At the beginning of 2023 I had such big plans: I was going to write lots of patterns; make lots of finished animals, some to sell and some to give away; reply to all of my emails; reply to all instagram, facebook and blog comments; comment on everyone's projects on Ravelry and the facebook group and write some new tutorials.
As always I was overly ambitious and didn't factor in that the time I have available to work in and the time it takes to do all of these things simply doesn't match up. I still have the pictures for the tutorials sat here waiting for the words, I was erratic at best at commenting on other people's projects and replying to comments and I still have unanswered email in my various inboxes. There was only one give-away and a handful of (OK, three) finished animals (including the one above which I can now show as she has arrived in her new home with one of the kindest people I know). If someone was writing my report card, they would say 'must try harder'.
Still, I did do pretty well on the pattern writing front, with new patterns for small mice, small bears, small sweaters, horses and cows.
And last week I upgraded both the 7 inch and 9 inch removable shoes patterns to include 6 styles of boot: There are 2 main boot options: a hiking boot and a fur topped boot, and by changing some of the details on these (as detailed in the pattern) you can also make a pair of wellies, Yeti style apres ski boots, saftey work boots and iconic DMs. So in total there are 6 boot options in both the 9 inch and 7 inch sizes, see pictures above.
Rather than releasing the boots as a new pattern I’ve decided that I wanted to gift them to everyone who has previously bought a copy of the removable shoes patterns:
- If you bought either of the removable shoes patterns on Ravelry or my blog then you should already have had a message in your Ravelry inbox (or in your email) with a link to the upgraded version of that pattern.
- If you purchased via Etsy please log into your Etsy account and send me a message there, then I can access your details and manually email you a new download link.
- If you’ve not bought either pattern yet then buying it now will give you the new boots pattern included at no extra cost, though I will be putting up the prices to reflect the extra that’s included on these 2 patterns in January 2024. 9 inch shoes and boots are here, 7 inch shoes and boots are here.
Well, I'm going to sign off now until the new year. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be spending time with my family, just pottering around without much purpose and enjoying a slower pace to my days. Thank you so much for visiting me here, for all of your kind comments and messages over this year and for supporting my work and enabling me to provide for my family through my pattern writing,
my very warmest best wishes for the season to you and yours, J x
