Needles & Bobbins: 22 January

As I write this post, I am on a train heading towards Yass, NSW to spend some time with my parents on their hobby farm in a very tiny town near Cowra. Leaving behind my friends in Bendigo this morning was hard, but I am starting to look forward to the next chapter in my life.

I have knitting with me, my Goals Journal (a Christmas present from a wonderful friend) and some design-writing to do I am all set for the next few days sitting on the porch, overlooking the sheep and hearing them talk to each other.

The last 2 weeks have been wonderful for my psyche. My emotional state is much more stable (at least I hope it is) and I am looking forward to a wonderful 2016, where I look forward to designing many more patterns… and I even have a personal goal of having a pattern published in a magazine!

This week I must admit I didn’t get as much knitting done as I would have liked, but I did manage to get some spinning done! There was even a little cross-stitch and reading thrown in for good measure! Most of my crafting time was taken up with the endless forms I needed to fill out for the various changes in my life. Some of these I am really looking forward to and when I can, I will tell you all about them!

But for now, let’s check out what’s on my needles & bobbins!

Needles

Last week I finished my Ollie sweater, and this week I have cast on Jack’s! I decided I couldn’t wait for a new challenge (not that I don’t have enough of those already!!) so I have started on my next design. I am thinking I will release these patterns together (and hopefully in a few sizes!!) in an ebook named for the brothers “Jack & Ollie”. I don’t usually give out this kind of information early, but hey… why not?! It does mean that you will need to wait for the patterns (I have already had emails from people eagerly awaiting the Ollie pattern – thank you for the love and support!!)

If you are following me on Instagram, you will have seen my Fancy Feet socks I am working on popping up in all different locations!! And it seems my nails have gotten a little attention in the process!! I love reading all of the comments on my pictures, especially the ones about my matching nails… I wonder how many more of my projects will accidentally coordinate?

Bobbins

While not technically on my bobbins, I did finish some lovely Ixchel fibre on my Turkish Drop Spindle this week. You may recognise it from my Spendigo posts… yep, that is how long it has been waiting! I haven’t put it on my niddy noddy yet, it is still a giant turtle, but hopefully next week or the week after I will be able to show it to you all in a skein.

Stitches

And just in case you are interested… here is the start of a cross stitch I started for my Nan, in honour of her 40+ year old galah who died late last year… I have many, many cousins and each of us learned at a young age not to put our fingers into Joey’s cage (after we didn’t listen to our parents too!).