Christmas Crochet- giveaway, review and blog tour!

It's the season to start really getting ready for Christmas. Edie Eckman, the author of some of my favorite crochet books* has written a wonderful collection of patterns to start decorating. Christmas Crochet for Hearth, Home and Tree is full of easy to accomplish, quick stitched patterns that look good and fit the season perfectly.

My favorite kind of crochet books have both written instructions and international crochet diagrams. This one has both. The written instructions are easy to follow, and the diagrams are clear, and easy to read. The patterns are good for all levels. For people who have been crocheting for a long time, things like the snowy looking 3 dimensional tree decorations will work up in an evening, and putting together enough socks and mittens for a sweet, homey advent calender can be done in a week of evenings. For beginners, they can get practice in following diagrams and simple shaping techniques using worsted weight yarns and simple stitches.

My son is just learning to crochet using another book from Storey, and he's going to help me make the Advent calender.

There are some wonderful Christmas stockings in here as well, and they are also made of worsted weight yarn. You'll find a pattern for everyone in your family so they can all have a different handmade stocking that suits their personality. Bright stripes, polka dots, a complex looking peppermint colored stocking done in seed stitch, some gorgeous single color stockings that use embellishments or texture for interest, and my favorite- the flame stitch stocking which has texture and great color work.

The Christmas tree ornaments are great. My favorite are the felted ornaments. They are worked in motifs and make a great take along project and a good project for beginners since felting is so forgiving. The little birds are another favorite, folksy and simply too cute for words.

The styles are on trend for a homey, comfortable Christmas. Bright colors and easy to find yarn are a winner.

I made one of the snowflake motifs from one of the stockings in thread to decorate a simple headband /bookmark made using 1/8th blue elastic and a button center.

I've been so busy working on a big project, doing some of the small and quick projects from this book is very relaxing.

Storey Publishing gave me a copy of this book to review, but will also give one of you a copy! USA only. Comment on this blog post with your crochet decorating plans for the season to enter or click the Ravelry link below and comment on this blog post with your favorite project. On Monday, November 17th, I'll put all the names in a stocking and let my daughter draw one winner to receive a copy. Don't forget to include some sort of contact information on the comment. Ravelry name, Facebook name or email address.

You can also check out the rest of this blog tour in the next couple of weeks to see projects from the book and get more chances to enter and win a copy!

Check out this book on Ravelry!

Facebook: Edie Eckman and Storey Publishing

Twitter: @EdieEckman and @StoreyPub

Instagram: @StoreyPub

3-Nov Don't Eat the Paste

4-Nov Moogly

5-Nov Liberty's Yarn

7-Nov Rambling Designs

10-Nov Plus 3 Crochet

11-Nov Crochet Dynamite

12-Nov Jenn Likes Yarn

13-Nov Crochet Nirvana

14-Nov Yarning4aSmile

Snowflake Mandala to color and news

I know the quote

I love cookies baking. During the winter, they have these candles that smell like cookies, and I always buy like a hundred of them.

Jared Padalecki

doesn't actually have much to do with the art. It's a stretch- snowflake, winter. But it was good enough to be a good excuse to use a quote about cookies.

So here's the news- Don't Eat the Paste has had over 5,000,000 page views, and there are a few giveaways planned. The first will be starting soon, and I'll be giving 3 readers a copy of one of my favorite books from last year- Snowflakes, Sunbursts and Stars. It's a collection of origami and kirigami projects to paper craft snowflakes, sunbursts and stars shape.  Now two copies I'll give away here. The 3rd I'll be giving away on my Facebook page! So go like the page if you want a chance to win there. When I send them, they will include some Alaskan postcards, a touristy plastic Alaskan key ring and one of my Don't Eat the Paste wooden coins that say "Ubicumque homo est, ibi benefici locus est" around the edge. It means "Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness."

But before that, it has snowed here, so here's a snowflake to color! Click on the image for a larger version.
Small jpg:

Transparent png version:

Skull damask printable boxes

I hope you enjoy these skull damask printable boxes for spooky treats! Click on the images for larger versions, print on card stock, cut out, score fold, fold and glue. Would you like these boxes with a purple or orange background as well?

And welcome to all the new readers!! Thank you all for helping get the total hits to Don't Eat the Paste to 5,000,000 a few weeks earlier than expected! If you look on the right hand side of the blog you'll see social buttons so you can follow me in other places. If you're really into geeky things,my daughter pins to a board on my Pinterest that's absolutely unsorted but updated regularly with all sorts of very geeky fandom things.

Book Review- Effortless Bento

Wow. Seriously, just WOW. This cookbook is my favorite new cookbook for the year.

It's released by Vertical Inc., so as you can guess, it's a carefully edited English edition of a Japanese book. So this is the real thing. The bentos aren't cute, this isn't a how to make cartoon characters out of carrots, nori and rice cookbook. There isn't a hot dog octopus in the whole thing. The focus is attractive and delicious food that can be prepared ahead to pack into a lunch box and the recipes are just as appropriate for adults as for children. These are the lunches you pack to make your co-workers jealous, and to give you a good reason not to skip lunch.

So starting at the beginning, there is a very good overview of how to safely pack lunches so you don't risk giving yourself a case of food poisoning. It talks about the different kinds of bento boxes, how to keep things cool, and how to pack the lunches so everything is at the optimum temperature.

Then the recipes. 300 of them! Now, I know that some recipes aren't going to appeal to everyone. For example, my husband won't eat squid. My son will. My daughter is hit and miss with nori, and my son eats it toasted instead of chips. Well, actually I think every single recipe in this book is something my son would eat. He loves Japanese food. This cookbook has a lot of tasty options for Americanized tastes. You cook a certain number of servings ahead of time, and freeze or refrigerate them so packing lunch is fast.

Some of the ingredients can be tricky to find if you don't live in an area with great markets but a lot of the recipes are a lot more accessible. So you might not be able to find fishcake and lotus root- but pork cutlets and panko crumbs are easy to find. Some recipes you can make substitutes. Like if you can't find kabocha in your area, substitute butternut squash. The cooking methods are easy to learn.

The truth is, as much as I'm loving the recipes, the book is worth it for the tips, hints, and quick recipes sections which include furikake (rice seasoning), pickles, vegetables, instant soups and a nice collection of onigiri (rice balls) recipes.

I'm loving this cookbook, and happily recommend it.
Like Vertical Inc on Facebook to find out more about the cookbooks, craft books and manga they publish!


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I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.