Skeinspotting

First Post of 2010

First of all......who ever would have thought I would live this long eh? I don't mean that any of my conditions are terminal or anything, just that when I was a kid I was asked to write an essay about what life would be like in the year 2000 and I remember making up all sorts of sci fi stuff, and thinking, blimey that is such a long way off....perhaps we won't even be here by then! Especially with all the Cold War nuclear annihalations imagined back then. Anyway I made it to 2010!

Christmas Knitting

I spent Christmas quietly in a cottage with my other half and the dogs and the other half’s Mum.

We kept warm and watched TV and I knitted a couple of things for Kerrie’s new baby Reid.
First of all I made a newborn version of the Pearmain Hat, called Baby Pearmain of course.

Next I panicked and thought, it has taken me a while to get round to this and thought that Reid would probably be too big for a newborn hat, so I made a simple earflap hat to fit a much older baby and called it Reid. Then I ran out of the pale blue Debbie Bliss Rialto yarn so there was not enough for the edging and tassels. So, I used some contrast yarn for the crochet edging and I think it worked quite well. I will put it up as a pattern, possibly free, along with Baby Pearmain.

First Proper Design of 2010

The next piece of knitting I worked on was a hat for an adult, using some of my very simple colour work motifs. I am really struggling with hanging on to it. What I mean is, whenever I make anything that I think is at all commercially viable as a pattern, I usually submit it to a magazine or book and then if it is popular kick myself that I did not add it to my own pattern collection.

A couple of people have remarked, that the best work I do always seems to be for other people rather than myself. And they are right. I think there is a fear that being an unknown pattern writer and designer that if I release something myself, it just gets lost in all the Ravelry noise and so does not get a proper airing or chance to be knitted. It can be frustrating seeing much less worthy designs, or indeed more expensive but less developed patterns raking in the money, and yet quite good ones just getting lost in the backwaters.