New Work- Fair Isle Brooches

March has been a strange month as Mr Writer was away for most of it- he worked in Korea for 4.5 weeks and this was the longest we have been apart in the 13 years we have been together. It really was so strange to be so far apart! Whilst my family and friends were so great at keeping me busy and distracted (thank you to you all!) I lost a lot of motivation and positivity and sadly didn't achieve as much as I would have liked to. I was so surprised at myself, I thought I'd achieve so much with all of that time on my hands, but I really underestimated how much Mr Writer motivates and encourages me. Thankfully he's back now and is having a good rest and I'm once again making and loving my work. I've got a week off from the day job and I'm looking forward to making a start on some new things and planning new content for the blog. Watch this space!

Today I thought I'd share some things I've finished so far this week...

I'm really enjoying making these hand knitted Fair Isle brooches, designing the Fair Isle patterns and hand knitting them using Shetland wool. I'm learning more about Fair Isle with every one I make- I'm seeing this as an evolving project and a learning process

I'm hoping to take these particular brooches to show a potential new stockist of my work- fingers crossed!

When I first started making Fair Isle brooches I made them rectangular, but as I'm finding that these new square shaped brooches are getting a really good reaction, I'm going to go ahead now and always make them square, unless requested

Although I plan the patterns on knitter's graph paper, sometimes the design doesn't really pop until you knit it up. I had previously knitted this design in other colours and I thought I'd try it using different colours- it's one of my favourites. I don't intentionally try to make the patterns look like anything, re. flowers etc, as I like to design in a more spontaneous way, but I think this one looks like little houses!

Thank you for letting me share an insight into life lately- I'll be back later in the week to share my Instagram photos from March and also sharing a sneak peek at what I'm up to on my week off. I've also got a floral Spring themed How To in the planning!

Hope you've had a lovely March and wishing you a happy week!