I will admit it from the start - organisation has never been one of my strong points! I do know where stuff is (on the whole) but my possessions seem to exist in a state of chaos.
The New Year generated a slew of "Resolutions", "Plans for 2016" and similarly themed posts on Ravelry, and it made me feel a bit nervous. I had made plans for 2015 but without a great deal of forethought, and having looked back over them I found I was wide of most of them. OK, I failed abysmally at most of them but not because I didn't do anything. Far from it, I released more patterns that I had expected to do, used up more stash yarn that I had expected to, and performed far better in the Gift-Along at the end of the year than I could have ever dreamed. But it wasn't what I thought I was going to do when 2015 began.

I have decided that 2016 will be the Year of Being More Organised. It has already started with my taking charge of my sales and expenses so I can fill out my tax return more easily next year. Far quicker to keep a running total each month than try to add it all up at the end of the year (like last time). I have also bought myself a notebook and a pack of pencils (because they always seem to grow legs!) and have a page for each month with which pattern I plan to release (looks like I'm covered until at least May now), and a page for each design so I can keep track of where I'm up to. I'm very good at knitting up samples (the fun bit) but very bad at typing up the pattern on the computer (the dull bit). This last weekend I ended up finishing up a pattern I drafted in July. The sample was knitted during September and October. It shouldn't then take until January to get the pattern written. It still needs photography but the weather hasn't been conducive, and it's a late-spring/early-summer design anyway.

I also want to submit to more third-party submission calls this year, so I need to be more organised for that. I really don't want to find myself trying to work on more than one third-party pattern at a time! I have enough stress with a day job and two children without having my design work causing me to tear my hair out as well!

In a break from my usual design style, my latest pattern release is this cable cushion cover. Caithness was inspired by a design challenge on Ravelry, to design, surprise surprise, a cushion or pillow, on the theme of texture, specifically using cables. The timing of this challenge was perfect, as I happened to have four orphan balls of different coloured DK weight yarn that I really wanted to use up, preferably together as the colours worked together nicely, but I had no clue what I wanted to do with them. 
Flipping through a stitch dictionary earlier, I had already fallen in love with the Celtic Cable stitch pattern and really wanted to use it for something but I didn't know what. The design challenge brought those two elements together. I would use the cable stitch pattern for the cushion, and use the four balls of different coloured but same weight yarn together in a textured design. 
The name Caithness comes from the Celtic Cable. Having already got an alliterative descriptive in celtic cable cushion cover, I had to have a name that began with C, and then it was just a case of looking over a map of Scotland to find a suitable place name beginning with C to bestow upon my cushion. 

OK, so I realise 2016 started 10 days ago so I'm a little bit behind, but they say better late than never.

2015 was an interesting year for my knitting. I increased my design portfolio to 42 designs, including one published by a third party. Yes, December saw the release of my first design for Willow Yarns. Diamond in the Waves is available as a single pattern through Ravelry or through Willow's own website, where it is also available with yarn as a kit. 
It also saw the release of my first full-size shawls, one triple-triangle, one rectangle and one full circle. I added adult-size hats, and an extensive collection of headbands to the mix as well.

The last six weeks of the year were thoroughly dominated by the Gift-Along, and I completed a total of 10 projects. I'm already looking forward to the 2016 event.

Speaking of 2016, my designing has got off to an odd start. Only 10 days into the year and I've already completed the samples for two designs, and had a third-party submission rejected. I don't mind about that as it gives me chance to move on to the next one, and I'm only going to submit ideas that I'd self-publish otherwise. I intend to submit to at least half a dozen third-party submission calls this year and I'd like to get three designs published that way if I can.

My other personal challenge for this year is stash related. Since 2014 I have posted in the Ravelry "Flash your Stash" post. It has been interesting to see how my stash has changed since then, especially by how much it has decreased. I have decided that any yarn that was present in that 1st January 2014 photograph is priority for moving on. I'm not going to say it must all be gone by the end of this year, but realistically if I haven't wanted to knit it after 3 years, I need to be reconsidering why I have it in the first place.