Bambeanies on tour!

Until the end of October, a whole bunch of great bloggers, designers, writers and knitters will be offering reviews, interviews of giveaways, all about Bambeanies!

The line up is pretty impressive, and here's where you can visit over the next 6 weeks or so. As each post goes live, I'll update the links and will also get it all added to the book's page, too.

6th September:   Susan B Anderson

16th September:   Ann Kingstone

20th September:   Shannon Oakey (Knitgrrl)

23rd September:   Suvi Simola (50 villapeikkoa)

27th September:   Kate Oates (Tottoppers)

30th September:   Ruth Garcia (Rock and Purl)

4th October:   Anna Dalvi (Knit and Knag)

7th October:   Michelle Miller (Fickle Knitter)

11th October:   Rosemary Hill (Romi Designs)

14th October:   Laura Nelkin (Nelkin Design)

18th October:   Carol Feller (Stolen Stitches)

21st October:   Sarah H. (Babylonglegs)

25th October:   Katya Frankel (Binge Knitter)

28th October:   Hanna Fetig (KnitBot)

A great line-up of fantastic knitterly folk, wouldn't you agree? And if that wasn't enough, there's a whole bunch of other exciting stuff happening over the next couple of months, all related to the book, too. I've been hiding away with good reason, I'll have you know! Each blogger has something interesting to share with you, a different insight or angle on the book, and it'll be worth your while following along, I promise.

Meantime, I have a new design to be finishing... 

Outtakes

Photo editing is a mammoth task; not only are there probably thousands to go through, but it can be seriously tough deciding what stays and what goes. Which image will fit the theme of the book? Which one has the right light and angle? Which one compliments the Hat AND the child? etc etc. Going through some of them today, I couldn't resist putting a few photos aside that while they won't make the cut for the book, are still special all by themselves.

And hey, I thought maybe you might appreciate a smile today too.

It's the naming game again

We had another Bambeanies photo shoot yesterday afternoon, with a most beautiful little girl, and I can't wait to show you some photos! Whilst I'm working away on editing and getting some other technique shots ready for the illustrator, can I ask a favour or two?

Firstly: I need some help with the naming of the Bambeanies patterns. Now, admittedly, you haven't seen most of them and usually I would share photos of Hats in need of a name but this time I'd thought it'd be more fun not to show you photos. Y'see, what I'm after is fun, cheery, mischievous, child-like names, random words even, and the element of surprise seems to fit so well. They can be made up words too; they don't have to have any real meaning beyond sounding fun.

So what I'm asking is this: leave a comment with some fun words/names and I'll match them to the patterns (there are about 6 still in need of names, if not more!) and the ones that are chosen will win a PDF copy of the book when it's released later in the summer. How does that sound? You'll need to leave your email address in the comment field so I can contact you when you win.

To help you get going, and give you a flavour of what I'm after, here are a few of the names that I've already chosen and belong to Hats in the book:

Rocketeer

Loopy

Nupkin

Polpo

Bimple

Auroura

Emilia

Can you see the sort of thing I'm after? Can you think of any words that would fit? If so, leave a comment! Please tell me as many fun words that you can think of, and I'll have fun later going through them.

Secondly: do you remember way back when I did the head sizing survey? Well, the lovely Kate @ TotToppers is wanting to build on exisiting data and is collecting additional measurements. I'm super glad she's doing this, as it's something I've been wanting to do for a while but really haven't had the time to do.

I know how hard it is to jolly up enough interest and to get as many folks as possible to take their measurements and enter the data, so I'm asking if you'd be kind enough to help her. It doesn't take long and she's got a nifty little survey tool set up, so please, please help and go and measure your head!

The first Bambeanies photos? We have them

Thank you for all your kind words for my Mum, and she thanks you too! She's feeling more positive, and is busy clearing up the charred remains from her land. She tells me it will take a few weeks to clear everything, which is a lot of work, yet it's important to take control again. It's a horrible, worrying thing to have happened but at least she is able to move forward in some ways, even if they still don't know why they started the fire, or who is responsible.

Things are pretty chaotic here, as Bambeanies seems to have taken on a pace all of it's own and is running ahead of me. The photo shoots are proving more tricky than I had first thought... Aran is so used to wearing the Hats and having the camera pointed at him that it's lulled me into a false sense of security - other 3 year olds are not quite so relaxed about the whole thing. The 2nd little girl that we had lined up hasn't shown twice and after mild panic, am trying to find a 3rd willing model.

That said, I'm super chuffed with some of the shots I've taken so far! I look at some of them and can't quite believe that I actually took the photos. Would you like to see some of them?

We've got a long way to go with the photos - lots more are needed. And I've barely scratched the surface of all the editing - with these shots all I've done is quickly resize them for the web and up the contast by a fraction. Although my Sony Vaio is almost dead on it's legs, it's still new enough to have one of those horrible reflective screens (which every new laptop now seems to have - what have you started, Sony? I'm dreading the day I need to buy a new laptop) which makes images look paler than they are, or at least paler than they appear in print. So I'm saving up the main bulk of the editing to do on Tom's computer, where he has 2 matt, photo friendly screens. Right now all I'm doing is sorting out the wheat from the chaff so I can plan for the next shoots.

The pace at which things are now moving surprises me, and it isn't easy to keep up. Exhaustion is setting in so a few nights off are planned. Stress is also kicking in - if an email comes in that I'm not prepared for or throws me of track I can feel my anxiety rising and dash for the Rescue Remedy to prevent a panic attack!

BUT: I *am* coping. I am able to roll with it, so long as I make myself lists to keep things under control. And that's a really good thing. As much as my brain has seen tidier times, the grey clouds aren't getting the better of me. Twisted Woolly Toppers wouldn't have materialised if I hadn't have put myself on medication, yet this time I'm managing the illness much better. And that cheers me up almost as much as these photos.

Book talk

I didn't mean to leave it so long to blog again after my last post! We've been kinda busy with seasonal illnesses, anniversaries (6 years! yey!), toddler tantrums, toothache, crappy internet, chesty coughs and more. It's that time of year.

But mostly, I've been beavering away on the 3rd edition of Going Straight.

There won't be any major changes to the book, only a few things which are nonetheless taking their time. The biggest change will be the charts - they're being overhauled to bring them into line with the rest of my books and patterns, for consistency. It's not a difficult job but one that need's a little care, and given the sheer volume of charts in the book, it's one needing more than a day or two. The charts will still contain all the same information, but they will be much clearer and more useful.

It shouldn't be too long now, and then the book will be back in print and distribution!

And I realised last night that I started work on Going Straight about this time 4 years ago - can you believe it's been that long?!

And talking of books... I need some help with the title for the kiddy collection. Below is a sort of shortlist of what we have so far:

We have our own personal favourite, but would love to hear your thoughts - which one do you prefer and why? The font choice isn't final, I simply used this one to help with the context.

Planning for the new book has bought up some other quandaries, and whilst we're here I may as well throw them out there! What do you think of patterns being published elsewhere being included in a book (print or digital) collection? Do you think that it should contain all new patterns, or if one or two of them were available as single patterns would that be an issue? Do you have any thoughts on this topic?