September « 2011 « Crown Publishing

September 2011

Embroidery Gift Ideas from Sweet Stitches from the Heart

One of the biggest perks of working at Potter Craft is that we often have the opportunity to test patterns that appear in our books months before the books hit bookstore shelves.

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Celebrate Martha Stewart’s Handmade Holiday Crafts with a Holiday Planning Calendar

From New Year’s Eve to Valentine’s Day to Christmas and every holiday in between, Martha Stewart’s Handmade Holiday Crafts contains page after page of projects, tips, techniques, and inspiring ideas. To assist in your holiday planning, CrafterNews—taking inspiration from Martha Stewart’s Handmade Holiday Crafts—created craft calendars for the months of October through December. Featuring photos from the book of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas crafts, and highlighting dates when you should begin to think about crafting, you can prepare for the season with ease!

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Ask the Experts: Knitting Disasters We’ve Learned From

Every knitter has a story about a project gone awry. There’s the gigantic sweater that won’t stop stretching out; the late baby gift finished after the baby has outgrown it; and, of course, the odd felting catastrophe. Some of our favorite knitting authors share their worst knitting disasters and how they managed to salvage them—or didn’t!

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How To: Unique Planters from Annie Selke, Author of Fresh American Spaces

The summer is drawing to a close, but that doesn’t mean the bright, cheerfulness of the season needs to end as well. In this video, Annie Selke, irrepressible design visionary and author of Fresh American Spaces, shows us how to create unique planters that can be placed outdoors or inside as the fall weather chills the air!

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Quilt Giveaway and Instructions from Margaret Shepherd, author of Learn World Calligraphy

In her follow-up to last Thursday’s post, “Readable Words with African Flavor,” Margaret Shepherd, author of Learn World Calligraphy provides instructions on creating a “virtual Swahili” baby quilt. Additionally, Margaret has kindly donated the baby quilt featured here to CrafterNews, and we will be giving it away to one lucky reader!

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DIY Wedding Series Part 6: Card Holder

It’s been my experience that wedding gifts tend to include numerous cards. And as cards are easily lost, the tradition of putting a card holder on the gift table has been observed by numerous brides. Well, no ordinary card holder would do for my vintage wedding—no, I had to make one. But this actually turned out to be one of my favorite wedding crafts, because not only do I have a card holder for my wedding, I also have a keepsake.

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Look What WE Made: Take Your Mochimochi to Work Day by Caitlin Harpin

I’m a huge fan of Knitting Mochimochi and have rather obsessively pored over the book again and again simply because Anna Hrachovec’s super-cute amigurumi characters never fail to make me smile. I finally got a chance to take needles in hand to recreate one of my favorite designs from the book: TV Guy!

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Amy Sedaris on The Party Dress Book by Mary Adams

Comedian and entertainer Amy Sedaris is no stranger to crafting. In addition to writing her own craft book, Simpler Times, in November 2010, she is also a fan and friend of our own Mary Adams, author of The Party Dress Book. In fact, Amy owns at least nine of Mary’s gorgeous dresses. Check out Amy’s fabulous introduction to The Party Dress Book.

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Readable Words with African Flavor from Margaret Shepherd, Author of Learn World Calligraphy

To inspire letter artists, fabric artists, and calligraphers, Margaret Shepherd has created several evocative African alphabets that are featured in the first chapter of her new book, Learn World Calligraphy. Check out the “Virtual Swahili” alphabet template to learn how to assemble paper collages, appliqué initials, piece quilts, stitch names, and design many other projects that combine Roman readability with authentic African visual flavor.

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