I was lucky enough to be asked to take part in the blog tour for Amy Adam's new book Countryside Softies, which meant that I was also lucky enough to be sent a pdf copy of the book to review.
Before Amy discovered her passion for creating adorable creatures, she spent 12 years as a designer for a major craft manufacturer. Her background also includes a university degree in weaving and embroidery. In her book, Countryside Softies, she brings 28 felted wool creatures to life with clear instructions, time-saving tips and enchanting photography. Each project is graded according to difficulty (easy, moderate and slightly tricky) so both experienced and novice sewers can share in the fun.
Amy's long history of pattern writing clearly shows in this beautiful book, which is jam packed with the cutest woodland animal patterns that you can imagine. As well as clear and concise instructions (including specific stitches, felting wool and how to stuff your creatures to the best effect), it also includes full sized patterns, suggestions for how to personalise your stuffies and of course imaginatively styled, beautiful images.
The patterns in the book are broken down in to three sections, In The Headgerow, Amongst the Woodlands and Along The Riverbank and include woodland favourites such as a fox, a squirrel and an owl as well as some wonderful, less obvious creatures like a dragon fly, bumble bee and a beautiful kingfisher.
If you would like to try out the Dragonfly pattern for yourself, you can download a free copy of the pattern here.
If you would like to be lucky enough to win a copy of Countryside Creatures, just leave a comment and on Friday 29th April I'll be picking a winner.
You can order your own copy of the book from here or even better, get a signed copy from here.
And in the meantime, you can follow the whole blog tour here -
- April 18: whip up
- April 19: bari j
- April 20: blue nickel studios
- April 21: fat quarterly
- April 22: ric-rac
- April 23: syko
- April 24: lucykate crafts (the author)
- April 25: treefall design
- April 26: i heart linen
- April 27: sometimes crafter
- April 28: plush you
- April 29: allsorts
