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Well there’s just one more day of the Crochet for Bears blog tour — tomorrow Donna Druchunas will be talking about the book and the project that she’s working on from it. We have a break today because Vashti and Robyn are both overachievers and did their posts a day early. Vashti wrote a comprehensive review of the book (she writes great reviews, when you’re visiting her blog be sure to check out her series on 70s crochet books). Robyn interviewed me by e-mail and shows a sneak peek of her contribution to the book. She’s also doing a giveaway!

My own stack of books I’ve been sent to review has grown quite high in the past few weeks as this is the time of year for book releases. I don’t necessarily review every book I’m sent but there are a few I’m going to be talking about over the next few weeks that I found particularly fun.

Melissa Leapman is one of the most prolific knit and crochet designers I know. She’s also a great mentor to many in the industry–she’s a generous teacher and loves to share designing advice with newcomers. Her latest book is a bit of a departure from the coffee-table style hardcovers that she has published with Potter Craft over the past two years,  but that doesn’t make it any less useful. Color Knitting the Easy Way: Essential Techniques, Perfect Palettes, and Fresh Designs Using Just One Color at a Time is not a comprehensive guide to color work. It actually only deals with color patterning where you work one color per row — either in stripes or with slipped stitches. But it turns out there’s a lot of variety even with these two techniques, and Color Knitting the Easy Way has three features that makes it a book that will probably become a well-used part of your libary:

1. A guide–it gives detailed instructions about simple and fancy striping and slip stitch (or mosaic) knitting.
2. A stitch dictionary–there are over 60 stitch patterns with bright colorful photos AND easy-to-read charts
3. A pattern book–patterns aren’t the main focus of Color Knitting the Easy Way and that’s ok. But there are 10 simple patterns so you can easily try out what you’re learning.

That would be enough for a good book, wouldn’t it? But Melissa doesn’t stop there–the beginning of the book is a look at color theory from a knitters perspective and shows ways to choose yarn for two, three, four and even five-color projects. Each technique also has a “designers workshop” discussing how to turn the techniques and stitch patterns into your own designs.

CROCHETERS TAKE NOTE: Most of these patterns can be worked as tapestry or jaquard crochet, so don’t dismiss this book just because it has knitting in the title. I often get my crochet color work inspiration from knitted stitch patterns.

So, Potter Craft inadvertently sent me TWO copies of Color Knitting the Easy Way so I’d like to give one to you. Just leave me a comment telling me how you choose your colors when you’re knitting or crocheting with more than one. I’ll pick a winner at random on Thursday of next week.

If you’ve been over to the Inside Crochet group on Ravelry, you’ve heard part of my news for the week: the publishers of Inside Crochet have decided to hire a full-time in-house editor over in the UK. So Julie and I will no longer be editing the magazine. That said, we have commissioned work up through issue #11, so you’ll see our work in the publication for a while.

When Kerrie, the magazine’s publisher, told us about her intention, we weren’t shocked. Now that the magazine has grown and is so successful, it makes sense to have an editor who can work alongside the rest of the staff.  We are also thrilled with the new editor–Claire Montgomery who has been a regular contributor to the magazine. But we will miss the job–we loved putting the designs together for the magazine, sourcing yarns, creating themes. Most of all, we loved working with designers–shepherding them from idea to publication and helping their ideas become published designs.

One of the other things I loved was working with Julie–she is a great partner and we are certainly going to keep doing projects together. Meanwhile, I’ll just have to think of other reasons to call her up on the phone every few days.

Finishing work on Inside Crochet couldn’t have come at a better time for me, because I’m starting another big project next month–I’m going to graduate school. I’ve been accepted into the University of Alaska’s MFA program in Creative Nonfiction. The program begins in May, and is conducted mostly remotely, but there’s a 10-day residency in July when I’ll go to Anchorage.  I can’t wait to dive in and really focus on my writing, and the UAA program sounds amazing.

Now, this has been a busy couple of days for the blog tour, and I didn’t get a chance to post over the weekend, so I have TWO tour stops to tell you about:

First up, on Sunday, The Crochet Dude. Drew reviews the book and talks a bit about the design he contributed.

This morning, June Gilbank of Planet June has a review of the book and a play-by-play account of her customizing the Gone Fishing Vest to fit her own little handmade bear. It was great to read how June worked through the fun and the challenges of making a custom-sized teddy vest. June is also giving away a copy of the book, so be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win.

Don’t forget–tomorrow’s stop is LIVE! I’ll be chatting with Marly on the Yarn Thing podcast. Head over to her site to find out when it airs in your time zone, and please do call in to chat, it will be much more fun with your participation.

Today, we’re visiting Knitgrrl Studio, where knitting impresario Shannon Okey. leads me to the age-old question… Does a Bear Crochet in the Woods?

