Diary in Stitches Book Tour

My friend and fellow Riley Blake fabric designer Minki Kim has released a new book called Diary in Stitches - and it cannot be more adorable!

Minki specialises in 'sewing illustration', also known as drawing with thread - in her new book she has turned 65 of her sketchbook drawings into charming motifs for us to stitch! As I was flicking my way through the book I was going 'oooh' and 'aaah' the whole time - it was hard to pick just one project to stitch, but this cute little girl motif really jumped out at me as it reminded me of my Alice. Her most beloved toy is a soft bunny and she often wears her hair like this! I prepared the motif and then surrounded it with a floral patchwork frame. The fabrics I used in this project are from my Summer Blush range, with a couple of prints thrown in from my previous collection, Sweet Prairie. These two collections work together ever so well.

I also made myself a sweet little bookmark as my old one has gone a bit tatty, and I just needed an excuse to make one more thing from the book. Love these colours together! The front fabrics are Liberty Tana Lawn and the backing is an Art Gallery print by Maureen Cracknell.

If you are tempted to order this book, I strongly urge you to consider getting the e-book version. Now, I'm a total traditionalist when it comes to books - I like the pleasure of flicking through real pages, none of that Kindle stuff for me. However the publishers sent me an e-book for this tour and I gotta admit, it was fantastically handy as  it's so much easier to just pick the template you need and print that single page, no tracing required! If ever there was a book worth having in PDF, this is it!

Here's the full schedule of the whole tour if you want to check out more projects - it's quite a line up of talented sewists:

Aug 30,   C&T, C&T Publishing Blog  @ctpublishing
Sep 6,  Elise Bae, Elise and Emelie  @eliseandemelie 
Sep 13,  Sharon Burgess,Lilabelle Lane Creations   @lilabellane
Sep 20,  Lauren Wright, Molly and Mama @mollyandmama
Sep 27,  Sedef Imer, Down Grapevine Lane  @downgrapevinelane
Oct 1, Love Patchwork & Quilting, Love PAtchwork & Quilting @lovequiltingmag
Oct 4,  Kristyne Czepuryk, Pretty by Hand  @prettybyhand
Oct 11, Bev McCullogh, FlamingoToes  @flamingotoes
Oct 18, Olivia, This Handmade Life,  @thishandmadelife
Oct 25, Erin Simpson, Aurifil, @aurifilthread
Nov 1,  Ayda Algin,  Cafenohut  @cafenohut
Nov 8, Bernina USA, WeAllSew  @berninausa
Nov 15, Minki Kim, MinkiKim, @zeriano

Finally, there is a GIVEAWAY running on my Instagram to win an e-book copy of Diary in Stitches, so head over there now to enter! Good luck!