It was school half term break here last week, so there were a lot of wood walks in our schedule and not much knitting going on. Today however with the children back at school I'm happily playing with wool again and carrying on working on the next couple of patterns to share. I mentioned the elephants in the previous post so you know that the patterns for those are coming up but I thought I'd give you a glimpse of a little part of the other pattern I'm currently working on.

Back in Autumn I began to pull together my various sweater designs with the idea that they will form a collection along the same lines as the 'seasonal dresses' pattern. My plan is to include plenty of different options for the animals to wear throughout the year and most will be based on the designs that you might have seen on the finished animals that I make (skull, pumpkin, aran sweater etc.). I also wanted to play around with a little reversible sweater/cardigan.

When I'm trying something new I like to experiment with a variety of increase methods and I try out different stitch and row counts and various arrangements of stitches for front, back and sleeves etc. all of which means that I build up quite a collection of samples…

The samples that I knitted up last year are all in left-over sock yarns and the Rowan wool cotton 4ply that I've used on the bunny and fox patterns but I couldn't wait to try out that lovely Jamieson and Smith yarn that I showed you in January and I really like how it works up and the lovely range of colours. There is also a basket full of other sweater designs that I'm working on but I'll show you that another time.

So that's what will be coming up soonish on the pattern front. I'm still knitting samples to photograph and test knitting the final versions of everything so it will be a few weeks yet before the patterns will be finished but I'll keep you all posted when they are ready to share.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying having my own little colourful rainbow of sweaters to look at. Mind you there is a lot more colour in the days just lately. It seems spring has arrived as our plum tree is beginning to blossom.

It's lovely to see the blue sky again and we even had some sunny garden time over the half term break which made Toby a very happy boy. And speaking of happy, I am because my butterfly has flown from the open window, hopefully out into a spring that is here to stay.

What's colourful and happy with you at the moment, do please share 🙂

I think February must be the greyest month of all and the one in which summer seems most distant. Like most of the UK we've had far too many grey skies of late, sometimes a light silvery grey but mostly dark, brooding and full of rain. We have been very lucky though and are not affected by the flooding but I know some who are and I hope for all those affected that we see a big change in the weather very soon.

Here inside is warm and bright but I've still been drawn to greyness and have been working on lots of February coloured woolly things… 

… a recently started shawl

Pattern: Dream Stripes, by Cailliau Berangere

Yarn: SofTrope soft singles in 'netsuke' and 'raku' bought from Meadow Yarn

… a finished scarf

(details of pattern and yarn here) It really needs a proper blocking to bring out the delicacy of the pattern but I've been a bit too lazy and am already wearing it. It's like a soft cloud and despite my numerous mistakes (mis-counting stitches etc) I'm really pleased with it.

I have also been quietly but industriously working on a new pattern for a grey animal, I'm sure you can guess which one 😉

I'll keep the blog updated with details as soon as it's ready to share

At least the mood here is no longer greyish and I'm feeling far more positive than I did at the start of the year – thank you all so much for your good wishes and kind messages about my eyes. At the moment they are stable and I'm just waiting for an appointment to have some further inner eye images taken. Hopefully the results will be fine and I can just go onto regular monitoring appointments and no further problems will develop.

There is also happiness at finding colour in unexpected places. This beautiful small tortoiseshell butterfly is currently hibernating in the corner of my windowsill. On the greyest days he looks lifeless and still but when the sun comes out he crawls up the window for a spot of sunbathing.

Hopefully he can make it through the rest of the winter and when the weather turns warmer I'll be able to open up the window for him to fly away.

I hope there is a little colour and happiness in your days right now, will you be pleased to see the back of this winter?

wishing you all the best for Valentines day, see you soon, J xxx