Saturday 28 February 2015

Hooked on Hearts // Wedding plans


I don't know about you lot, but for me, February has been absolutely chocca!

Amongst other things I've travelled around the country art directing photo shoots for work, designed a trade stand and attended the event to set up and style things, joined the gym, my new craft room furniture arrived and Darren put it together, more on that in another post - so excited to show you! Oh and we might have set our date for the Wedding, finally! 

We were determined it would be this year we tied the knot even though through various reasons and no small amount of procrastination, we didn't decide on when and where until earlier this month! So now, having set the date - 08.08.15 - we are in a mad panic to get everything sorted.



I have been designing my wedding invites this week in between everything else! (Sneak peek here.) Today, we went up to the hall we are using for the wedding after party and measured the spaces, checked what facilities there are etc. We will keep everything crossed for good weather so we can make use of the nice lawn outside. We want to have a hog roast and a bit of a knees-up afterwards and have found a great company who provide a mobile bar and disco! Plans abound so there will no doubt be more of this madness appearing on the blog before the summer.







So it was with feelings of love and romance in my heart and wedding bells on my mind that I approached the latest blog hop project with Stitch Craft Create. They showed me an advance copy of this great new book they have coming into stock for March - Hooked! By Michelle, Cécile and Sylvie Delprat. It is available for preorder now and with a free e-book to get you started while you wait for the print book to arrive!



It is full of clever little motif designs and really appeals to the designer and creator in me as the motifs become little building blocks for other ideas or decorations to add as patches to other creations. 



They can be made with any colours and by using a larger or smaller hook or yarn, the size range is great too. The patterns state quite small hook sizes and I think they are intended to use fine yarn such as sock yarn or cottons. I used my usual Double knit acrylic and a 4mm hook and got almost a coaster sized motif. I reckon with aran weight and a 5/6mm hook they would be big enough to use as such.



Of course, with all this talk of weddings and Valentine's day just done, I couldn't resist making the heart motifs in this candy pink. 



The instructions were succinct and easy to follow and I really liked the way the book was divided so that the 'gallery' of motifs was all together at the front, leaving the instructions at the back to find once the design had been chosen. It keeps the inspiration separate from the instruction and I like that.

There are some stitch explanations along with UK/US conversion tables so I think most beginners would be able to tackle this book, possibly with a little help from the masses of youtube videos out there for stitch tutorials etc.

If you are the sort of crocheter who likes to create your own look but is not ready to design your own patterns, this book is for you. Even if you are a designer it is such fun it would be hard to resist! The lovely guys at Stitch Craft Create are running a competition to win a copy of Hooked! Along with a crochet goodie bag so get involved! Details can be found here.

So anyway, back to the invitation designing now, I must get them out in the post otherwise nobody will turn up in August! Back as soon as possible with more on wedding ideas and a craft room update - just wait until you see it!