Blog book tour: Kirsty Neale's 'Hoop La!' [Or: my friend wrote a beautiful book, come look!]

Hello, ahoy and welcome.

You've reached another of the stops along the book tour celebrating the launch of 'Hoop La! 100 Things to do with Embroidery Hoops' by my good [and oh-so-talented] friend Kirsty Neale:

While you're settling yourself in here, I should probably just mention that, if you've been following the other posts along the tour, then this post is a tiny bit different to some of those. Let me explain with one of those 'you-know-I-like-to-be-honest-with-you' disclaimer-ish type statements:

1. Kirsty's publishers didn't send me the book for review purposes :: Kirsty sent it to me, pre-release - simply as a gift to a [very proud] friend.
2. I didn't make one of the projects from it just so I could take part in this blog tour :: No, I made something from it long before the book tour was organised and purely because I needed to make something to take on a crafty holiday where friends and I planned to exchange handmade gifts. And, with a beautiful book containing 100 gloriously fresh ideas sitting on my desk, it seemed perverse to try to think up something of my own!
3. I was not paid to take part and none of the links in this post are affiliate links.

So, now the official bits are over and done with, how about we just look at the prettiness?

Here's what I made:

I fell in love with the 'Christmas Wreath' [which you can find on page 105 of Hoop-La!] so settled myself down in front of Elementary one night and made a start on recreating it.

[It really is a wonder that I got anything done while Jonny Lee Miller vied for my attention on TV. But, hey, that's crafty-dedication for you.]

Like many of the 100 ideas in the book, this project was easy to adapt to suit the supplies I already had to hand. Apart from the hoop itself I didn't need to buy anything new to make this.

While I followed the design pretty closely, when it came to wrapping the hoop I did substitute Kirsty's original 'white yarn' for some fine parcel string I found a while ago which I'd been saving for the perfect project, and this was it!

[Yes, you heard me correctly, I did just admit to saving some string for 'best'.]

And, naturally I used beads from my own stash, but I did keep them to a very similar selection as those in the book as the project was already so nice I saw no need to reinvent the wheel hoop!

As for the actual 'making of' part ... I actually followed Kirsty's instructions to the letter!

This included gluing the beads as well as wrapping them on to the hoop: a step which I'd omitted at first ... until my carefully placed beads began migrating. Then I realised just how important and useful* it was ... which is when I went back and did as I was told!

[*The lesson being: Kirsty knows best. 100 times.]

All of which, as I'm someone prone to going off-piste [or even of wandering off down the road before we even get anywhere near the piste. And what is a piste anyway?] and doing my own creative thing without following the instructions, trust me, should be taken as a recommendation in itself!

In short: I had a lot of fun making my version of Kirsty's Christmas Wreath.  I've long harboured a desire to try my hand at dry-stone-walling ... and this, with the way you get to arrange different shaped beads close to one another, was the next best thing.

And I could do this not on a windswept hillside but indoors while watching Jonny Lee Miller.

Which was a bonus.

And finally ... those of you who've been visiting me here from the start won't need any explanation of why I'm beyond happy to be sharing details of a book by Kirsty Neale.

You'll know that together we hosted a creative blog: The Copy & Paste Project [we never did decide which one of us was 'Copy' or who was 'Paste'] for two splendid years during which we shared all kinds of ways in which you could take inspiration from external sources to create wonderful new things of your own.

And while we let that go a few years back I'm just thrilled at the way things have now come full circle [no hoop-based pun intended] ... 

... and now I get this chance to 'copy and paste' Kirsty!

So, this stop on the book tour may not come from a place of complete and utter objective professionalism [heck, when we shared a blog we referred to one another as 'blog wife'!!!] ...  but you should know this:

Being her friend and talking to her while she was making the book has made me keenly aware of the level of time, care and attention to detail she put into it.

And the finished result certainly reflects that.

 But you don't need to take my word for it, to see for yourself you can:

• watch the adorable promo video Kirsty made which features many of the 100 hoops
• read more about 'Hoop-La!' on the publisher's site 
• 'Look Inside' the book via Amazon
• visit Kirsty's blog where she's been linking up to all the other review posts on the book tour [where none of the other participants ever refer to her as their 'blog wife'. At least I hope not ... Kirsty will have some serious questions to answer otherwise ...] ;-)
• and visit the full list of all blog tour participants via the Stitch Craft Create site.

Thanks for spending some time at my stop on the tour today. I'll see you soon.

Julie :-)