...is over now!
I got back from my month-long trip to visit my family on Monday and I have been super busy trying to get back into my routine. I spent this morning packing up and posting orders, replying to emails (I didn't check my emails much on my break!), and being in a general 'frantic' frenzy!
I had a wonderful holiday, the photo above is one of my sisters' red-eared slider turtles. I love the way the little ones bask on TOP of the larger one's back. They were one of the first gyus I said Good Morning to when I woke up every day.. I was always greeted with splashing little 'plip-plops' of their claws, impatiently waiting to be fed. How I love them!
Not much to blog about with regards to knitting, since ( you won't believe this ) I didn't do any knitting for all three-and-a-half weeks! When I said I was going on a break, I really took a break. No knitting, no crocheting, no dyeing.. just relaxing with friends and family.
A few weeks ago, I designed and knitted a pair of long gloves; I wore them twice and to my dismay, they were extremely fuzz prone.
Before I photograph items for pattern publishing, I usually wear them for a while to see how well my yarn choice holds up, in this case, it didn't. The photo above was taken after I spent half and hour picking out bobbles. The yarn I used is Sublime Extra Fine Merino DK, in 'Blazer' 139. When I first came across this yarn at my local Hobbycraft, I thought it was lovely and soft, and quite reasonably priced at £4 a ball. Unfortunately, I know now that unless one wishes to carry a wool shaver everywhere, and this yarn had to be substituted.
I've been listening to The Mavericks all week; laid back and friggin' awesome, just like my mood lately!
The past few days have been quite busy, I have been making some journals to restock the shop, hence the slightly cluttered workspace. I'm working on some different styles of covers, incorporating some photographs and artwork into the designs, I'm really loving the outcome so far and hopefully it will translate into customers loving them as well!
I'm in a blasé mood today; my foot still hurts and I'm waiting for some inspiration to finish off some patterns I've been working on. I have, however, managed to finally take photographs of 2 shawls that I was working on, finished spinning up a hand-dyed alpaca/bfl top, and updated the shop with some new journals.
I began working on this shawl a few weeks after I won the yarn at the Knitwitches Party, and despite it's apparent complexity, I found the pattern up to the edging extremely easy and simple to follow. I whizzed through the body of the shawl in a week, but when I got to the edging chart... I put it down for a while. The pattern repeats for the edging weren't as predictable as they were for the rest of the shawl, and I found that I couldn't concentrate on it for more than a few rows at a time; it took me another week to get the edging done. Although beautiful, the edging charts gave me a hard time! I love this pattern, and it's soul-sucking edging, and will definitely make another one!