and her first reading of the book to the children sticks in my mind, and is the basis of my readings of it now. 🙂 I love picture books that tell you the story without actually telling you a story.

 

So there you go. 🙂 Do you have any children’s book recs?