ALL ACTION POP UP BOOK

I don't know why but I have always loved pop-up books. They are the coolest books out there. This is one of my finds and it doesn't disappoint, after all it is an "All Action Pop Up Book".

SPRING CLEANING

Last weekend I had a visit from Crafty Magazine, which wanted to take some pictures of where I live. The house has never been this tidy. I'm not going to lie - it was an effort to make everything look nice and neat. Two minutes after they had left, everything was back to normal, with things everywhere. Oh well at least it looked nice for a brief moment. 

This is the start of one of the doilies, for my friend's wedding, based on this design. I don't know if I'm happy with the result yet. This weekend I'm going to Sweden so maybe I can find some cool inspiration from there.

SPRING TOILET MAT

I have worked on this project in stages. Rather than having a plan from the start I have just let it develop. If I'm honest I had no idea what it was going to become when I started but I'm pleased with the result. Goes to show that plans are not always important.  

LOOKING FOR SOME INSPIRATION

One of my friends is getting married in May and she has ordered 5 vintage-style doilies for the day from me. I must confess that I don't have much experience of crocheting doilies, so I thought I would get some inspiration from my countless vintage patterns. Looking at the different patterns I have realised that I have been quite gender-biased in my selection. Lots of cool patterns for guys but not that many doilies. I will have to browse some online resources for some inspiration instead.

I have been obsessed with hats lately. The photo above made me laugh. Either the man to the left is about to floor the man with the crazy-looking balaclava or he is about to kiss him. It could go either way. Life seemed more dramatic in the days before google maps.

TECHNO TRIVET

Coffee is wonderful! So I had to crochet a cool trivet to go with my hipster Coffee Drip Decanter from Hario. 

I'm not a fan of multicolored wool but I think this skein was awesome. My experience of working with multicolored wool have thought me that simplicity is the key. Don't make any fancy patterns as the details will be lost and outshone by all the colors. In this case less is definitely more and that is the reason why I have only used trebles for this trivet. 

To make an easy crochet trivet for yourself just crochet two circles, roughly the same size, and crochet them together with Double Crochet (UK) / Single Crochet (US). This way it will be thick enough for there to be no condensation under the coffee/tea-pot. 

UPKEEP

The work seems to be piling up. I'm working on a new book project that takes all my creative energy. I will share it with you in the future.

On the crafting side I'm helping out a fellow craft book writer - Karin Holmberg - for her next book, in which the project above is going to be featured. For all of you who haven't guessed what it is yet - it's a child-friendly Xmas bauble. Merry Christmas!

THE DAYS OF THE DANDY

It has been a while since I went out treasure hunting, but this week I was able to find a real treasure - a vintage tie - all the way from California. 

The lovely bookmarks are from the back room of an old paper shop in Sweden and are from the 1940s.  The beautiful book (Yoga Erotica) that I'm reading which is more yoga than erotica was given to me by my book-agent. If you know some Swedish and want to find out more then drop by the authors' own website.