School's out for summer

As of this weekend, school is over for the academic year! Obviously the kids are very excited about this...

I am excited about getting to spend a lot of time with the kids; I have all sorts of activities planned, as well as plenty of family time. I'm also looking forward to a bit of a rest, and maybe a little extra sleep! This year has been a rather busy one, and I really enjoyed switching off all the alarms on my phone yesterday!

The holidays do mean that I'm not going to have as much time to work on knitting work, so for the past week I have been trying to get on top of things, making sure I have some patterns ready to have samples knitted, and a couple of test knits in my Ravelry group so that the tests can get underway before I get too busy.

The blog will take a bit of a back seat until September, I will try and check in at least weekly for Yarning Along, and may manage some other posts here and there, but it might be a bit quiet round here. While I'm away I will be working on several new patterns, so am hoping to return energised at the start of September.

To celebrate the arrival of the school holidays, I am having a little sale in my Ravelry store. For the next week you can get 20% off any of my patterns using the code SCHOOLSOUT.* Hope you find something you love.

*The code is valid on patterns purchased from my Ravelry store until 11.59 pm BST, Monday 31st July 2017. The code can be used as many times as you like, so this is an excellent opportunity to stock up. The code is valid on all individual patterns, and the Knit Night Collection and Reach for the Stars ebooks.

Easter holiday slowdown

My kids have been off school and nursery for the past couple of weeks for the Easter holidays, and while it's been lovely having them around, going for days out and generally spending time in each other's company, I think we're all getting to the stage where we're excited for the return to routine. While the kids are off I don't generally get much time for knitting paperwork, but I do still get knitting done -  before the end of term I purposefully got three patterns to the stage where all I had to do was knit them so I had something I could work on easily and nothing would stagnate. As a result, this week I have been working almost exclusively on the sleeves of small children's jumpers (stocking stitch is as much as I can manage while supervising children!), and now I fancy a bit more variety!

Sleeves

Needles vs. days out. The needles lost

So next week I will be clearing the toys from my desk and spending a few solid hours moving things along, doing some pattern layout, getting a pattern to my tech editor, charting some lace and some intarsia and generally getting back into the swing of things. Long may the enthusiasm continue!

Half term hiatus

This week is half term (mid-term break), so knitting has taken a bit of back seat as I am distracted by other things. I do have two projects on the go though, both straightforward stocking stitch that can be done while entertaining children/being driven to events/whilst shattered and winding down in the evening.

The first project is a cardigan for me that I cast on last weekend, the Antler cardigan by Tin Can Knits. The cardigan is knitted bottom up, so I have a lot of stocking stitch to do before I get onto the cables. I've almost got to the end of the first sleeve, and once I've measured my arm and worked out how long I want the sleeve to be, I'll cast on the second as a few days of portable knitting.

 

The second project is, somewhat predictably, a pair of socks. I always have a pair of vanilla (non-patterned) socks with me that can be worked on whenever I am held up somewhere or have a few spare minutes. The current pair are knitted in Halloween striped yarn that I bought from Rosie's Moments at Yarndale. Purple is my favourite colour (you couldn't have guessed from the colour of the cardigan), and while I don't generally do anything Halloween-related, I couldn't resist these stripes when I saw them (going against my policy of looking at everything available at a big event, then making a decision). The yarn is lovely to work with, and I've used a Fish Lips Kiss heel (which I recommend, it's nice and easy to memorise) to avoid disrupting the stripes with a gusset. I'm at the very end of the first sock, and am about to cast on the second, so I doubt these will be done in time for Halloween, but really don't mind as these will get a lot of wear as soon as they're off the needles.

Do you also find that knitting with children around requires simpler projects? Let me see your current projects.