Happy New Year!

Ok, so I'm a little late to the party but better late than never right??

This year will be full of changes and new adventures for our family, starting with some major job changes happening in the next month, all going to plan.  I'm hoping this means I get more time to spend focussing on my knitting and pattern designing.

Little Miss being the baby also

School will be starting again next week for the girls and I'm really looking forward to the routine again.  Though it will be interesting to see how the Little Man handles it all - he's been far too spoilt with company over the last 7-8weeks of holidays!

Big Miss reading to the Little Man

I have plenty of pattern news I need to write about on here - in particular about a pattern that was printed in a magazine that came out this month!  But hopefully, cute baby photos will be ok for now...

Just over four months and he's already up on his knees!
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A New Design in Process!

Are you like everybody else and madly rushing around getting ready for Christmas?

There's plenty of 'mad' and 'rush' going on round here, though mostly because our life is undergoing a few changes (don't worry, it's all good so far!) which means a lot of extra work in the meantime.

But I have still been knitting, and even a bit of crochetting for a change!

Here's my latest FO:


This is a tunic I've designed for my BigMiss.  It hasn't quite worked out as I'd like - I wanted it to be a little longer - so I've ordered some yarn to knit one the right length for my LittleMiss also.  I'll still work on getting modelled photos of this one on my BigMiss soon anyway.

I'm just working on the final modifications to the pattern, then it should be ready to go to testers!


And I'm thinking about starting up a Ravlery group for my designs...
What do you think?
Good idea, bad idea?
Will I run out of things to talk about, or will I bore people with too much talk?
Will I be the only member?
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Oh Dear

I had some little people come visit today with their mum.

After they'd gone home I noticed that my balls of yarn had been knocked off the coffee table where I'd left them and one was missing.

I wasn't too worried as I figured it would turn up.

It did.  It was sitting in the ashes of the open fire.

 
This is my second ball of the Mocha for BigMiss' tunic I'm making.  And I was planning on using it tonight.


I think I'll have to toddler-proof my knitting stuff a bit better next time!

Any suggestions for how to clean it??
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WIP's

I thought I should start taking wip (work in progress) photos more often and keep my project notes on Ravelry more up to date.  I find it's actually quite nice to look back and see how long (or short!) it's taken to knit something.  And I have a few things on the go that I've cast on lately that I need to keep a track of too!

So, at the same time I thought it might be nice for you (and keep me accountable to finishing things!) if I updated here also...

 
This is that gorgeous yarn from Olive & Emma I showed in my last post knit up.
I love the colours in it and think it's really going to suit my Little Man.
 
 
This is the Mocha and Peony yarn from Little Plum Yarn knit up.
It's a tunic/dress for the BigMiss.  I'm a little excited about this pattern as I think it's looking really cool and can't wait to show the finished product!
 

This is me being a little crazy.

There's a thing going on via Ravelry where you have to knit a sweater (adult sized, at least 50,000 stitches) in a month.  It's called NaKniSweMo (National Knit a Sweater Month) which is the knitter's alternative to National Write a Novel Month (write a 50,000+ word novel in November).  The 'National' part relates to USA, but it's open to everyone anyway (in case you haven't heard of either thing - I only found out via Rav last year)

I'm only joining in because I'd ordered this yarn (Brown Sheep Cotton Fine) to knit myself a Apres Surf Hoodie, then stumbled upon the NaKniSweMo Group again and realised I could.  It might actually motivate me to finish it too!

How many wip's do you have?
Do you keep your projects page updated regularly?
Or are you like me and only make the project page once something's finished?
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Freedom Knitting

I feel like I've been in a constant state of limbo most of the year with my knitting and pattern writing. 

Because of a serious lack of communication from a certain yarn company (that I'm not so fond of anymore), I always had to make sure I wasn't committing to or concentrating on much just in case  today I'd get the email to say it's all go and I have 8 weeks to write and knit two complicated patterns (if only they had let me know - way back in March - what yarn to design for!)

Little Plum Yarn Supertwist Sport in Mocha

But the freedom I'm feeling now it's all done and over makes me love knitting again!  (I'd started to loose the love for it, I suppose that's what happens when it's a have to.)

Little Plum Yarn Supertwist Sport in Peony

Even though I've been in Pattern-Writing Limbo, I've still been planning new designs to work on as soon as I could. 

And buying yarn to knit them with!

Olive & Emma 4ply Merino in Cade with Trim

So now I've just cast on to make a variation of this pattern:

That's my Little Man at just 6 days old - he turned 6 weeks old yesterday and not really fitting this cardy anymore!

I'm making a few changes to make it a little more quirky and funky.  I can't wait to show you the finished knit!  (I'm using the grey and brown yarn above which is a made-for-me colourway from Olive & Emma. It's looking gorgeous so far!)


Joining in with the other creative folk at My Creative Space.
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A Quick Knit

With my last deadline knit/design on it's way across the world, I needed a quick knit to celebrate the freedom of no pressure.  And as the Little Man is really not fitting any of his hats lately (he's growing so fast!) I thought that was the perfect thing.


He didn't think so.


Not even with cuddles from Mama.


More details to come about the design I sent off - I'm quite excited about this one!

(Though very nervous entrusting my sample knit to the postal system after my previous international post issues - which I since found out was entirely the yarn company's fault as they had my address wrong!)
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Like a Lead Balloon

I mentioned in my previous post about being super busy getting some patterns ready in order to meet a deadline.

Well, turns out I could have taken things a little slower as I've just found out that they've dropped me from being included in the collection!


And all because their yarn never arrived for me to knit the sample with.  And it's too late for them to get someone closer to knit it as their photoshoots have started.
(This is the third time their yarn hasn't arrived - I'm still waiting on an order I actually paid a lot of money for.)

I really feel like being annoyed at the yarn company.
(Besides the fact that they hadn't told me what yarn bases I was designing for until confirmation of the final deadline so couldn't even start working on the pattern, I'd had no contact from them since saying they were 'sending the yarn soon' which was only allowing 7 weeks to receive the yarn, knit the two samples and send it back to the US - they never even told me what size models I was knitting for!)

But really, I should just be annoyed with the unreliable postal system.


So I've spent the afternoon feeling pretty stink about the whole deal, especially as one of the patterns was a very tricky design to write up that cost me days of late dinners and grumpy children.  I'm not quite sure how to tell J as he was starting to get annoyed at me for taking it on when having a new baby and now I'm not even getting paid for it!  (The original contract deadline was May, when a new baby wasn't an issue, but was delayed so the closer to my due date I was without hearing final dates, the more nervous I was getting.)

But on the upside, I suppose I now have two patterns in the almost finished stages (they were going to be tech edited then were ready to go) that I can self-publish.
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