Spreading the Love

Last week, while I was still recovering from my holiday and not really paying an awful lot of attention to the real world, the lovely Natalie over at Misadventures in Craft was kind enough to share some love and award my blog with the Liebster Award.

This award originated in Germany (liebster being a German word meaning dear/sweet/darling/beloved) and the aim is to bring more attention to blogs with fewer than 200 followers, that recipients of the award believe are well worth a look.

There are of course rules to accepting:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

Well, I will do more than just dump a link in my opening sentence, and I will urge you all now to go and visit Natalie if you don't already follow her. As she said on her post awarding this to me, I am her crochet alter ego, and we seem to have waaay to much in common for two random folks who met on the internet less than a year ago! Quite often I read posts on her blog and think "I could have written that almost word for word", and comparing our boards on Pinterest (here and here) really demonstrates the weird similarities.

2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

Only choosing five out of the many blogs I read is a tricky task, so I'm going to do something a little unexpected. Not all of my picks will be crafting blogs!

In Search of the Happiness Max is the blog of my old university friend Ro Smith, who writes about writing. As well as writing about her own writing (she has just finished the first proper draft of her first proper novel, and has had several short stories published in genre fiction magazines), she posts regular reviews of awesome genre telly and books; currently she is working her way through the new series of Torchwood and Doctor Who, and is posting read-a-long posts for George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons. Please go on over and check her out.

Sarah Cawkwell's Blog is, as you might have guessed, the blog of an old LRPing friend of mine, Sarah Cawkwell. Sarah is also a writer, and her first bona fide published novel is coming out in December. Sarah writes for the Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop. Her blog isn't all about the writing though, she often posts very entertaining stories of her adventures with her Dearly Beloved and Small Son (seriously, if nothing else you should check out the story of her trip to Ireland for a friend's wedding). Her posts on why she isn't missing LRP this year will also go a long way to balance out my over-enthusiasm for the hobby!

Scars Inside is a relatively new blog set up by Chrissy from Stitched Together, where she documents her everyday struggle of living with a disability in a country (the UK) whose current government not-spending policies seem designed to make her life even more difficult than it already is. Reading this blog will make you want to stand up and shout for the rights of the disabled as loudly as they are trying to shout. I urge you to go take a look, and to have a read through her blogroll over there as well, as she links up to quite a few other excellent blogs on similar topics.

And now some craft blogs, because that's what most of you are here for, right?

Writing, Yarn, Pucks and Diapers is the blog of the lovely Contessa out in California. A fellow Year of Projects blogger, Contessa writes not just about knitting and crochet, but makes her own jewellery and stitch markers, as well as her regular "Caturday" feature on Saturdays.

Knitting Kitties is a blog everyone should visit. Denise lives in Tuscon, Arizona with her partner Duane and many rabbits, cats and birds. In February of this year, Duane was admitted to hospital with a mystery illness, and spent a very long time in ICU. He is home now, and still recovering, and life has been incredibly difficult for them all over the last six months. Denise's continued strength and resilience in the face of everything that has happened to them is incredibly inspiring, and I know she really appreciates every kind word and comment left on her blog. Her knitting and cross stitching is pretty awesome as well.

3. Post the award on your blog.

Well, here's a massive post I've just written about it, and the award itself is now sitting neatly with the others in my sidebar on the right. I think I've discharged my duties well enough on this one! I'm just glad I didn't have to come up with five or seven random facts about myself that you didn't already know, because that's quite tricky!