moving forward

Everything is slowly coming together on the second edition of Fuzzy Knits. It's only taken us, what, a year! Sheesh, I suppose that's normal for a regular published book, but it seems like ages for me. I guess with a regular book, you also get to rely on others for a bunch of the work. Doing my own editing and proof-reading is a tad scary - hoping I don't miss any serious mistakes, that everything makes sense, that you can all follow the instructions! Thank goodness Mr. Mitten has the patience to do all the rest of the formatting in the publishing software, because I don't know if I would be up to that.

I've also taken all the photos myself, with Mr. Mitten doing the photo editing. We spent all day Sunday on the 12 pattern photos, and I think they turned out pretty good. We went for a much simpler style than in Festive Knits. I just have to get a good cover shot now, and then we're ready for the first printed copy!

Of course, all this work has me thinking, what next? (seriously, folks, my creative brain never quits. Sometimes I wish it would let me have a little vacation...) I've been perusing the Knitted Toys group over on Ravelry for ages, trying to figure out what you all want to knit. I've come up with a few categories that most of the projects seem to fall into:

• very simple, usually knit in the round with minimal sewing
• very complex with lots of pieces to sew together, or complex shaping (or both)
• somewhere in between, which is where mine usually fall
• dolls, of various styles (lots of topsy-turvy dolls lately)
• sock monkeys
• food
• other (odd but cuddly) things

All this variety has me wondering what you would like to knit next? I am a little tired of the same old thing, hence the Bunny Puppet. It's cute and cuddly like my other toys, but the design is almost totally different. However, I know you all like the cute animals with clothes, and there is no end of animals that could be worked into this format (more or less successfully, although this often depends on how inspired I feel).

I had a few ideas of what I wanted to do this year, but now I'm not too sure about how to move forward from the mammoth project Fuzzy Knits turned out to be. I'd really like to take a little break for Spring planting, and enjoy being outside with my munchkin. But, I also want to keep my brain working on new things for you, even if my knitting needles take a rest. I wish I could design all the things people ask for, and all the things I think up myself, but my knitting time is so limited now... I need to figure out the best idea, if I can, and concentrate on that. So, any input you are kind enough to give me would be very helpful!

Who knows? Maybe inspiration will hit, once I've had a little time to rest. This season of change could bring just about anything...