What I'm working on

Well of course I am working on my Koru mitts pattern, I've refined the knitting bit to where I am happy with it and am now carefully (procrastinatingly) writing it up and creating the chart. Ok so this is the part that I absolutely hate about writing a pattern. I know how I worked that thumbhole, but explaining it so someone else from another culture can figure it out from a couple of sentences? this is the part I have trouble with.

Perhaps I am too much of a perfectionist, I want my patterns to be written in such a way that no one ever feels the need they have to contact me to clarify what I meant.. and then of course I get a bit disappointed that no one ever has contacted me to ask about something in a pattern, because then I've never had the opportunity to show the world what an awesome designer I am because I have such brilliant ongoing support for my patterns. Of course the moment someone does ask me, I will be so mortified that I sent out a less then perfect set of instructions that I will immediately be editing it all. I'm too hard on myself, I just cannot win against me.

I was a little bit ( yes just a teeeeeny bit) naughty a few weeks ago and spent some of the power bill moneys on a small amount of naturally dyed lace weight yarn from Renaissance Dyeing I was intrigued with the way the colours work together and being able to get just a little bit of each appealed to me. I bought the Elizabethan range , colours that were in use in the 16th century. I've always had a fascination for natural dyeing, I've used onion skins and lichen in the past but I wasn't a fan of the mordants, I now prefer to stick to the safer and easier acid dyes and leave the natural process to others.



So here is my small collection of lovely yarns, I plan to knit something in stranded colourwork. I've swatched on 1mm needles, and on 1.5 mm needles and sadly, as I feared, I need to go to 1.25mm to get a fabric that I am happy with. I don't have any 1.25mm needles (le sigh) So until I can get the power bill paid and ferret away enough money to buy some, the project is on hold. Sometimes living in New Zealand can be a pain, when you have to pay expensive international shipping on even the smallest items.

In other news, my replacement signature needles arrived recently too. I was gifted a set of circulars for my birthday last year, but the cable on them had started to split a little after knitting half a shawl, one of the connector cups was a bit sharp and was cutting through the nylon. They were awesome about replacing the needles, I will definitely buy from them in future if funds allow.



The new set has the new cable, and it looks great, it is a lot more flexible then the older version that I had and I am looking forward to casting something on. I think maybe another Morlynn shawl if I can find a nice combination in my stash. I enjoyed knitting this one.



I'm also in the finishing phase of getting my womens refuge hat pattern up for sale. Need a good kick in the backside to tidy up the text and take some more photos of the finished hats

I think that is all I have on the go right now, this afternoon it will probably be a different list.. you know how it is.