The rumours are true...

...there's going to be a Spring and Summer collection!

This season's focus will be light-weight yarns, bright colours, and we'll have a few garments thrown into the mix. I'm working hard to get the samples and patterns ready, but it's coming together well, and I'm aiming for a release of April-May. Will keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, you can watch my Ravelry Group or my Twitter feed for calls for test knitting.  You can also keep an eye on my Ravelry Notebook page, where the samples keep popping up!

Charity of the Quarter: January-March 2011

To be honest, I spend most of my time thinking about puppies. This is Year 8 that I've been without a dog, and the momentary joy I see when a person walking their dog goes past (Golden Retriever, German Shepherd, Highland Terrier, I love them all!) is all but surpassed by the overwhelming urge to go somewhere and get a dog.

But I can't. Not yet anyway, since we still live in rented accommodation where no pets are allowed. At least it gives me great incentive to save my money for a mortgage.

So in the meantime, I thought I'd dedicate the first quarter of the year to one of my favourite pet charities: the RSPCA (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). They do great work in re-homing animals of all kinds (dogs to horses, cats to former battery chickens), investigating cases of animal cruelty, and promoting legislation that will give animals due respect and protection.

Kimmy

This means that 10% of my pattern proceeds from January through March of 2011 will be donated to the RSPCA.

Why not go check out their website, and see if you have room in your home and your life for a new best friend?

A Search for Signs of Spring

I love self-employment, if only for the fact that I dictate the hours of my day. To be honest, most of my days are spent working pretty frantically for a deadline. But since I'm 50% Tech Editor and 50% Designer, when I have the luxury, I like to split my day in half, and spend the time of transition doing something I enjoy.

Today was a walk, in search of design inspiration and signs of Spring. And by Spring I really mean lambs. Except for the fact that it's still cold enough to flare up my exercise allergy (I wish I weren't serious about that), the blue skies made up for it.

So I went on a walk, only to find a lack of sheep. In Wales.

 

Nothing.

Not even in our back yard.

In short, it was shocking. And the taunting evidence of this mythic sheep was not helping.

 

 

Liars!

I stumbled upon other signs of Spring along the way. Though not nearly as cute as lambs (because let's face it, nothing is), they were promising:

 

The snow drops were snow dropping

The blue tits were tittering

There was even a cat, which to poor, pet-starved person such as myself, is a big deal.

This was as close as I could get to it.

Finally, at the end of an arduous journey uphill, past empty field after empty field and with itchy, itchy legs (allergies!), I found my reward.

Lambs.

LAMBS.

 Task completed. Now it's time to get back to work.

Errata: Menai Bridge

Unfortunately the chart key for Menai Bridge, published in Issue 34 of Yarn Forward, went mysteriously missing on its way to publication. I've posted it below; so sorry for the inconvenience!