Where to pre-order Rainbow Crocheted Blankets

Since my last blog post about pre-ordering my new book Rainbow Crocheted Blankets in my Etsy shop I have had a lot of messages and e-mails from international crocheters asking where they can pre order a copy.

Originally the Etsy listing was only for UK customers.
However on request I have added some extra shipping destinations to my Etsy pre-order listing.
If you buy from me rather than Amazon you will receive a signed copy of the book.

There are 2 versions of the book - UK and US crochet terms, you can find both of them in the following places

The UK crochet terms version of the book is available myself on Etsy HERE
or on Amazon.co.uk - HERE
Estimated publishing date - 31st of October 2016

The US crochet terms version of the book is on Amazon.com - HERE
Estimated publishing date - 8th of November 2016

You can also order in Australia, but you will need to e-mail the publishers to find out more details, the e-mail address is sales@searchpress.com.au

Foxgloves & stupid internet

I'm having a bit of a nightmare time with the internet at the moment, as Lynton is miles away from civilisation at the end of a road to no where we struggle with an internet connection.
So I haven't been around much due to the fact that its difficult to get a signal for more than an hour at a time.
I'd like to say things will improve when we get superfast broadband, however our lovely Tory MP who doesn't live on the moor and spends most of his time in London stated that connecting Lynton wasn't worth the money, so we're stuck with stone age bandwidth....sigh.....

Anyway between bouts of severe internet frustration I have been working away on my Foxgloves blankets, there will be 3 in total, all published together in a e-booklet. Its going to be a totally new format as the main focus of the book is colour rather than crochet. I'm aiming to inspire you and give you the confidence to experiment with your own colour schemes, plus there will be a blank layout that you can print out and colour in for yourselves.
Here's a few photo's of 1 and 2 to whet your appetite :-)
Sadly I can't post a photo of number 3 as Dropbox is taking days to sync anything.

I have managed to list my new book on Etsy as a pre-order, I can only ship to the UK, but there is a US version that you can order via US Amazon.
Plus its going to be published in France by a French Publisher.

You can find the Etsy listing HERE

Here is the first glimpse of 2 of the book blankets, the full blankets won't be revealed until the book is published :-)

Knot Garden

Liberty

Hopefully I will be able to post a little bit more in a week or so, just as long as the internet allows me.

Love and Happy Crocheting

Amanda

Squares & Circles series

Good morning from grey and warm Exmoor

When I start working on a new blanket I start off with a colour collection of yarn and a vague sketch/colour chart.
The blankets evolve as they grow, which means I'm constantly tweaking a design as I make it, adding or taking away colours, changing motifs, etc etc
I also normally come up with several variations in my head. Occasionally I allow myself to crochet a second variation of the same design, such as the two Kissing Circles blankets and my triangle star's blankets.
(If you click on the design name it will take you to its pattern page in my Ravelry store, so you can buy the pattern)

KISSING CIRCLES & KAFFE

FLORENCE                                    SUPERNOVA

However I normally file all the variations away in my head for another time. I'd like to make more of the variations and to create series of blanket designs, but I need to come up with new designs as you don't want to buy the same blanket pattern over and over again.

Recently I read a comment on Ravelry that said my Circles and Cornucopia blankets were the same design. 

Although the motifs are slightly different, the commenter was right, so I stepped back and looked at all my blanket photo's together and realised that I have been using a square with a circle in it, time and time again over a period of about 8 years.

CIRCLES                                        SABINE

BELLADONNA                             CORNUCOPIA

My most recent 2 blankets are both designed with a square/circle so I think its time for me to give in and indulge myself by making a series of square/circle blankets, it might help me get over square/circles and move onto a new motif shape or I might be stuck on square/circles for a long time to come .... maybe forever...who knows....

These latest two blankets have new layout and colour variations that I'm going to develop further, so watch this space :-)

CATALINA

FOXGLOVES - WIP

Foxgloves

I've been working on a new blanket and developing new way of working.
My lovely crochet friend came to see me about 10 days ago, we spent a whole day chatting crochet. Some of the discussion was about the way I sell my work.
I've slowly come to realise that since the closure of NDS last year I no longer have to keep my blankets to use on the stand to sell yarn and that I should sell them instead.
You can find them HERE on my website.

My friend is the proud new owner of a couple of my blankets and she pointed out that I don't do anything to promote blanket sales and she's right!
My blankets are expensive, but as I pay myself half the minimum wage I think I've priced them more than reasonably.
I understand they are out of most peoples budgets and so I don't expect to sell many.
But during the past week or so I have come up with some idea's on how to make my work more available.
The idea's have evolved during the making of Foxgloves

Foxgloves are inspired by the flowers on the moor, the wild foxgloves are beginning to come into flower and the colours are based on the flowers and their surroundings.
I've crocheted and frogged and crocheted and frogged over and over again, developing my ideas as I go.
The photo's below are a of photo diary of my process

Foxgloves started off as a pile of yarn and my attempt to use a square that didn't contain a circle.

However I didn't like the squares, so the circles crept back. At this point in time it was going to be a scarf, with stripes of squares fading into the background green.

And then it morphed into a blanket and I decided to work the stripes corner to corner instead.

Even though I loved the original colour scheme, the stripes faded into the background and so I used an alternative colour scheme and turned the stripes into zig zags.

Which left me with a discard pile of swatches. I had a brainwave and decided I could mount or frame and sell the swatches as small pieces of wall art.

So I decided to make 2 blankets at the same time, one with the original colours and second more muted colour scheme, the layout would be identical, so I would need to make both blankets and publish them at the same time in the same pattern.

However this morning I've decided to just make the muted version, which means I'm left with a big discard pile of swatches to frame or mount and sell.

I still love the first colour way so I'll photograph it and include it in the pattern.

As I've had so much fun playing with the different colour schemes I've decided that it might be nice for you to have the chance to experiment with your own. So I've decided to include a couple of colouring sheets for you to play with.

I've coloured in bits of the layout so you can see the structure, if you use the same yarn you have a starting place to work out your colour scheme around. 

Obviously I need to do some development of the colouring pages, so its a work in progress, but the photo above gives you an idea of what I mean.

If you can't wait for the pattern and want to start collecting colours, you will need to buy 1 skein of  Fyberspates - Vivacious 4 ply Sea Green (the green circles)

And 1 skein of  Fyberspates - Scrumptious 4 Ply - Teal (blue circles)

I've also used 1 skein of Fyberspates - Vivacious 4 ply - Mixed Magentas as a background colour, so if you want to do the same colour way as the original you will need to use it as a core colour to base your collection around.

You can find the list of Fyberspates stockists HERE

You can use any 4 ply yarn, just as long as its a similar metreage (360 - 400 metre's per 100 gs)

My sample blanket includes some Skein Queen, Easy Knits, The Little Grey Sheep and John Arbon Exmoor Sock.

The pattern will be available as soon as I've finished crocheting the sample and the swatches will be available on Etsy as soon as I've worked out how to frame or mount them.

Love Amanda - off to colour in some charts :-)