This beautiful girl smiling back at you is Natalie. Please join me in wishing her a big warm crafty "welcome"!!!! She will be bringing us all sorts of crafty goodness from across the pond; she'll be reporting from the UK. (Hence my "pond" clue I gave you on Monday.) I am so excited about this I can barely contain myself! I feel like my craft world just expanded exponentially.
Here is Natalie's first note to all you Craftside readers:
Introducing Craftside UK
Hello,
Welcome to my first blog post on Craftside, coming from across the pond in London, UK, where I’ll be keeping an eye on all sorts of crafty going-ons and UK news. We’ve also just set up a Twitter feed for Craftside UK (@CraftsideUK) which I’ll be keeping up-to-date with all the latest news and info. I’m already a knitter and sewer, although I’d probably still class myself as a bit of a beginner, so I’m looking forward to learning more about all the fantastic projects our UK crafters are working on or talking about.
The Craftside community is hugely international, with just under half of all visitors coming from the U.S. We're seeing thousands of people from all over the globe, including the UK, Canada, Australia, India, Malaysia, Ireland, and Peru, to pull out just a few, so hello world!
We'd like to invite all of you in the U.S., Canada or the UK to leave a comment on this post by midnight EDT on Friday, April 20th to let us know where you are from (name your closest big city!), along with your favorite local crafting tip, for a chance to receive a free book of your choice from Qbookshop.com.
We'll choose one recipient from the U.S./Canada and one from the UK. And even if you aren’t from the UK, Canada or the U.S. we’d still love to hear more about where you are from! Hopefully we'll be able to host a giveaway soon for all our international readers.
One thing us Brits are well known for enjoying talking about is the weather, so fitting in with the usual stereotype I'll do just that – although the weather in London right now is worth shouting about: it's absolutely glorious! It finally feels like spring has arrived, with the sun shining, blue skies and a warm breeze drifting through the streets. All sorts of flowers have been popping up and starting to bloom, heralding the change in seasons and making London’s parks and green spaces look fantastic. Here’s a quick snap of my local park last week with everyone out enjoying the sun.
As someone who loves year-round flowers, I’ve lately been admiring the lovely Playful Patchwork book by Suzuko Koseki:
It is truly packed full with bright, colourful and irresistible ideas for patchwork and quilting projects, all making use of floral motifs that you can enjoy come rain or shine. We’ve even got a pattern extract of the tea cosy pattern (how very British!) due to appear in the May edition of one of the UK’s favourite sewing magazines, Sew, plus the hip UK-based craft blog Indie Quarter recently featured the book and are clearly enjoying it and the arrival of spring as much as we are!
And today, we're sharing with you a sample patchwork square pattern from this flower-filled book. Click on the image below to learn how to make a magnolia buds square!
Cheers,
Natalie
Raleigh, NC , USA is my nearest big city and my favorite tip/trip is to go to Ornamentea to shop for beads and mixed media supplies and inspiration.
edie
Posted by: edie | April 13, 2011 at 07:31 AM
Cleveland, OH, USA, is my closest big city! I like to troll thrift stores to look for pieces I can alter!!
debpaint16@aol.com
Posted by: Debbie Painter | April 13, 2011 at 01:37 PM
Hi,
I'm based in London, UK too! I am loving the Make Lounge in Islington - it is a great place to get together with other crafty types and try your hand at something new. I did a soap making workshop and loved it.
Posted by: Colleen | April 13, 2011 at 08:35 PM
Nottingham UK is my nearest big city. I love the inexpensive classes and high level of expert tuition at the Charnwood branch of South Nottingham College.
I'm interested in mixed media/multi-media creative work and have learned a great deal there.
Posted by: Suella | April 13, 2011 at 11:29 PM