New Books...

So last week was my 36th Birthday and to celebrate I took a week off work and spent the whole time chilling out making things at home and catching up on TV that I have been dying to watch. Pete was poorly for the first half of the week so we curled up on the sofa with our amazing scented candles from Twinings Home Fragrance burning away while I carried on knitting his new cowl and he continued writing up his amazing crochet patterns.

I had an amazing visit from my sister and my amazing nephews who joined us for tea in the kitchen and to of course bring me a card. My youngest nephew discovered that we have a keyboard in our kitchen and spent the entire hour that they were here making us endure his constant banging on the keys trying to make out some sort of tune!

The following day brought sunshine outside and a visit from my older sister. She too is an avid knitter and crocheter and like us totally understands the obsession! she had asked me a couple of weeks before what I would like for my birthday and i asked for Westknits Bestknits 3 by Stephen West. I love this guy and the patterns that he has created. I was introduced to his work a couple of years ago and I wasn't convinced due to the bright colours that he uses, however after buying my first pattern off of ravelry, I was hooked.

His use of technique is amazing and I have loved all of the items that I have made so far and I love the fact that although he loves colour, the more muted pallets that he has put together for his patterns still create amazing designs that just work.

I spent most of the day thumbing through this book in awe of the new patterns that were now at my fingertips and couldn't wait to get started. Only problem, the one thing that I wanted to make consisted of birch stitch! Now this was a stitch that I had done before but I am no where near confident. It was then at the end of the book that I noticed that he has actually put in a recommendation of another book that is essentially the brioche stitch bible and I knew I just had to have it.

Jump forward an hour and there I am shopping on Amazon hunting for this book. Easy to find and whoops, in my shopping basket and checked out!!! This new book I was excited to have and start thumbing through all off the new techniques and I can safely say I was not disappointed. Knitting Fresh Brioche, by Nancy Marchant is incredible!! That is all I can say about this book. It details the basics to start with step by step so that you can get used to the technique then it delves into the more advance items with increases and decreases, then into the many, many, many different stitch patterns that you can create. Finally in the back of this super book is 12 incredible patterns making great use of the new skills that can be learnt.

I can't wait to get started on patterns from both of these books however, as I am sure that you all know, I have other projects on the go that I must get finished!! I will of course keep you updated with my progress through these 2 amazing books!!

Seb x