Saturday, 23 April 2016

Where have I been? Answer - writing a book!

Yes! I have written a book! It's called 'Bobbles, puffs and popcorns ' and launches in September from Quarto.  
Wait a minute, is that what a book does? 'launch'? Or is that just websites and ships?  
Whatever. You can get your copy from then - Yay!  
It has taken close to a year, all told, though there was a long gap between synopsis and full briefiing. It's mainly a stitch book but with projects too, four of them. The stitches were fun but the projects were a bit stressful. There's a rug which is large and time consuming to make, but even more demanding to write a pattern for. And a vintage style bag for which I must have drafted about 10 charts - taught me a lot! 
Crochet patterns can be written shambolically, or trimlylike computer code. I took pride in tightly described, succinct and accessible crochet 'coding'. 
And now the publishers are putting it all together I can only hope it all makes sense. I haven't had too many notes from the pattern checker or the chart illustrator so far. The latest development was this week when I was commissioned one last piece of crocheting for the front cover. I had thought they might use a photo of the rug. 
It was nice to do this one last outsize swatch, but it won't have the 'class' a good, atmospheric image of one of the products would. I was sent a dummy. They tell me it will be a paperback. Little bit flat after hearing that.  
A flat brat. Before I got the deal I would gnawed my right foot off just to get a book and never mind the texture of the jacket!  
Well in the last couple of weeks it's been nice to make something else and I dug out a WIP I began around 7 years ago, a cardigan. I got to grips with bringing it, at long last to fruition. Just have to sew on the buttons....
  I have also 'taken in some mending', begun a new baby blanket design project, started thinking about a crocheted swimsuit and have been mentally drafting a new summer top, amongst other vaguer ideas. Watch this space! 
My Tuesday nights have continued through all the stuff going on, with huge support from my fellow crocheters, as well as from the ladies of the Knitting and Crocheters Guild. Speaking of which, I have also done a bit of volunteer graphic design work on the guild's newsletter - Slipknot. I had been in cahoots with the editor for a while offering new ideas and a dummy and the board finally invited me to lay out Issue 150. It has been received well and it does look particularly nice because they also agreed to print the outside pages in colour. Hoorah!

Finally I want to mention a particular highlight in the last year of my teaching at Denman College which has continued throughout. Right near Christmas, five students came to my 'Felted Bags' course and the results were absolutely gorgeous. We call got so emotional when they came out of the washing machine - cooked as it were!

NEW GOALS: get a design on the cover of INSIDE CROCHET and write a hardback book!