In other news, since there’s no giveaway in today’s blog tour, I thought I’d do one of my own. Up here in Cordova, we have a lovely independent book store, plus an amazing yarn shop, both of which plan to carry my book, but they haven’t arrived yet. I’m impatient to see it on an actual store shelf. That’s where you come in!

If you happen to visit a bookstore that has Crochet for Bears to Wear on the shelves, take a picture and Tweet it! Make sure you use the hashtag #crochetforbears in the tweet. (You don’t have to follow me on twitter to enter the contest, but you’re welcome to!)

I’ll draw a random entry next Friday, April 23rd.

Have a great weekend!

–Amy

I’m so excited that Julie is participating in my blog tour. She’s decided to make one of the patterns for her daughter’s American Girl Doll.  Read all about how she choose the pattern and what customizing she did. What Julie doesn’t mention in this post is that she was the technical editor on this book, making sure the patterns are as accurate and usable as possible. She did a great job. Thanks so much, Julie!

Julie’s also giving away a copy of the book, so make sure you leave a comment to enter.

Today we’re going to Minnesota where Annie Modesitt reviews Crochet for Bears to Wear–and she’s giving away a copy!

Today is Day One of my blog tour (It’s also Book Release Day–whee!!) — I’ll be taking a virtual visit to Craftzine where editor Natalie Drieu is posting a free pattern from the book: Pearl’s Cozy Turtleneck.  It’s one of my favorite patterns in the book–one of the ones that I think ‘I’d like to make that for myself’ especially out of squishy Malabrigo.

Natalie’s also the first but not the only blogger on the tour to do a giveaway–read Craftzine to find out how to enter.

My newest book, Crochet for Bears to Wear will be released on April 13th, and we’re celebrating with a Blog Tour! I’ll be kicking off the tour with a free pattern (truly one of my favorite patterns in the book) on Craftzine, and will continue on with visits to Annie Modesitt, Shannon Okey, Robyn Chachula, Drew Emborsky and more. The tour will feature reviews, interviews (including a live call-in interview on Yarn Thing), and of course book giveaways.

All the details including a full itinerary are on the Book Tour Page. I’m looking forward to this virtual trip around blog land, I hope you’ll join me!

Julie over at Skamama’s Bone Hook has finally just posted a great piece on using your computer to plan out a granny square project. She and I are working on a wee book of granny patterns, and this little planning method has been a big help. Thanks for sharing, Julie!

I made this crazy cowl yesterday while working at The Net Loft. I imagine that if a leprechaun wore a cowl it might look a little like this. Of course this one is so huge, it might swallow a leprechaun whole! I used two strands of a single-ply puffy yarn and a size P hook, following the Yorkshire Cowl pattern from the Lion Brand web site along with my friend Becca who made a more subdued version in blue. We finished them in under 45 minutes. I figured if I decide it’s to crazy for daily wear, I’ll recycle the yarn for another project.

I also made Irish Brown Bread in honor of the holiday which was made with molasses and turned out quite yummy. It is supposedly an Irish granny’s recipe. I substituted whole wheat flour + wheat bran for the flour and soy milk + lemon juice for the sour milk. Last night a friend suggested that St. Patrick’s day would be more fun as a week-long celebration instead of just one day. I think I have to agree!

A few weeks ago, I was in our local little fabric store picking up some pretty silk/cotton fabric that my friend Jenny was going to sew into a dress for Selma. I do not have a good relationship with my sewing machine. I think about those VW commercials from the 90s where they talked about “farfegnugen,” which I think was defined as “the union between car and driver.” Well, this is the opposite of how I feel with a sewing machine. It seems like more of a battle.

However, I while I was picking out fabric, I saw a bag on the counter that used these amazing GIANT grommets to thread the handles through. And Diana, who owns the shop says casually, “oh, yes, I’m offering a class in this bag–it is so easy, just two squares. I’m sure you could do it.” I was drawn in by a grommet.

But, on Sunday, we had the class, and what do you know? I actually DID do it!

Picking out the fabric maybe took as long as the sewing. Of course there was all the cutting and pinning and ironing too, which made the very full class run a bit long. But in the end, we all had bags. I wish I had pictures of the others because they were all different and all amazing. I did get a bit more comfortable with the sewing thing, and learned a few cool tips, like using masking tape to help get straight lines when top-stitching. A revelation!

Now that I have the bag, I love a lot more about it than just the grommets. I love that it stands up by itself, and I love the size–it’s a perfect knitting bag. The straps can be held together over one shoulder or long across the body, which is my preferred way to carry a bag–I’m less likely to set it down and leave it. and when you’re holding it that way, the strap acts as a closure too. It’s a clever design. The pattern, by Debbie Bowles, is called “Wallet and Grommet” because there’s a wallet pattern that I didn’t make along with the bag, and it’s from Maple Island Quilts.