Shelterbox update

Thank you to everyone who's donated to my Shelterbox appeal so far. If you wish to donate and download the free Friendship Shawl click here. The boxes provided by Shelterbox are fantastic. There is a tent and basic living equipment for an extended family and it's all provided in a box. I've seen these boxes and it's quite amazing everything that fits in them as they're not very big boxes. Shelterbox provided boxes after the earthquake in Haiti and they're currently providing boxes in Chile after the earthquake there the other day. I've also seen they're providing boxes in Peru after a landslide. I'm not sure if hte landslide was as a result of the earthquake off the coast of Chile. But responding to several major diasters so close together must be a big job for them so help them out by making a donation please. Thank you very much.

I thought this week would be a quiet week for me to recover and catch up with some work after my Mum left. It's been far from quiet but I have caught up with some work. I didn't get much knititng done over the weekend. On Friday my left shoulder was in agony and the pain was radiating down my left arm which doesn't happen very often fortunately but it made knitting difficult. On Saturday morning I went to put a load in the tumble dryer and bashed my thumb, bending it, and it's still slightly sore now. I was quite worried straight away and started running through what a disaster it would be if I broke it and couldn't knit. I soon realised it wasn't broken, just rather sore. But it meant that I had to abandon some more complicated knitting over the weekend and get started on some simpler stuff.

That in turn meant I had to spend Monday working flat out to finish the Artesano designs, which I'd hoped to finish on Friday. I then had some submissions for next autumn/winter to work onto meet a magazine deadline. I'd hoped to submit about 6 designs but only managed 4 in the end. I finally finished getting my submissions together about 4.50pm yesterday, just in time to get to hte post office before the last post went at 5.15.pm.

I've still got some more autumn/winter submissions to work on for other magazines but my main knitting now has moved on to summer designs. I've never been all that keen on 'summer yarns' which always used to be cotton. Cotton has never been my favorite fibre but some of the new cottons these days are rather yummy. And there are all these new blends like linen blends, milk cotton, soya cotton, bamboo and sugar cane. I love some of these new fibres. They won't replace my favorite animal fibres but I certainly love knitting with these fibres. I find it hard to knit up a design in a yarn I don't like. I've done it once or twice and I'm sworn I won't do it again. I won't say which the last one was as it's not been published yet but I hated every single stitch. I liked the design and would have loved knitting it in another yarn but I did not like the yarn. But it was a yarn I agreed to use without having swatched with it first.

My current summer design is knitted in Rowan Lenpur and it's gorgeous. I'm doing a couple of designs for different magazines in Lenpur and i'm very keen to knit a top for myself in this yarn. not sure if I'll have time though.

One of the best things about designing knitwear, apart from not feeling guilty about knitting all day, is that yarn companies and magazines send you yarn. Lots of gorgeous yarn. I've had all these gorgeous parcels land on my door step lately. Some of it I've no idea what is for as sometimes editors change the yarn choice and colour from my original suggestion. So I need to make some e-mails to work out what's for what but it's all very gorgeous and I can't wait to knit it all up.

I've got no knitting I can share but I'll try and fit in some bloggable kniting over the next few days. I was going to do a shot update on Monday but I've not had time yet. so I'm hoping to fit in a shop update this afternoon. I've got some BFL sock yarn and some new Amazing Cashmere Lace to list. Gorgeous colours. It's all photographed. I just need time to sit down and edit the photos and do the listings. So check back later.