So many colours!

I'm finding Spring so inspiring! The weather changes so suddenly and the world goes from bright greens, pinks and yellows to moody grey-blues in moments. And so does my dyepot! I know I've been a little manic lately between opening the Lioness Arts Etsy shop:

releasing the Leonie cardigan pattern:

and at the same time working on a huge project which will hopefully be revealed soon...

Noo Pattern - a hat

So just a quick post to say last week I released Noo, my new hat pattern. The samples I knit were in Skein Merino/cashmere - one of my favourite yarns at the moment, its so, so buttery soft. I gave the hat I made for myself to my mother though, as it suits her perfectly. Good job I'll be testing this lovely pattern by owlish soon...

I got the dyeing bug!

I really wanted to find out more about what happens to yarn between the animals and my needles and well, I thought I'd have some fun too... so I booked myself onto one of Alice Yu's Dye-I-Y workshops. One word - Brilliant. It was so much FUN. I learnt loads about yarn and dyeing, I met some really nice people, and I came home with some really beautiful yarn - that I dyed myself, under Alice's guidance and with her beautifully mixed colours. I bought this book - Hand Dyeing, which seems really clear and I feel pretty confident about having a go at home soon.

Here are some pics of the Socktopus Sokkusu Original I dyed myself at the workshop:

I wrote a pattern

Wow, what an adventure!
I learned so much from writing the pattern for this little child's cowl. Thanks so much to all the testers who gave their time. Now it's available to download on Ravelry here, and I love the idea of it keeping little people warm and cosy.

How to buy a camera

I'm not a photographer. I make things, mainly out of wool, sometimes out of fabric.

I was taking pictures of my beautiful things, and my pictures were, well, ugly. So I decided it was time to splash out. I read some reviews. But what I found was that people are terribly subjective. People love their cameras, and everybody has their favourite feature. I did find this guide really helped me to work out what I wanted, but I was still stumped. I knew what I wanted my pictures to look like, but I didn't know what features I needed to get there.

So I did something old fashioned in a very modern way. I logged onto Ravelry, that wonderful community of yarn lovers, and I found 13 people who took beautiful beautiful photos of themselves, their loved ones, their projects and their yarn, and I asked for help. I just asked them what sort of camera they used. I got much more. Every single complete stranger I emailed got back to me (most within 24 hours!), was happy to help, told me what make of camera they used, some gave links to the specs, others listed comparable cameras. Nearly everone had a few top tips on taking photos. It was great.

So I'm still not a camera expert, but I had the confidence to buy a camera, of course it helped that all the people I contacted (barring one) used either a Canon or a Nikon, or both! So my advice on buying a camera would be, find some photos you really like, and ask the person or people who took them for advice!

In the end by the way I opted for a Canon G12 and I'm very very happy with it. I haven't worked out all the bits and bobs and gadgets yet. But here's a photo I took:

The yarn in the photo is organic merino fingering by theuncommonthread