I'm back!

Life has been hectic for the past few months. Medical appointments have taken up most available brain space, and not left much for other things. Despite medical stuff looming large over us, lots of fun and exciting things have been happening too.

I did finally publish my shawl pattern. It took off on a group that I'm a member of on Ravelry and I got quite a few sales over Christmas. I even made it to the front page of the Hot Right Now pattern search for a short while!

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/demdike-shawlette

I finished a Dragon's rest shawl made with River knit's mini skeins.

More excitingly, I've started to learn to spin, using an EEW Nano. A mini electric spinning wheel, that has made it possible for me to spin, despite my disabilities. I love it so much. 

I also started trying my hand at dyeing fibre. I've only done it once so far, but it was great fun, and I will definitely be doing more. I started with Southdown, which is supposed to be the easiest to dye. The texture reminded me of the green scrubby bit of a washing up sponge. Not scratchy or crunchy, but very sproingy.

I've only spun up some of the blue so far, but it's going okay.

I've been painting too. I completed Inktober last year, and just kept going. Mainly watercolours, I started an instagram just for them. Follow me at Ceirdwyn Arts to stay up to date.

And as if all that wasn't enough, I decided to try my hand at quilting. It all started because we had nowhere to put a Christmas tree. Never having done any quilting before, I jumped in at the deep end and made this full sized bed spread.

That was a challenge, but I enjoyed it, and now I want to do more. I've had a little go at foundation paper piecing, and that was great fun. I'll do more, I just need the time and the energy.

Well that didn't last did it? Let's try again.

So much for starting a blog.  I really didn't get in to the habit, and suddenly it's nearly a year since my last post. 

I think my problem is two fold. One is that I am a private person, and when things are tough, I clam up. I don't like talking about it, and believe me this past year has been pretty rough. The other issue I have, is that my live is boring. I'm disabled, I don't work, I rarely leave the house. I don't know how to write about that in a way that anyone would want to read. 

That might be changing though, and that's what prompted me to come back to my blog. I'm currently working my way through an online knitting diploma. Now I've been knitting for years, but this course doesn't just teach the basics of knitting. It also teaches designing, and how to market your designs. 

I was sceptical at first, I didn't think I could come up with new designs. But, with a bit of prompting from the course materials, I found that I did have design ideas, lots of them, and just maybe, this is something I could do. 

I love reading designer's blogs, I love following the story from inspiration to finished design. I like seeing a peek behind the curtain into their lives. If I'm going to be a designer, I should take inspiration from the designers I like, right? So here I am, password recovered (it had been so long I had forgotten it) and blogger reopened. I'd love to say that this is it, and I'm going to blog faithfully and frequently from here on out. I'd love to, but I can't. My health, and life are just too unpredictable. I am going to try though. 

Since one of the things I love reading blogs for is the pictures, here's a round up of some of the things that have happened recently.

The biggest change has been getting a cat. This is Harley, he's roughly 6 months old and is an absolute joy. I'd forgotten just how much it can lift your mood to have something small, warm, and soft trust you enough to curl up and go to sleep on you. He loves to play too, and the amount of laughter in the house has increased tenfold since he arrived. 

We spent the Easter weekend down in Wales visiting my mum. The weather was glorious and we spent a lot of time at the beach. Harley came with us, and while he wasn't thrilled about the car journey, he was very well behaved and seemed to settle in fine at Mum's house. He loves playing in the bath, and mum's is huge!

(We were cleaning the bathroom, he was supervising)

I made a knit and crocheted wreath for Ostara. I made up some bits, used free patterns for the flowers and bunny, and did bead work for the blossoms. I only used stash, so the colours are quite as vibrant as I would have liked, but I'm still happy with it.

Apart from the wreath, my crafting has been a bit hit and miss. I finished a hat for me, and one for my daughter to give to her friend. I've worked a bit on my cross stitch of Zojoji temple. I did some sashiko (the rabbit and the dragon). I did learn how to do embroidery, and embroidered my husband's black belt, I also embroidered a couple of drawings I did, that was fun. I want to do more embroidery, but my focus has shifted back to knitting with this course.

Finally here's a sneak peek at the first design I'm working on. A different use for self striping sock yarn.

Thanks for reading.