My LynnH Watercolor Bag pattern is officially for sale today. (Check out colorway #2, Geranium Garden, in style 2, Pointillist, at right.) Patterns will be mailed out to those who pre-pay, on Friday. Those who pre-pay (by 2/18) will get free shipping on that pattern and any additional patterns they purchase at the same time.

If you go to my LynnH Patterns page, you can see all my current patterns for sale. The Watercolor bag is second from top on the left side of the page. My Heritage Heirloom socks pattern is first, primarily because Tuesday was advertising day on the Socknitters email list and I pointed them to that page. They are very strict about ads being about socks so I’m just trying to respect that.

The next pattern in the works is my wristwarmers “formula.” I have already written up most of the ribbed version you see in yesterday’s blog post. Right now I’m knitting yet another of the garter stitch knit-flat version, and documenting what I’ve done as I go.

I love making things up on the needles. My fingers just fly, almost as fast as I can invent the item I’m knitting. But the process of writing down my process is excruciatingly difficult at times.

The ColorJoy Stole was the hardest of all, because it is a process and a formula rather than a “do this, then do that” sort of pattern. I had to really think about how to explain my process to other folks who do not live inside my head. It has worked well, because folks who have not taken my class have been able to make gorgeous stoles with my pattern alone. I feel victorious about that! The wristwarmers are also a formula more than anything, so right now I’m puzzling again about what my process really is so that I can write it down. I’ll do just fine, but I’d rather have already finished this project!!!

Socks are in the straight-pattern category, but the difficulty there is sizing and determining the proper amount of yarn required for each size. Ugh. I have an Excel spreadsheet I composed to help me with the sizing, but sometimes I have a really rough time determining yarn amounts. I don’t enjoy that part at all.

Yet I seem to be unable to stop the ideas rolling (this is a lovely problem to have) and so I continue to document my work and sell patterns/teach classes. I love teaching!!! And teaching usually is based on a pattern, so there I go again.

By the way, all of you folks out there in cyberland… I am always open to teaching out of town. I can think of nothing I would rather do than come to your guild or local yarn shop, and teach workshops all weekend. I’ve got a good variety of patterns to offer… not only several sock patterns, but a wonderful quick-knit rug in super-bulky yarn and my favorite class of all… ColorJoy Stole, where we discuss color and yarn structure on the way to choosing yarns for a multi-colored, multi-yarn, multi-textured stole (and in addition we learn provisional cast on and how to fix dropped stitches in both stockinette and garter-stitch fabrics).

In addition to pattern-based classes, I teach polymer clay buttons/beads as well as feltmaking (from loose wool fibers/roving), and needlefelting embellishments on pre-felted items (such as purchased berets, accidentally felted sweaters that might be cut up to make pillows, or items you may have knit yourself and then felted).

More classes I do without a specific pattern: I have a great afterthought/peasant/bullseye heel class that is a great three-hour session. I have a toe-up sock class (good for new socknitters, with a toe that starts as a knitted square) which works for any gauge of yarn, but which uses a bulky slipper footie as the sample in my handout.

I am also putting together a program where there will be a potpourri of socknitting techniques (thank you to Rob at Threadbear for suggesting this, I am surprised I didn’t think of it myself). And I would love to come visit you wherever you might be (I assume USA and Canada primarily).

I learned too late that you don’t get what you want if you don’t ask. You might not get it even if you *do* speak up, but how can others know what you might like, if you stay silent? So here I go, guys… any guilds/shops out there who want a weekend full of classes? Write me at Lynn At ColorJoy Dot Com and let me know how I can help you out.

Photo today: Second colorway of LynnH Watercolor bag… Geranium Garden. Notice the fabric has a different texture than the previous version I showed you on February 10. This one is reverse stockinette and I love what that does to the colors, it is much more intense for some reason. The broad-stroke version from Feb. 10 is more stripey from showing the stockinette side of the fabric.