Ann Packer, author of Stitch and Crafty Girl’s Road Trip: New Zealand’s Best Craft Places Plus 10 Craft Projects, is a Wellington freelance journalist with a strong interest in craft. She currently contributes to The New Zealand Listener, NZ House & Garden, The Dominion Post, and NZ Quilter. She loves to shop for fabric and fibre — with plenty of coffee breaks – and to fossick around in op shops. At various times a spinner, weaver, dyer and embroiderer, Ann always has a quilt on the go and has taken up her knitting needles again now she’s a grandmother. Stitch, which showcases 60 of the best fibre and textile artists currently practising in New Zealand, covers a wide range of textile crafts, from finely detailed lace and woven beading to flax weaving and full-scale fabric art in public places. With photographs taken by the highly-regarded Croydon Studios and Joanna Caird, Stitch won the Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture Category at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2007. See www.annpacker.co.nz.
Travel New Zealand called the revamped Crafty Girl’s Road Trip the ‘indispensable guide’ to those with an interest in embroidery, patchwork, knitting, fabrics, textiles and other handcrafts. It welcomed that the places are ‘listed in an order like an itinerary; it’s as if you are being taken on your own guided tour of the best handcraft spots. Also included . . . are some great recommendations for cafes . . .’
‘Packed with advice’, Crafty Girl’s Road Trip will, said the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly ‘go down a treat with those who enjoy finding materials and inspiration on the road’.
Your Home and Garden saluted this ‘treasure trove’ with a four-page spread featuring two of the projects, while Coast and Country welcomed the return ofthe ‘revised edition of this much-loved classic’ and made special mention of Lorraine Smith’s ‘gorgeous map illustrations’ and Deborah and Mark Smith’s photographs.
The Southland Times reviewer ‘thoroughly enjoyed’ it and ‘won’t be without it on any of my travels throughout New Zealand’, commending, too, its ‘catalogue of useful events, blogs, books and magazines which I found interesting, and know I’ll be referring back to’.
Fiona Marie Threads found it ‘wonderful resource’ and an ‘inspiration’, and ‘couldn’t put it down’.
Anne Mortimer, writing on Felt Blog, admitted that her first edition of Crafty was ‘well-thumbed and had a permanent place on my dashboard’, proving ‘indispensable’. The reviewer finds the new edition ‘a much more substantial proposition’ although ‘the basic premise … remains the same’.
