Making a Cookbook comments: 53

Thank you so much for the spring orders! I truly appreciate every order and every comment on my new designs. Thank you! I hope you are enjoying making them! I just mixed up some no-knead bread (pictured above) and covered it with a towel to rise for the next 90 minutes. Why did I do this? Why did I cook all of this food over the past week, and take pictures of it? Because I've decided to self-publish a cookbook and I want to include the recipes! As you do!

Are you familiar with self-publishing? Like Kindle Direct Publishing? I had never really heard of this (I'm really not sure how I'd never heard of this, to be honest) but I was immediately intrigued when I first heard about it a few weeks ago. Ever since my days working as a production editor when I first moved to Portland (and through working on my own books with Potter Craft), I've always been interested in book design itself. I've never actually done it but I've always wanted to learn it. So I opened InDesign and started playing around with it. I design all of my patterns through Microsoft Word — I'm not sure exactly why I started doing it that way many years ago, but that's just what I've always done, and that seems to work just fine. But InDesign is a really cool program and I've always wanted to get better at it, and it's what pros use to create documents like books. (You can use a bunch of other kinds of book-design-specific software, too, but InDesign is more sophisticated and gives you a lot more options.)

So I started practice-designing a novel. I watched YouTube videos about how to do this and also watched a few SkillShare classes. In the classes they were showing how to design novels using books that are in the public domain, like Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre. I decided to work on one of my and Andy's favorite old novels called Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith (you can see over seventy thousand fee e-books that are in the public domain at Project Gutenberg — what an amazing web site). But I realized that I really wanted to walk through the entire process — not just designing a book but actually publishing it, too. So I did some research and found out that you can publish novels that are in the public domain but if it's free content that is already available in the Kindle store, they will only let you publish a differentiated version. You can do that in a few different ways, and one of the way is by adding relevant illustrations. So I decided to do that, with my watercolors.

But then I got the idea to make a cookbook out of many of our family recipes and recipes that I have made here on the blog through the years. (I may still finish Diary when I'm done with this.) And that's when I got really excited. I started spending ballet-waiting time at the library just down the street from the ballet school, and I have been sitting there with big stacks of cookbooks in the afternoons while I wait. Cookbooks are really amazing. There are a lot of different kinds of cookbooks, LOL. I started thinking about my favorite cookbooks, and dreaming about what kind of cookbook I would make. We also (not coincidentally) looked at our budget and saw how much we have been spending on eating out, and knew something had to change — we absolutely need to start focusing much more on cooking at home again!

So all weekend Andy and I talked about our book, and I've been making lists of our favorite recipes that he and I have been making for over twenty years. I know I'm not a foodie, nor a trained cook (but my sister is, so I'm going to talk her into helping me, and my mom will be looking at all of our family recipes, too), and this is not a legit "food blog." But I looked back through the "Baking and Cooking" category on my blog and found over a hundred different things that I had cooked or baked or photographed! I had no idea how many recipes I had talked about over the years — it was so interesting to see that number. We pulled out our recipe binders and my mom's recipe box, and the tattered, stained pieces of copy paper with recipes we'd printed out that were stuffed all over the place in the kitchen drawers, and the "cookbook" Andy made for our family and friends a long time ago, and the tiny little notebook that says "Recipes" on the front that I started way back when we first got married. And I don't know, but I just got very excited.

So, yeah! I'm going to design a cookbook of our recipes and my photos and even a bunch of blog photos throughout the years! This won't be the world's most comprehensive cookbook or the most well-rounded, but I do want it to include all of our favorite family and friend-made recipes, the ones we've been making for twenty years, the ones I want to pass down to Amelia — the ones she's grown up eating and the ones I want to teach her how to cook. I want to make an e-book as well as a paperback version and a hardback version. I will ultimately list them on Amazon and IngramSpark and all of the other e-book/self-publishing outlets. I want to learn about the entire book design and self-publishing process in doing this, both so that I can gain experience and learn something new and also because I am really excited to be making a book as an author/photographer again (and this time, designer, too). I published my craft books fifteen years ago now. I mean, I actually had to look that up, and it's been fifteen years. A lot has changed. And I'm really excited to catch up with the whole industry.

I hope you will join me on this journey and in this conversation! If you've ever wanted to make a cookbook, maybe you will be interested in going through this process along with me (cookbook-a-long, anyone?). Have any of you ever written a cookbook? Even a family cookbook or a community cookbook? Do you have any advice? What are your favorite cookbooks? As a home cook, what do you think makes a good cookbook? Please advise! I'm new!

New Designs Now on Sale, and a Spring Parade! comments: 11

Good April morning! It's a cold, wet, flowery morning here. My hands are freezing and I'm sitting on a heating pad, but outside I can see my apple tree is starting to leaf out. In that spirit, I have spring designs for you!

