Author: knackeredpsycho

Well, I had the best of intentions this weekend, and I did achieve something – the extra special project I was working on I managed to finish in double quick time and so that was something good.  Then I searched about for the notebook with the Moo-Ra dress pattern in.  I cannot find it anywhere.  My house is pretty disorganised so I think I am going to have to try to re-engineer the pattern, which will take a bit more time than I had planned. But I really wanted to upload a pattern of my own here, and so I typed up a pattern for fingerless mittens that I had in an old notebook and I made the big step of adding it to Ravelry as a free pattern.  Even though its a very simple pattern, its a big psychological step for me to set myself up as a designer on Ravelry.  And there has been some nice interest in the pattern too, even though it has only been up for a few hours, so I am very proud of that.

I did find other notebooks, with scribbles and sketches in, including some ideas I had forgotten about but were sketched on trains to business meetings and similar.  And that has given me confidence too – confidence that I will have enough ideas to enable this to grow, a little at a time.

I also had some wonderful peer support this weekend, which I am very grateful for.  So I have plans for a little thank you for that person, but more of that in due course.  This transition is starting to feel like the right thing to do – a natural next step rather than a leap of faith.

Monday night update…

I have found the missing notebook!!!  Much happiness (as ever, it was hiding in plain sight) and so now I need to type it up and test the pattern to make sure it still works.  I have some amazing pima cotton from Lollipop Guild Yarns that I have been saving to use on Moo-Ra number 2, along with some other cotton that a friend gave to me, so its time to crack on and see how the new colourway works out.

It’s Friday, and I have that feeling of:

• panic, because the week is nearly over and I have achieved only a fraction of what I needed to at work;
• relief, because the week is nearly over, and I can legitimately ignore work in a few hours;
• tiredness, of the kind that cuts through your bones and makes your head feel like it contains mashed potato (and the instant variety at that).

I also feel excited, because I have decided that this weekend I am going to write up some of my old patterns so that I can start to share them with you. Or at least try to.  The reason for my lack of conviction here is because I also have the following WiPs on the go:

• Attic24 cosy blanket in rainbow colours;
• Two versions of a new wrap I am in the middle of designing;
• A pinwheel blanket made with yarn dyed by Dye Candy and Truly Hooked as part of a joint yarn club they have been running.

And I have a new project to start tonight, which needs to take priority over all of them, because it isn’t for me.  And I am excited about that too.

So finding time to decipher old notes and write them up and make them look pretty may be a bit of an ask, to be honest!  But I promise I will do my best.

At the moment there is so much I want to share with you but I can’t.  Last night I came home to two boxes of yarn – one by the amazing Dye Candy, and the other by Unbelievawool.  As is the etiquette of yarn clubs, I am not going to post pictures of what was in the boxes until everyone who subscribes to them has had a chance to receive theirs, otherwise it spoils the surprise.  But I will, when the coast is clear.

So instead I have been caking a lot of yarn ready for some projects.  I am busy designing some bits and pieces, and going through my old note books to type up designs that I wrote a while back but haven’t done anything with.  Soon they will be on Ravelry, if I can get my act together, but I want to wait until I have a few different sorts of things to upload, so that there is a bit of variety. They will be crocheted, just because my knitting skills, although longer established, are not as great as my crochet ones.  For me, crochet is like sketching freehand, whereas knitting is like drawing with an Etch-a-Sketch!  And I still struggle with some aspects of shaping knitted things.  So for now I am sticking to what I am good at.  I am also going to upload a tutorial on beading, as that seems to be something folk really like about the things I make.  I am going to upload more images to the archive section of this site soon, so you can browse what I have made in the past.  I am open to suggestions re what sort of things you would like me to try my hand at making, so feel free to leave a comment!

This blog is the start of something new for me.  I always wanted to be a designer of some sort, and Plan A was to go to art school and do just that.  Then the fear got to me – you know the one – the voice that says that you aren’t good enough to succeed, there are other things you can do better, remember how awful it is to fail, so don’t try.  That fear.  So at the age of 18 I decided I would study an academic, vocational subject.  Many years later I am an academic psychologist.  On a good day I love my job.  On a bad day I feel exhausted and I have to make something to soothe myself back into a human being again.

The ‘knackered psycho’ moniker sums up how I felt after a very long day at work, when I decided I needed to self-medicate with a yarn-related purchase.  I joined Etsy and ‘knackered psychologist’ was too long for my username, so I plumped instead for ‘knackered psycho’.  It summed up the frustration I felt that day, and gave the Etsy vendors a good laugh, so I kept it.  And now I have decided I want to develop it into my new identity, as a designer of yarn-y goodies, and as a lover of them too.

So the plan is that I want to use this blog to post pictures of my designs, old and new, and to see if there is anyone out there, other than me, who like them and enjoys participating in a community of yarn-aholics.  I will post what I am working on as well as some older makes, and I will let you know when I have new patterns coming out.  And I will let you peak at a few precious items from my stash from time-to-time, because there are some really talented folk who produce the most fabulous yarn and deserve a bit of appreciation too.

On that point, the frankly stunning yarn on the desk is by the very talented Dexter’s Rainbow.  Its fabulous, isn’t it…