Remember how I said I'd bought myself some more time on Amira's Rainbow Angst? Well, her party is this coming Sunday. I'm almost finished with one sleeve, which is good, but there is still the other sleeve and the entire rest of the waist shaping and working the sweater down to the hem. That's about 11 more inches on the body and another 18 inches of knitting on the second sleeve. Because this girl is taller than I am. Wish me luck!

I also finally ripped out the too loose color work on my Rosy Mittens. I wasn't happy with it, and I knew I wouldn't be happy with it later, so I just bit the bullet and ripped. If you saw my post on Instagram about this, you might remember the C.S. Lewis quotation I posted with it:
"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."

The other project I'm working on is her namesake: Amira. Folks, I am so excited about this. You may be sick of it, or think it's not that great, but this is my baby. This is the design idea that made me try to be a designer, and it's finally close to being published. I've been working with one technical editor to figure out some kinks with the neckline, and she is finished, and I have done my swatching and reworking, so my goal is to have the final pattern edited and ready to go to a second technical editor who will look for any things either of us missed. Then, it's going back to my patient and wonderful preview knitters, who have been waiting with an almost finished front and back to their tops for almost a year, so they can finish their versions, and I can get photographs of mine done when I am finished, so I can post the edited pattern with project pages to Ravelry. Whew! I wanted to have it ready to publish (my most recent revision to the target date) for Amira's birthday, now I'm just hoping I can have it live by the end of this month. That is cutting it pretty close, so we'll see.

You may not know that I am in the process of revising both the Shower’s in an Hour Baby Hat and Shower’s This Weekend Baby Sweater patterns to include more sizes and updated photography. To celebrate and publicize that, I'm hosting a Baby Shower Knit-a-Long beginning March 27 and going through April 8, and would love to see how you put your personality into these designs.  Please join in knitting and talking about your projects and more!  I'm available to help and cheer you on, and there should be a ton of camaraderie to be found with other KAL-ers.  If you don't already have either pattern, please use this coupon code, babyshower2017, for 25% off either or both patterns. Everyone who participates in the KAL will automatically receive the pattern upgrade with two more sizes while paying not only the lower price, but possibly an even lower price using the coupon. Once the KAL is finished, the revised pattern will be released to the public for a higher price. More details are available at the link for the KAL, and updates will be made fairly regularly. I'm hoping to announce the prize sponsors by the end of next week!

If you want to get previews of new patterns coming out, or find out more about my KALs or just learn a little bit more about my design world, please subscribe to my new quarterly newsletter, 1,001 Knits. The first issue should be going out by the end of this month!

My reading this week has been a little in A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire and mostly in The Ascetic Lives of Mothers. I picked up this book a year ago, but set it aside because I was trying to do a study/prayer group with some local moms. We just never were able to find a good time for us, so I'm reading it myself now. It is wonderful! The prayers are useful, but also instructive to me. I appreciate the words of the Fathers, as well. It's been edifying and uplifting.



Also posting to Keep Calm and Craft On.

Labels: Books, Design, Family, Homemaking, Knitting, Yarn Along