My top knitting books for World Book Night

In honour of tonight's World National Book Night  I've decided to round up the best knitting books to have have been published in the last few months:

1. Best in Show Incredible projects of every kind of dog imaginable, split into all the dog show categories, you can knit your own whippet, poodle, pug..all the projects are like life and ever so sweet! 10/10 for 'knits you want to own'.

2. 75 birds... There's something about this title that reminds me of my old school garden...a great resource for teachers, crafts practitioners and ordinary knit wits - imagine how amazing it would be to make everything in this book and then make a giant garden knitted mural....

 2. Probably the best designed craft book I've seen in ages, each knitted pet is photographed in it's own homely setting. Animals include a snake and chameleon! 10/10 for cuteness.

3. I haven't seen this book in person as it's not published until later this month. In case you missed it, 'The K Factor' was a slot on Harry Hill's TV Burp a few months ago and viewers were asked to send in knitted characters which were judged each episode, X Factor stye. There are still some great clips on line - I've seen numerous characters that featured in the challenge on sale on Ebay so you could buy a fake from there or knit one yourself.

4. I discovered this title on twitter, DeadlyKnitshade was tweeting about it - 10/10 for amusement factor..and while other's are 'cashing in' on the royal wedding, nice to see a way to celebrate the wedding for free!

5. These three fun amusing titles are all written by Susie Johns who is a) amazing b)inspiring c) runs my local knitting group in Greenwich. Admittedly it's been ages since I've actually shown up but I will return when I actually have time to do some more knitting myself.  Each food is amazingly life like, there's a 4th that's she's done on knitted egg cosies that came out a couple of weeks ago too. I've always loved the idea of knitting every day objects far more than knitting a jumper. 


So that's my Spring time inspiration, I recommend getting hold of any of these books and getting your needles out, they are all fab books. Happy Knitting x

Hmm! Chocolate!

This may look like a piece of jewellery but it is actually a Strawberry and White chocolate lolly from Hotel Chocolat. My sister gave it to me as a present in October but it was so lovely to look at I decided not to eat it and kept it as an ornament instead. Do you ever do that? Just keep things on display when they should be used?

I picked up the lolly today and saw that the 'best before date' was just a few hours away and I remembered a couple of Easters ago I resisted some chocolate animals I was given because they were so sweet to look at. Eventually they went mouldy.

So I made a decision, these two love birds are too pretty to go mouldy so I gobbled the lolly up and it was extremely tasty!!

It's such a beautiful mould and has got me thinking about the craft of chocolate making. I'm not sure if I could do it, I'm far better at crafting with fabric than with edible ingredients.

I think the same sister who got me the lolly question has those genes.

She recently did a chocolate making course and came up with these sensational and scrumptious designs. (And yes I did get to try them and they were lush!) I know they look like mini cakes but they are actually handmade chocolates!

(Ok this picture is here again but blogger is being a pain and having trouble deleting it, still nevermind, it's a good picture!)

While I'm on the subject of the brown stuff, I heard a rumour this week that apparently Cadbury's Creme Eggs are only made once a year, in January, and so the best time to eat them is now when they are at their freshest. Needless to say I have been sucked in my this publicity stunt and also had my first one of the year today. Bliss!