Inspiration 101

  hen it comes to the wonderful world of crafts and the amazing field of book production/design I have a lot to learn. I am a newbie to taking both areas seriously and when I see all the things I want to do and all the things I need to learn sometimes I can kind of freak out a bit. I mean, it can be very overwhelming. I have Studio on the Square and Mindy for most of my book production/letterpress needs, but crafting is a different story. Not only can the amount that I need to learn about crafting be overwhelming, but all the information out there can be too. There are so many sites and books full of how-to's and projects, but I have found so few that I think actually give enough coherent information to be worth following or purchasing. So, I just wanted to take this opportunity to point out a website and a book that I have just found to be ever so incredible and most definitely inspirational!

The Book:
While I have heard often of this little work of incredible-ness I had yet to pick it up and riffle through it until yesterday and as soon as I saw what a treasure it was I bought it on the spot. Now, to cease with this mystery and get on with it, the book I am speaking of is Stitch n' Bitch: The Knitters Handbook.

I know for anyone who knits the first thought must be, "Well duh," but as someone who has just begun knitting I think it is important to shout from the rooftops that this is a MUST for any knitting library. I had been told by so many people of various books that would do wonders for my understanding of this craft, or that I just had to have and so I was slowly ILLing items from my public library to try and figure out which ones were worth my money. I had overlooked this one though because, for whatever reason, I kept thinking I would get to it eventually. What I hadn't realized until I actually looked through it though, was that as a beginner I needed this. This isn't a book to buy later on down the line, although I am sure it will forever be helpful and I will always be picking it up as a reference. Stitch n' Bitch is full of incredibly understandable and helpful explanations of almost every little part of knitting and I can say, just from the little I have read so far, I have already had at least three "ah ha!" moments.

The Site:
While I had not ever heard of this site, it is something I stumbled upon two days ago and have already visited a few times.  How About Orange will probably always be putting me to shame, in terms of crafts I can do and blog quality. This blog is absolutely incredible, with free downloads, tips, and tons of tricks! In fact I got that lovely W from DailyDropCap because Jessica had the awesome good sense to blog about it. There are so many many things on this blog and I am sure that I will try a few and post about them on here...and I am sure sometimes I won't even realize she posted about how to do these things in the past (like with the buttons...which is how I found this blog, searching for button terms after I had already made them). So, I suggest to anyone who reads this humble little blog and is interested in making crafts to swing on over to How About Orange for some superdity-duperdity fun!