But, it’s been on my mind.  And I do want to do another Challenge.  But before I do a challenge, I really, really need to get the Free patterns/KALs squared away for the next several months.  I think I will not start the Challenge until at least February.  Things have been a bit crazier than usual around here and I remember how demanding the last Challenge was.  I certainly cannot take that on if I’m not completely ready to focus on it!  First, I need to focus on the regular stuff like Free Patterns!!

That’s where I need some help.  I have a nice idea to add a pattern for December (I know it will be late, but better late than never) and I need some ideas for the next few months.  I like to have my Free patterns try to keep with a monthly theme.  For example I’ve been trying to think of something for January that will be sort of Wintery that I haven’t done already, but between my boys being sick and the bad weather knocking my head down every few days I haven’t felt very creative.  Any ideas?

Leave me some comments and help me come up with some ideas for the year for free patterns. I always feel like I’m playing ‘catch up’ with them and would love to get them planned and out of the way before I try to do anything else.  February will also be tricky because I have tons of heart related patterns and I’ve already tried unsuccessfully to do a groundhog.  I’m running out of ideas to keep the patterns to a monthly theme.  They may just have to start being random pictures which I suppose will be fine, but a bit….random!

In other chatty news, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.  I had a great knitting related Christmas.  Between my hubby and my mother I am now outfitted with some very cool new needles and gadgets and lots and lots of miscellaneous knitting notions.

My hubby got me the Harmony interchangeable needle set from Knitpicks that I’ve been drooling over for a while.  i can’t wait to try them out.  I actually haven’t done any knitting since Christmas!  My mom got me a ball winder and a scale.  I spent an entire afternoon winding up all the half knit balls of yarn I could find and weighing them.  I found 39 half balls of dishcloth yarn that had knit one dishcloth out of and then left lying around at the bottom of my knitting basket.  I rewound them all and refastened the label so everything is nice and neat.  I’ll be able to get another dishcloth out of each one of those, so I’m all set for a while.  Plus all the new balls of dishcloth yarn that I keep buying because I’m never sure of what I have.  Because I use small needles (size 5 or 6) and because my cloths are on the smaller side (cast on 37 stitches) I can very easily get two cloths out of each regular 2.5 oz ball. 

Did anyone else get cool knitting stuff over the holidays? 

I’ll post again in a few days about my progress with planning for the KALs/Free Patterns for the next few months.

On the upside, that means I have some drawings to do and some prizes to give away!!  I’ll be organizing all that tomorrow.  Since I lasted three weeks, I’ll be giving away 6 patterns (of their choice) to 5 lucky winners.  I also promised a free pattern to everyone who cheered me along on this challenge.  I’ve already been thinking about what would be a good design for that and I have a couple of ideas sketched out.

This challenge was a lot of fun and I’m already thinking that I’m going to do it again after the holidays.  Mid-January might be a good time to start.  I’ll have had enough time to recover from all the Christmas craziness, and I’ll need something to keep me going so I don’t slide into a winter slump.

Now that I’m in the habit of blogging, I’ll be blogging a little more often than I was in the past.  I’ve got a few new things that I’m going to be working on.  One that I started today, I’m super excited about and I can see that it could possibly lead to a great new addition to the website.  I don’t want to give away too much before it’s ready, but let’s say it’s a little larger than a dishcloth. 

The other idea I’ve been working on since this summer I’m also very excited about, is something completely unique.  I’ve spent many hours searching high and low all over the internet for patterns for this and I can’t find one.  So I’m staying completely quiet until I get more of it finished.  I’m really hoping that people will like this pattern because it is different.  Although it defininely will appeal only to a certain group of people.  Now if that isn’t vague enough to confuse the heck out of you, then I don’t know what!