Decisions have been made!

Hey folks - hope the weekend is treating you kindly?

Life's a little bonkers here, as TNNA gets closer (I'll be exhibiting again in June) and as I start to finalise Playful Woolly Toppers (yikes! Book 6 is almost done!). Amid all the mayhem I've been good and made a few decisions, namely which cover version (that was unanimous, then) and choosing the right names for those two Hats that were hurting my brain.

So yup, no-one tried to persuade me *at all* that cover choice no.3 wasn't the best one for the book. You all loved it. I'll get everything - the webpage, the Rav page etc - all updated once I've caught up on a bit of sleep (else I'll make it go all wonky)

I've spent much of this weekend organising and ordering all my promo printing for TNNA, and it includes a poster of this cover. It'll make me very happy to have my boy's face smiling down at me every day that I'm away.

We also have winners for the naming competitions!

This pinstripe little number...

... is now called 'Mercury', a suggestion made by Barb Foesch. I know this one was super tricky, and I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this! As I sat looking at the words, imagining them alongside the Hat, 'Mercury' really grew on me and it captures the elegance of the Hat pretty well, methinks. Thank you Barb!

And our structured design...

There were a lot of really good suggestions for this one, and thanks go to the folks at Lornas Laces for helping to promote the post and getting extra comments!

The idea that grabbed me the most was the relationship to bees.. I followed a trail of links about bee mythology and history and yet somehow the right name didn't quite jump out at me.. I learnt that my favourite suggestions had been used many other times, or had other meanings or were used frequently in different contexts. And then it struck me - 'Beelore'. Whilst there isn't a specific story behind it, 'bee lore' as a google search brings up everything relating to the myths and legends surrounding bees; it summarises it all. It also rolls off the tongue rather nicely, methinks.

For this one, as there isn't one winner exactly, I've decided to send out a bunch of coupon codes to all the commenters who helped me along the bee idea path - does that sound fair enough?

I won't be getting the winners' emails out until tomorrow now, as my brain needs a little rest this afternoon. Do keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow though! 

And now I'm going to switch off this machine and knit for a while. This week has been pretty testing as a whole number of things hiccupped and we've found ourselves running around and spending more money than we wanted to. The plan is all coming together nicely though, and it's all (finally) working out for the best. There's also been a lot of things to work through, including a new template for the Woolly Toppers books and lots of tech editing and test knitting feedback on the final few designs. I do have a habit of forgetting just how exhausting all of this can be... someone kick me next time I think it'll be a good idea to publish a new book AND prepare for a big show all at once, please?