Florence/Myrtle - Madder Triangles

I've spent all afternoon on Photoshop working on some Myrtle blanket designs for my Madder Triangle book.
I'm working on star designs, some of them are totally mental and I'm not sure if I'll be able to explain them as a pattern.
Trying to work out how I'd write the patterns has made me think about how I'm going to write the pattern for Florence.
I thought I'd already blogged about Florence/Myrtle, but I can't find the post so maybe I haven't.

Florence was made for baby Florence as a baby blanket.
The working name was Myrtle as that's what she was called before she was born.
Florence is not typical baby colours as baby Florence's mum doesn't like pastels or pink, plus I only work with my colours and even though some of them can be very subtle I don't think of them as pastel.
Myrtle will be the name of the second star blanket

So here are a few Florence photo's, including a photo of her and her mum and dad when she was a few days old.
I'll be blogging lots more about the blankets later, for now I have to get to the post office before it closes.

Desirable Crochet Motifs, Volume 2, 2010 to 2012

Drum roll please.........

I have just published Desirable Crochet Motifs, Volume 2, 2010 to 2012 as an e-book on RAVELRY and the WEBSITE.

Its been a lot longer coming than I had hoped, too many other things like dyeing and doing shows got in the way.
I am planning to do volume 3, its kind of half finished already.
I'm not sure whether to get it published asap while I finish working on the designs for "Madder Triangles" or to wait until next year.
But I have decided I am going to try and put all 3 motif books together in one big collection later on next year.
It will be more expensive and take a lot of editing to get it down to a publishable size, but I think it will be worth it and probably will only be available as a hard copy.

Ophans and Odd Boy Sale

I've decided to discontinue NDS's Yarn of the Week.

We have about 18 different yarn bases and every week I struggle to work out which one to feature.
Some we only dye occasionally like Precious and Angel DK, they are both occasional sellers, we keep them in the range as we like them, rather than because you want them.
If we are doing a big wholesale dye run we tend to order more than we need of the yarns we are dyeing and dye the extra as retail.
For example we have been dyeing tons of Dazzling wholesale recently, so we have had tons of Dazzling retail.
But we haven't had any Dazzle 4 Ply/sock for wholesale, so we haven't dyed any for retail, so the retail box  is empty.
This limits my choice of Yarn of the Week and I end up featuring the same yarn in week after week.

So I have decided to change it to a Ophans and Odd Boys Sale.

Before I tell you more I will explain that we think of all our skeins as boy's, (even the pink ones :-)
And we dye all our yarn in 500 gm skeins (5 skeins tied together), so there will always be at least 5 skeins of each dye lot.

The orphans are self explanatory, they are the single skeins left over when all their brothers have been sold.
And the Odd Boys are skeins that don't fit in with their brothers.
Sometimes the dye hasn't completely dissolved and 1 skein picks up the excess or sometimes 1 skein hasn't soaked up the dye as well as the others. And when they are wound and sitting on the table in their set waiting to be labelled, it stands out from the others like a sore thunb.

Each week I will add more Orphans to the page (the Odd Boys will be added when we have some) and keep them hidden until the Thursday night update, so each week you will need to check the page to see what is new in the sale.
The Orphans and Odd Boy skeins will cover our whole range and will all be reduced by £3 a skein, so there will be lots of bargins to be had.

The first batch will be revealed tomorrow night, when the Yarn of the Week page magically transforms into Orphans and Odd Boys.

Pattern support and books

I was going to write a blog post about tension, but I still haven't got it quite right in head what I want to say, so I thought I would write about what is in my head.
Which are the 2 books I am working on at the moment.

You may of noticed NDS has started selling knitting patterns, we have introduced 3 stunning new shawl patterns in the last couple of weeks.

There is Jubilant by Jacqui Harding

Marrakesh by Judy Furlong

And Valeriana Estonica by Kristina Vilimaite

All 3 patterns are free if you buy the yarn to make them with, just e-mail us after you have placed your order.

We/I have decided that if we sell knitting patterns that it takes the pressure off me as a designer and means that I can do what I want rather than what I feel I need to do.

1 - I like making garments for me to wear, but I hate writing garment patterns, I hate having to do the sizing and trying to explain the shaping. I am very lucky to have Valerie  my brilliant tec editor who walks me through step by step and makes my garment patterns a reality. But I get stressed just thinking about doing them.
So I'm going to stop writing garment patterns.
I will say I might do more at sometime in the future, because I have learnt that saying never means that as soon as the word leaves my mouth I will start working on one next week.

2 - I will concentrate on the things that I am obsessed with, at the moment its my triangle motif and the book I plan for the summer.
I have to finish my second motif book first, I don't really want to do it, but I've promised I will and its so close to being finished if I work really hard I can get it published by June.

My triangles book has been cleverly re-named by Valerie, she's seen the very first draft and all my dyslexic notes and suggested I call it Madder Triangles and not Orange Triangles.
At the moment "Madder Triangles" is the centre of my universe, its the only thing I think about and apart from Tinkerbell is my main topic of conversation.
This book demands all my time and I can't waait to turn it into a reality
Its going to have 5 different design's, 2 projects of each and lots and lots of information on re-sizing and different yarn types.
I've finished 3 projects - Lecchi, Isabella and Serefina.
And am working on another 3 - Spiro, Icarus and Plankton
I'll be working on Myrtle next and thinking about the last 3 projects as I crochet.

I've been trying to decide whether I should show you the finished designs as I make them or to keep them secret.
I think I should show you as then you can decide if you want to buy the book or not
You've already seen Lecchi and Isabella as they have both been  published in magazines.
Serefina is the crochet project club shawl, Iacurus is the lace version with extra colours.
And you've seen the Spiro wip that we took to Germany.
You've also seen Florence which is a different colour version of Myrtle and a baby blanket given to baby Florence.

That leaves Plankton, its a rubbish photo, but the only one I have

Ok - Back to the dyeroom to dye more yarn for Madder Triangles and maybe you too if I have any to spare :-)