The first is FULL-MOON PLANTING. Have you ever heard of moon gardening? It's the practice of planting depending on where the moon is in its cycle. The theory is that just as it causes the ocean tides, the moon also affects the amount of water in the soil.  To take advantage of its changing influence, it is said that fruits and vegetables should be planted while the moon is waxing, and root crops should be sowed from the time it is full through its waning phase. This design is the second in my 2022-23 seasonal series, of which Evening Skate is the first. In Full-Moon Planting spring fever has taken hold, and we are busy getting the young garden ready for the season ahead by the light of the full moon. (I'm working on the next in the series right now, and it is called Summer Breeze. . . . I'll have some digitals to show you in a couple of weeks!)

This design area is a little bit bigger than my usual sizes (which I generally like to fit in 8"x10" standard frames). The design area on Full-Moon Planting is 8.63"w x by 10.5"h (22cm x27) on 32-count fabric, or 138 stitches wide x 168 stitches high. The fabric I used for these kits is Belfast linen from Zweigart in Whisper, color 786 cut to size 14" x 16" (36cm x 41cm). Please note: There is only about 2.5" extra fabric widthwise for this design, so please make sure you start your stitching in the middle of the fabric. We definitely try to maximize cutting fabric so as to have zero waste, so this design fits a bit tighter on the fabric called for. I'm starting to think that having full 3" (7.5cm) margins around the design area is a bit big, myself — it's just a lot of extra fabric to crunch up in your hand (if you stitch in a small handheld hoop, as I do) and you wind up cutting off most of it when framing, anyway.

But anyway, this design also uses DMC floss and has such a pretty, springlike palette. (Pro tip: I've never had anyone run out of floss with any of my kits [at least, not that I've ever heard about!] but if you like to stitch a lot of my kits, keep any extra floss you end up with when you're finished in a little bag. I have a palette of just over two hundred colors, but I use a lot of the same colors over and over again, so you might someday find a need for a little bit of floss in one of those colors.)

Kits include a professionally printed full-color pattern with a four-page chart, the fabric, and all the floss you need, along with a piece of chipboard that you can use to make a floss caddy. To do that, cut lengthwise strips of chipboard about 2" (5cm) wide. Mark 1" (2.5cm) sections across the top of each until you have 10 marks. Snip a ½" (1cm) -deep notch at each mark. Label each notch with the color number of the floss. Separate the colors and place the floss in your labeled floss caddy. You may have to double up in some notches. Please note, in case you have not purchased a kit from me before: We include all of the floss in one big hank of thirty-five colors that you will need to separate yourself. It is not as hard as it seems! The color chart will list a color chip, the name of the color, and the number of lengths included, and with that information you can do this within a few minutes, I promise.

The frame is not included in the kit. :) The kit is available here. The PDF pattern-only is available here with both full-color and black-and-white four-page charts. This is a big pattern. I recommend printing PDF patterns at 100% (no scaling) at high quality for best results.

This is SPRING SPLENDOR. I love this design. I just love it. It's simple yet elegant and so pretty and sweet. It's 122 stitches wide x 90 stitches high, or 7.6"w x by 5.6"h (19cm x14cm) on 32-count fabric, and fits into an 8" x 10" frame. (The frame in my photo is a vintage one I think I found on eBay or at my local antique mall — believe it or not, it's pretty easy to find a white vintage frame like this, if you like this look. Check eBay or Etsy.) This design uses some absolutely gorgeous hand-overdyed floss from Weeks Dye Works (and I honestly can't say enough about how much I love working with this company — they are some of my very favorite people in the embroidery industry, and I love using their floss). It also uses some DMC floss. Our kits include WDW floss for the stitches that call for it as well as DMC floss, and a conversion for the WDW colors to DMC is also given in the pattern itself (you'll only get the WDW floss and not the DMC-conversion-for-those-colors floss). Please note, as above, that the floss comes in a hank and you will receive a piece of chipboard in your kit to make a floss caddy. 

This design uses some "one-over-one" stitches for all of the body text (not the initial caps). That means you will be stitching with one ply of floss over one thread of fabric. This, too, seems intimidating until you start doing it, and then you will find that it's actually super fun. I used the same alphabet that I created for The Stitcher's RSVP (which is back in stock, by the way, see below) and I don't know why but I just love this font. It's just sweet and clean and also kind of modern, which I think helps keep this design from being overly fussy.

I also absolutely love the color of the fabric used, which is 32-count linen called Touch of Blue by Wichelt.

