A big leap!

In my last blog post I mentioned I had been busy and I promised to tell you about what has been keeping me busy – my book.

I started designing over 6 years ago, and some of you will know I have accumulated quite a portfolio of crochet and knitting designs (a quick look on Ravelry tells me it is over 180!). I have also published a few collections of designs in ebooks, and I have featured in print in several magazines but I have never published a printed book of my designs. I decided 2017 is the year I should do this and in January I set about it. The decision was a bit scary – will anyone like my designs enough to buy a book? Well, I don’t know the answer to that but I felt so driven that after much deliberating I thought I’d take the risk.

So the last 7 months have been a whirlwind of designing, writing patterns and crocheting. And I’ve had a whole army of people testing the patterns for me!

The book is called Cowling Around and is a collection of 9 crochet cowl designs. You see I love cowls and to me it was natural that my first printed book will be a collection of them.

Today was a very big day for the book – we had the photoshoot! I can’t share any photos with you yet, as it will be a while before I see them myself but I will share one photo I took of the ‘stage’ – it may not look exciting but it was perfect for capturing the right photos. I learnt a lot from Laurie the photographer, not least about light – I knew light is super important but getting that right is difficult unless you know how!

There will be a lot of people to thank when I publish but for today I’d like to give HUGE thanks to Laurie, Vicky, Julie, Louise and Jenny – what a team!

There is a LOT more work to do before the book is printed but I will start to share some more snippets soon. Meanwhile, maybe a few of my recent crochet cowl designs will tempt you!