New + Old from Kristin Nicholas Designs
Hello Colorful Friends!
Well folks - we all made it through the holidays and out the other side into 2020. I'm a bit relieved that is over. What about you?
January is a time for in-depth projects here at the farm. First of all - it is lambing season. We had our first set of twins just before New Year's Eve. Here's my Farmer Mark with a beautiful set of NYE twins.
Doesn't he look happy and proud? He loves lambing season. Now that he is feeling much better since the two hip replacements, he's able to do so much more himself. This is good news for me because I have had a big new project on my plate. Meals have been pitiful and I am so darn tired of looking at a computer screen. Honestly, I do not know how I did it for so long. That said..... here's what I have been working on:
That pile of papers are booklets from projects I designed in the 90's. I recently purchased the rights to my designs and have spent the past 3 weeks getting these into PDF format. It's been a computer slog for sure but they are all done. You can see them on my website HERE or on my Ravelry store HERE.
If you followed my knitting career, you likely may have seen these designs or even knit them in the past. Over the years, I have gotten so many notes about these patterns and so I am super happy to make them available to knitters all over the world by PDF Download. To introduce the World Knits Collection, I am featuring a blog post about each one with a bit of backstory for the next four weeks. At the end of this newsletter, you can click on the photos of this week's four designs. It will take you to the blog post about the project. I've also linked to the purchasing options on my website and on Ravelry.
These posts will continue for 4 weeks. I will intersperse them with lamb photos of course. I'm not sure anyone reads blogs anymore but it is a chance for me to share some behind the scenes on each design, how I came up with the project idea, and to give some additional educational value to the projects.
So that's what I have been doing. What about you? I'm hoping to get back into my pottery studio to paint all the pottery I didn't get to before the holidays. Before we know it, farmers market season will be back and the grass will be turning green. In the meantime I am going to enjoy the heat from the woodstove, some colorful yarn (I'm making another Crochet Hexagon Afghan), some soups and stews and maybe make myself a hat.
Here is the link to the free pattern for the Hexagon Afghan.
Here are some good links I have discovered.
• On an inspirational note, Robin wrote a blog post about how knitting from The World Knits Collection changed her life. You can read it here.
• In Scotland, an AirBNB host is offering tea in the garden with their sheep. You've got to check it out.
• Wooly flokati rugs are having a design moment.
• Craft In America recently aired a show on quilting. You can watch on YouTube here. (56 minutes)
• A podcast on The Source of Creativity. Listen HERE.
• OMG, I love this house in Wales. Watch the 9 minute video HERE.
• A nice article on knitting and crochet as art. Read it HERE.
• Do you know the Pasta Grannies channel on YouTube? I love watching it. I just heard there is going to be a Pasta Grannies cookbook coming soon.
Yours in color and creativity,
Kristin Nicholas
Outlandishly Happy Gloves blog post
Purchase from my website here
or from Ravelry here
Andean Inspired Dolls blog post here
Order on my website here
or on Ravely here
Ferociously Funny Socks blog post
Purchase on my website here
or on Ravelry here
Peruvian Ch'ulla blog post
Order from my website here
or from Ravelry here
Here is a video of my Talk at Google. I went to Cambridge, Massachusetts and spoke at their offices there in late June.
A fun video of our farm, our farmhouse, and my family. Our farm is located 2 hours from Boston and 3 1/2 hours from NYC. We are at the northern most part of western Massachusetts bordering Vermont. Our farm is 15 minutes off of Route 91, the north/south highway connecting Montreal to NYC.