AWOL but with good reasons...

I've been away on and off since I last posted which isn't really an excuse but I have been busy as well. A trip to Scotland to see family took me not far from the most Westerly Point of Mainland Britain which also took me to Loch Sunart Yarns where I bought some gorgeous alpaca silk dk handspun which will possibly become a hat. I have taken some photos of the beautiful Scottish coast but sadly not of the porpoises which were swimming off Ardtornish Point at the foot of the ruined castle when we walked up there one day.

Much of that break was spent frantically knitting a sample for my first magazine published pattern (more to come when it's out) which I'm VERY excited by. Submitting for magazines was one of my design goals for this year so I can tick that off my list.

I've also had another pattern accepted for publication which will mean some more frantic sample knitting in the next few weeks! Hopefully this trend will continue and I can mix self publication with 'proper' publication in the future.

I've also just got back from a lovely, if very hot, week in Florence. This holiday was supposed to be about doing virtually nothing so once we found a lovely enoteca, and some very nice restaurants we were pretty much set. We did go to some of the many museums and I did sketch some possible shapes and colourwork patterns in the Accademia, the Bapistery, St Mark's English Church and the Museum of Archaeology - more on that at a later date.

There are some really nice fabric and household linen shops in Florence, and a wonderful yarn shop  but I was very restrained and only bought 140g of pale gold bourette silk laceweight and 390g of DK wool/acrylic blend from Campolmi Roberto Filati (see link above). I did take some pictures of the yarn shop which I'll post once I've downloaded them. I went on the first day they reopened after their August break and there were several yarn starved people in there.

And finally you'll notice the new look on the blog courtesy of M at From Darcy to Dionysus (formerly Dracula) - thank you M. The blog critics over on Ravelry like it too.

So photos of various things to follow and more regular blogging - promises, promises...