Hey there, can you introduce yourself?

I'm a hand-knitter and designer working in Worthing, on the beautiful Sussex coast, in England. I love knitting birds, dolls and animals!

Tell us a bit about the book?

Knitted Birds contains over 30 knitting patterns for birds of all shapes and sizes. There's owls, ducks, swans, blue tits, an osprey, an avocet, a raven - you can can also knit nests and eggs for your feathered friends. Everything is knitted flat, on 2 needles, so they are nice and easy to knit (I hate knitting in the round!)

What was the inspiration behind it?

I started off by knitting a giant herring gull for my local yarn shop, who were having problems with the Worthing gull mafia and wondered if a knitted gull would be a good decoy (it wasn't). The project grew from there - I am a keen bird watcher and started knitting all of my favourites that I saw when I was out twitching.

Which is your favourite project?

It has to be Monty the Osprey. He is the male osprey at the Dyfi Osprey Project in Wales. Sadly I have never met him in real life but I follow his day-to-day life throughout the summer on the Dyfi Osprey Project's live osprey webcam. Monty is a real bird superstar - I know that a lot of people have knitted him from my pattern and the finished results have been given to osprey-mad family members or sold to raise funds for other wildlife projects, which makes me very happy.

What is your craft space like?

I like to have a very clear, uncluttered space to work in, so I can focus and not get distracted. All the knitting lives in project bags (so my cats don't bother it) and then I tend to decamp to wherever the mood takes me!

Have you always been creative?

Yes, but then every single member of the human species is creative, so that's a bit of a loaded question ; P

When did you first start crafting?

I used to enjoy drawing and painting a lot as a child, but didn't get into knitting until I was in my late 30s, while recovering from a long illness. The first thing I knitted was a doll for my daughter... She still has it, and it's really not very good - it's amazing to look back on early projects and see how far you have come even if it doesn't feel like you've made much progress.

Who are your crafty heroes?

I love Jean Greenhowe's work for being so easy to knit, fun and accessible. Also Sincerely Louise's faux taxidermy knits for the same reasons.

Where do you find inspiration?

I always look to nature. Nature provides the perfection and I try and render that into a knitted form. I get inspired by long walks and bird watching (or, as a rainy-day alternative, endless bird videos on YouTube).

What's next for you?

More birds! There's over 10,000 species of birds in the world apparently, and I have only knitted around 40, so I had better get a move on. I'm also working on a non-bird-related knitting project for the Arundel Wetland Centre.