A couple of days ago, I posted about a sanity saver tool that I use all the time in my life as a designer.
Here’s another of my
most favorite tools
of the designer and author’s trade.
What is it?
A spreadsheet.
Why is a spreadsheet
such a big deal?
Believe me…
it’s truly one of
my favorite tools for a lot of reasons!
This is the spreadsheet from my latest book: The Woven Bag (the link is to Amazon, but it’s not one of the payback links…. it’s just the only link that I can find to the book at this point…. )
Anyhow…. when I am creating a book, …read more

Building a book takes a whole lot of time and a whole lot of effort and a whole lot of people working together in a collaborative process.
Usually, it takes a  couple of years,
and sometimes longer
than that, to bring a
book from the initial
idea for the book
to the real, live book
that you can hold in your hands.
There are a lot of stages that happen in the gestation of a book, and a lot of midwives are involved in the creation of that book.
Some of the stages in the ‘delivery’ of the book are more gruelling than others.  Designing the projects, then making …read more

I am a totally visual person and I love metaphors.  Today, I had a really metaphor-ish sort of a day.
I have been working really hard on getting some
technical writing done to meet the deadline
on the final stages of my book,’ The Woven Bag’.
It’s been a fairly ‘left brain’ time,
focusing in on writing the
exact chunks of text that
are needed to make the book flow.
I have to confess that it hasn’t been
an easy skippetty hop time.
I have had to grab myself by the scruff of the neck
(metaphorically speaking, of course)
and plunk myself down and glue my nose to the keyboard.
Well, that ‘plunking …read more

It takes years to get a book out of the author’s heart and head and into your hands.
It’s a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaally long gestation cycle that makes the pregnancy of an elephant look like a cake walk.
My fourth book with F&W Media
is
‘The Woven Bag:
30 Projects from Small Looms‘.
It’ll be released in the new year,
but it’s been in the works for several years.
In fact, I finished writing it last year.
Whew… that was a HUGE undertaking…
there are around 35 bags in there, and I wove
(and re-wove) them all – often several times, just because they sometimes needed that.
The writing of the patterns and the …read more

A few weeks ago, I was absolutely delighted to find a copy of the ‘New Lux Knitting Book – 1951 edition’.
One of my treasures is a 1958 edition of the Lux Knitting book. My grandmother gave me her copy many years ago, and it’s a treat.
So, to find an even earlier edition just had me over the moon.
The 1951 edition is particularly poignant,
because of a statement from the editor.
The un-named editor explains
that it is the first edition in more than 7 years,
because of a paper shortage from ‘the war’.
Apparently, the previous Lux Knitting book
sold out in a few short weeks,
and …read more

A couple of months ago, my book binding machine finally packed it in.
I had kept it going for ages, long after it had well and truly bitten the dust.
It did noble service, and it has gone into the great recycling system, so is hopefully on it’s way to becoming something else.
Instead of being sensible and buying another binding machine….
ahem…..
I indulged myself in a moment of, well, indulgence!
And,
I succumbed to the temptations of this spinning wheel
that was being sold at a garage sale.
(I paid too much for it, but that’s okay,
because I really do like it very much
and have been able …read more

Do you have a cluster of books in your collection that are just too precious to part with?
Some of them old as the hills and others more recently acquired treasures?
I think everyone does.
Recently, a friend asked me about weaving books.
If I had just a handful of weaving books in my studio, which ones would they be?
Great question.  A handful… hmmm… five fingers on a hand, so five favorite weaving books…..
I could cheat and list the ones I have written, but I think that she was asking me for five books ~AS WELL AS~ the books I have written
I …read more

I am so pleased!
The newest offering from Straight From the Designer’s Hip group has just been released.
It’s Strapped for Bags Volume 3,which can be seen and ordered at Ravelry or at
Straight From the Designer’s Hip
It includes my design for a very cute little  crocheted copper wire bag.
When I was thinking about the bag that I wanted to design for the book,
it was important to me to come up with a unique and fun little bag that would
be an invitation for the readers to try something new.
I love crocheting wire and have made lots of jewelry with it,
so it was the …read more

This morning, a friend wrote me a note, and mentioned that she liked the bags on the cover of my new book.
I was startled-
How on earth did she know what was on the cover?
Aha!
Amazon.ca….
wheeeeeeeeeee!
There it is!
and they are taking pre-orders…. yay!
So, I thought that I would check Amazon.com to see if it was there, too.
Nope….. not there.
Instead, I was asked the question:
‘Did you mean: “The Women Big”?’
Well, once I wiped the tea off my computer screen, I politely declined to look for
“The Women Big’.   Thanks, I’ll just wait for The Woven Bag.
Image Source: Photo by F&W Media copyright

Knitting the Threads of Time: Casting Back to the Heart of Our Craft by Nora Murphy  (published by  New World Library)

Nora Murphy weaves together the story of knitting her young son a sweater with stories about her life, as well as historical explorations of women’s connections to the making of yarn and clothing.
Reading the book is a lot like subscribing to a favorite blog and getting to know a very pleasant and intelligent person. Her style is very intimate and accessible.
Ms Murphy speaks passionately about the lives of women from ancient times right up to the present.
She talks from the …read more