These are a few of my favourite things

There have been some brilliant blog posts recently. Here are my favourites.

• Knitting on the Green - Liz's review of KnitCamp

I foolishly thought the KnitCamp saga had come to an end but no, it rumbles on. Many people without refunds and the organiser went on a two week holiday straight afterwards and has posted a rather odd summary post on the official blog. But what was it really like for people who were there? Liz has written a 5 (so far) part review of the different elements. All are very well written and have brilliant photographs with them. I've linked to part 1 but you will easily find all the others. Stick around for her book reviews too. 

• Craftypod - Review of 'Brave New Knits'

I've seen patterns from this book creeping into the friend activity screen on ravelry and Sister Diane gives us a very good review of the book itself along with lots of pictures. 

• Color Me Katie - Cat Cafes in Japan

I genuinely thought this was my idea and have often talked to Pooch about wanting to create a haven for people who adore cats but can't for whatever reason have one at home. Am so gutted this is a reality in japan. Don't suppose anyone knows of any UK ones? Katie is also a brilliant photographer.

• Good Night Gracie - Friendship Bracelets

In my teens I had these wrist to elbow on both arms and was constantly making holes in cushions having safety pinned a bracelet to it. This is a Flickr set rather than a blog because it was featured in a CRAFT blog post. I'm really tempted to make one now. Mine were nearly as good as hers when I was at the height of my powers - but she has taken it to the next level.

• Andre Joseph's Sketchblog - How to draw a shoe

I absolutely love her illustrations. Her description of how she draws this converse trainer left me open-mouthed. The first step, which I am not giving away, is so simple and easy to do but I can hear generations of art teachers turning in their graves. But hey, it certainly works for her. 

• Craft Blog - Knitted Unravelling Calender

I tweeted about this yesterday. Craft seems to assume there is some mechanism unravelling it but I can only assume a non knitter wrote that. The only good thing about frogging is the tactile 'tink tink' as each stitch pops as it disengages from the last as you gently pull.

• Lixie Makes It - Most popular and knitted designers on Ravelry

In an addition to this post...at the Romford knitting group on Sunday we discussed this briefly and the very good point was made that the best designers are often not the best teachers. But I suspect that also the best and most knitable designers are not paid anywhere near as much as the 'knitting royalty'. Makes me feel positively anarchistic!

You may have noticed that I have interspersed this post with images that are pretty much unrelated to the text. Why? 

• Purlpower - Diagnoses and the psychology of images and comments

The long suffering yet consistently witty Purlpower has had another diagnosis. The text in itself is dryly funny and engaging but she makes a good point towards the end as to why she has interspersed it with those images. But you have to read it to find out what it is. 

 

All photos via Flickr under Creative Commons Licensing. Please click on the photos for creators' credits.