Kits include a professionally printed full-color pattern with a two-page chart, the fabric, and all the floss you need. The kit is available here. The PDF pattern-only is available here with both full-color and black-and-white four-page charts. I recommend printing PDF patterns at 100% (no scaling) at high quality for best results. 

And last of the new designs is Little Women. This design is only available as a PDF pattern. I designed it after I saw the Greta Gerwig version of the movie is 2019 but it's taken me a while to release it, and it was my Nashville Needlework Market exclusive, so I've had to wait at least thirty days since launching it there before I was able to make it available myself. When I posted it on Instagram before market, a few people gave me suggestions for other book titles to design, and I've since designed ones for two of Amelia's and my other favorites that we've read aloud together, The Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables. I will be releasing those later this summer and will have digitals of the designs to show you in a few weeks. I had no idea I was going to love designing book-inspired compositions so much! I love them! I really enjoy the limitations that designing to a theme imposes, and I love interpreting the elements. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this pattern, which was my #1 seller at Nashville. :) It done on 32-count linen in Chestnut from Wichelt with DMC floss and is available as a downloadable PDF pattern here.

And because it's spring and you may be in the mood for treating yourself to a few other goodies, I thought I'd collect all of my spring designs and offerings through the years in one long spring parade of flowery things on this cold and rainy day. We still have a good supply of my favorite lotion bar, Forest Flower. Made with beeswax from local bees; coconut oil; shea butter; a touch of lanolin; and essential oils of cedarwood, Ylang Ylang, clary sage, bergamot, sandalwood, and jasmine absolute, I wanted them to smell like a walk in the woods after a spring rain.

You might like my design for the (partial) A Tender Year series, April. I was planning on finishing this series in embroidery, but instead, apparently, I've done it in painting. Remember all of my watercolors I was doing last fall? I did finish an entire year's worth of them and will be launching a 2024 calendar later this year. But I just couldn't get all the embroidery done, so I'm hoping to finish the second six-months' of designs next year (fingers crossed; I am so busy I honestly can't find time to do it all). Anyway, the calendar, which is based on the Tender Year concept, is really pretty and I will be showing you that and maybe asking for some feedback on what format you would like to see it all printed in. More on that later. . . .

Here is my darling Blackberries and Heather-bells, which I designed after Amelia and I finished listening to the audiobook of The Secret Garden when she was in kindergarten. She was probably a bit too young for it then, but gosh, I remember this as one of the great reading/listening experiences of my life. I absolutely love this book. Blackberries and Heather-bells has long-since sold out as a kit, but it is available as a PDF pattern. Try searching for a "6-inch Flexi-hoop" online to frame it as I have.

Oh, Time of Flowers. Gosh, this design will always be magical to me. When Andy and I were young and first living in Missoula, I remember that someone had a sidewalk garden with a bleeding heart plant in it and it was the first time I'd ever seen one, and I was just captivated. I think of it every time I see this design.

Whan That Aprille. Also one of my favorites (designed in spring 2021) that never really sells that well but I ask WHYYYY??? Why you guys? Why don't people like this design??? I love this design! Please explain!

Sweet little Spring Wreath kit. People often ask me if I crocheted the little goose in this photo. I did not, but I bought it finished at the long-gone Daisy Kingdom store that we used to have here in Portland many, many years. Lord how I miss that store! Oh that store was the greatest. I still carry my umbrella I bought there for $5 when they were going out of business. I think I've had it for almost twenty years. [I checked: They closed the store in 2004. :(.]

Things of Spring is only available as a PDF pattern, as this particular fabric I used is (naturally, as soon as I picked it) discontinued. I might suggest Peaceful Purple, which is a bit more "purple" and less pink than this but still pretty, I think.

We still have a few Flower and Frond jewelry-making kits available. Flower and Frond was only ever available as a kit, because the directions are completely specific to the materials in the kit. I loved making these. I should find the necklace I kept and wear it today.

Lastly, the Daisychain ABCs Sampler Pattern is always available as a downloadable PDF. It is done in crewelwork, with Appletons crewel wool, which you can find here and in other places online and on Etsy. It's kind of fun to stitch with at this time of year because it's wooly and kind of craggy and really makes you feel like you're close to the source (sheep) somehow. And sheep always make me glad it's spring.

Okay guys, I'm going to stop now and let you go. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you so much for your interest and your orders (in advance, and in the past) over all of these many years! Thank you for indulging my parade of past designs, as well. I get kind of emotional seeing the seasonal stuff all collected together. It gets me in the mood for the season, and oh my goodness would you believe it — the sun just came out! Wah! [Sobs, grateful tear.]

P.S. I forgot to tell you that we've reprinted and kitted The Stitcher's RSVP and it is also in the shop while supplies last!