Blogiversary

Hello!

My blog is ONE YEAR old today.

picture and cake courtesy of the lovely KnitnRun4Sanity

Happy Birthday blog!

This blog was the kicking off point for a massive change in my life. It has moved me from stay at home mum looking for a challenge to a work from home mum, sometimes stressed but mostly, relishing the challenge of being a .PROFESSIONAL. PUBLISHED. DESIGNER!!!

To help me celebrate I thought I'd host a little giveaway. The winner will receive a mystery parcel full of nice yarny things and two runners up will each receive a pattern of their choice from my Ravelry shop.

To enter simply hop on over to my Ravelry designer's page and then pop back here to leave a comment telling me which is your favourite design and why. (Don't forget to leave an email address or Ravelry name so I can get in touch if you win.) I will draw a winner a week from today (Saturday 28th September) 

Twitter retweets or facebook shares will get you another entry.

Best of luck!

Benday Cardigan

 You remember the beautiful basket of rainbow yarn I showed you back in March?

Well, this popped through my door last week

so I can finally reveal what it became

I was very pleased the design got chosen as the lead for that section

It looks really pretty on the little girl they put it on

It was originally designed and graded for women, but the new editor decided it would work well on younger girls to so went with that direction. It was still published as I wrote it so you can make it for a woman or make it for a girl (the finished bust is 32" to 44")

I love this pattern, it is so fun, bright and bold. The yarn is the lovely Sublime Cashmerino which crochets up beautifully and has good drape. 

The inspiration came from an unusual stitch I found in my Japanese Stitch dictionary 

a large circle created over three rows. I began to play with increasing from a one row bobble stitch to a two row cluster and gather stitch into the three row circles. This progression forms the increase on the circular yoke of the cardigan.

Here is the original sketch from the submission.

The name Benday, comes from the dots used in pop art.

I am unsure when I self publish design whether to keep it as a girl's cardigan or rebrand it as the woman's cardigan I originally designed it as. What do you think?

What's really on my desk.

Today Kat Goldin from Slugs on the Refrigerator did a beautifully styled (as always) snapshot of her workspace. 
I have been a big fan of Kat's blog for a long time for her amazing designs and her stunning photography. She is excellent at capturing the mess and chaos of life with children. However today's blog was heavily staged with much tidying and editing going on! So in a twitter to and fro she challenged me to blog about what is really on my desk.

WARNING: I am a massively untidy person who has to be shamed into tidying!

So here we go, from left to right, desk level.

• A roll of cling film that my daughter handed to me whilst I was working at least a month ago and still hasn't found its way back into the kitchen drawer.
• An eraser (I do make mistakes but, as you will see from its near pristine state, its very rare.)
• A yarn tag from an upcoming project that I snipped and abandoned there.
• the first of three coasters (but where is the coffee - I need to put that right!)
• A scrap of crochet lace I made.
• Keyboard
• Cellotape.
• The head of a small toy (no idea of its provenance or how long it has been living on my desk.)
• A single child's sock (ditto)
• My prized Knit Kit - a very handy little gadget like a Swiss army knife for knitters. My husband got it for me one Christmas so its even more special because he put a lot of thought and research into that gift.
• An old empty coffee cannister that is bound to come in useful for storing things (but currently is just in the way!)
• My crochet hook case
• A pack of bright labels that I bought for tying on to samples I ship off to magazines but now won't use as I had a mild panic that somehow damp would get in the package and cause the pretty labels to leach colour onto the precious sample. Eeeep! I'll stick with white thanks!
• A lovely turned wood needle holder - a thoughtful and beautiful gift (I think from mum)
• My notions case
• A retro wooden pencil box (the ruler that closes it is elsewhere on the desk hidden other random detritus) sadly and uselessly the box is empty.
• More coasters (one hidden)
• Quick unpick
• A pile of left over wool from a project completed about 3 weeks ago.
• Random piece of cardboard.
• Another coffee cannister but this one has blocking pins in it - see those little cans ARE useful!

Left to right, upper level of chaos:

• Impractical but pretty coaster
• Pencil case with 'my special pencils' that are slowly but surely finding their way into the children's collection.
• A box full of cellotapes - how neat.
• My son's inhaler
• A pair of useless kids' 'safety' scissors
• Hole punch
• Pretty pot of pen and pencils (at least 80% of these are out of in/blunt respectively)
• A pack of Fimo confiscated from youngest a few weeks or possibly months back, lets say weeks.

Right then, honesty over, I am off to make myself a coffee before I start tidying up!