a new year and some new patterns

It's always nice to begin a new year. New promises made, new resolutions formed, new toys to play with, new books to read, new yarns to discover, new patterns to knit; lots of the new. And to be honest, a fair amount of the old thrown in there as well.  It's always good to embrace the old and familiar as we move forward.

The new year is a glorious time here, it's generally a relaxing time with no school and no work for Andy. We're at home for the summer because we live in a seaside town that sees thousands of tourists flock here; for a reason. It's a perfect place with such perfectly great weather and beaches, so why go anywhere else? We're trying to treat our home as a holiday cottage this summer. We even contemplated packing suitcases and going on a little drive to arrive at our holiday house.

The new year also brings some new patterns from me.

These two new patterns are part of a collection called Deception. The collection is so named because it will feature six different hat patterns. Each deceptively simple but colourful enough to make them look complicated. 

I've released the first two of the patterns, Woohlpooer and Cherrypool. And yes, my kids think the name Woohlpooer is the most hilarious name they've ever heard. It's pronounced Wool-poor and not the way my kid say it! In both of these patterns, you will only ever use one yarn colour on each round. The deception of colour difficulty is achieve using slipped stitches. 

The names of the patterns come from little known place names. The kind of names you might find on a fire or detailed topographic map. These are the names that sometimes have double facing place-name signs on the road. Places who, may or may not, have had a history that has now completely disappeared. They may have once been home to tiny hamlets of people, or they may not. It's hard to even find what their names even mean sometimes. For some, these names will live on, not just on maps, but because of the double-sided road place-name signs and because they may also share a name with a little known state park or river or crossing or road. For others, the names just slip into history, discovered occasionally on a fire map. 

These place names intrigue me. Where did they come from? What secrets of history do these places hold? 

The names that I chose for this collection all come from a region in South West Victoria, west of the Grampians. This is a region that is dear to my kids, it is an area where they have spent a great deal of time camping and exploring and experience the freedom of the Australian bush in such true isolation; in a way many kids never ever get to experience. This is an experience that goes way beyond a visit to a national park. They've experienced here the freedom to roam on land they call their own and know the boundaries to, knowing they won't see another soul or stumble upon another camper.

This is such an isolated and unpopulated area. It is especially dry and bush fire prone at this time of the year; often devastatingly so. It was not surprising to see a bushfire warning for Cherrypool the day before I published the pattern. Part of the beauty of this area is indeed, its isolation and the dramatic change in parts of the landscape from winter to summer. The dry arid landscape that in winter can become awash with green. It's startling how the Australian bush can be a place of threat or offer the sanctity of a retreat depending on the weather and the season.

Both patterns can be found in my Ravelry store:
Woohlpooer
Cherrypool
They are available individually or as part of an ebook. The price of the ebook will rise as each additional pattern is added to it. (So if you like surprises, it is cheapest to purchase now)

Do you have an area that is dear to you, like the place these names come from?