Designing even on holidays

The last couple of weeks I have had a lot going on with new designs, a test knit starting, a family holiday and playing with new knitting toys. At the moment I am knitting up a sample of a summer design in cotton for adults. I have chosen a lovely purple for myself and I also need to knit up a smaller sample for a dear friend of mine who will be modelling for me… not a bad deal I think, a hand knit for some modelled shots :) As you are aware, I have released Snow Dancer out for testing, there are still plenty of spaces available if you would like to help me out and test. You can find the blog post here or the Ravelry testing thread here.

When I began writing this blog post I was sitting in a hotel room in Sydney, listening to Miss 6 snore her tired head off. We had spent the day at Taronga Zoo, doing lots of walking and visiting the many animals. MrWhirlsie even got to do the Wild Ropes course (which is why he looks so tired in the photo below). We all loved the Seal Show and the Wild Birds show - I love all of the conservation efforts behind them, plus it's great to teach Nessa too. However, my favourite animals are always the Aussie ones… there is just nothing list seeing the platypus swim around or seeing the koalas snoozing in a tree.

However, while it is a little bit of a break, night times were a little more restricted with a small child needing sleep, so during the nights I finalised a newer version of the Little Taliesin, I have added in some ease as requested by a few knitters. I am looking at having this go out to testing again, so if you are interested in helping me out with this, I would love to hear from you! Additionally, I began the calculations for a child version of the Elf Skirt pattern. I have already made one for Nessa, although she didn't get a chance to wear it yet, so now it is time to grade it for others. I have been asked to include adult sizes, so will be adding that in shortly too. At Christmas time, my lovely friends from Bendigo were up and delivered (and gifted!! They are so naughty!) a knitting machine I found through the Australian Handspinners and Knitters Group on Facebook. Now, I know nothing about knitting machines, I'd never even used one before, but they look like so much fun!! During the week my replacement parts arrived for bits that were missing or just needed replacing, so I was able to have a play. I have to say, I can't seem to cast on properly yet and casting off seems a chore, but it's all very fun. I even played around with short rows and made a circle… no idea what it will be used for… but hey… I have a circle! Hehe :) Some of my close friends are also recent owners of knitting machines, so we have been having some fun brainstorming and helping each other out. I popped into the local library today to check out some knitting books on stitches and machine knitting, so they should help me out a little too.

Right now I am itching to design a shawl... but I really need to finish off some projects and get them all written up!