As the ramifications of last week’s referendum become apparent and a large number of our elected representatives exhibit the leadership, statesmanship and charisma of a stale welshcake, it’s hard not to feel completely at sea. I really don’t like uncertainty and so the current situation is not a happy one for me.

So, I’ve decided to take control of of things that I can have an influence on… I’m working on patterns to sell and doing a spot of needle felting with a view to future sales. The state of the pound means that the rest of the world should be clamouring for our exports, so what better time to get some more items in my etsy shop?

Trialling my own work

For a long time I have been planning to write up some of my patterns to sell. Yesterday I finally got round to finding some software to create knitting charts, and so I now have a draft chart for my dancing skeleton (a design I originally created for my masterpiece blanket). Hopefully I’ll have this fully tested and turned into a hat pattern very soon. Ages ago I found some fabulous beads for this project so I am planning, in the near future, to have kits for sale including everything necessary to make one in time for Halloween. I’m currently working up a panel from the chart to check it. In addition yesterday, I packed up the pattern/yarn for another kit that I plan to sell and sent that off for testing, so hopefully that should be finalised soon too.

A variety of ‘vaarks

As I have mentioned before, recently I’ve been having fun making little critters called Mousevaarks from old socks. They were designed by my friend Danielle Lowy (you can buy her booklet, How to Make Monsters & Monkeys, which contains the pattern for them here) and I was inspired to make a crochet/knitted version with a snail shell (snailvaark). The basic shape is so versatile that I decided it would be fun to have a go at creating a tiny mousevaark by needle-felting. So, yesterday, I spent a bit of time honing my skills and creating a little chap whom I have named Lazlo (because his nose tip is a piece of lapis lazuli). Needle felting always starts off looking so unpromising, but it doesn’t take long to create the form you want (as long as it isn’t too big – Lazlo is only 4cm tall).

So, that was me being creative. I just hope I can maintain momentum!