I've Done it Again

Ignored / forgotten about my blog that is. I have been busy both with the new(ish) job and with family - my sister gave birth to a very healthy baby girl on November 10th. The picture above is baby Eve being held by her big sister Mae and hiding behind his boat is Eve's big brother Thomas.

I have also been doing quite a bit of crafting but have not made much progress on any one project; rather I have been jumping from one thing to another. I am going to try and settle on a few projects to concentrate on for the rest of the year in the hope of finishing of at least a couple of WIPs before the year is out.

MIA

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted; life has been a little hectic recently and I have felt up to much blogging or crafting. Re-adjusting to working life has been difficult plus there were a few bumps along the road back to work (the worst of which could have seen me out of work again within a few weeks of starting my new job) but hopefully that is all behind me now and I can concentrate on getting on with my job.

I have managed to finish these socks;

I shall (I think) be knitting several pairs of these as back in the summer when I was not working and had plenty of spare time on my hands I agreed to knit 7 pairs of socks for my Mum as she wants to give them away as Christmas presents. With October nearly here I have not finished a single pair for her so had better get a move on. In fact I am going to have to spend a lot of time crafting as once again I seem snowed under with things that need to be finished to a deadline.

Present for My Sister

Happy birthday little sister.I always have good intention but also always leave things to the last minute; I have just finished making this little bag as a birthday present and not a moment too soon as I should be packing up my car in readiness to go & collect my sister and her family from the airport. Her birthday was yesterday but she will never know that her present was almost late.It is my fist attempt at this style of hand bag and while there are changes that I would make when I construct another one I am reasonably please with the end result.

A Tiny Knitting HD

Last week in order to celebrate finally having got a new job I placed an order with The Knitting Goddess for a couple of skeins of sock yarn. Not that I need for sock yarn you understand but I just had to celebrate good news. I purchased two colourways (well it would not be right to have only one lonely skein of yarn in a parcel as it would not enjoy the journey to my house all on its own) Goddess Chakra Green [pictured at top] and Alice's Ocean [pictured at below].

The parcel (in a pink envelope and wrapped in purple tissue - perfect) containing not only the scrumptous yarn I had order but also a kit to knit a lavender sachet (complete with lavender). I could not resist starting to knit with my new yarn so it was lucky that the free kit was a quick knit and in no time I had created:

Winter Sun Lavender Sachet

Started & finished 12th August 2009

Created from a kit by The Knitting Goddess

With thanks to Scully for the pattern amendments and for introducing me to the Knitting Goddess

Stitching and Sewing

Yesterday I spent the day at a quilting workshop at my favorite local (ish) quilting shop and could not resist celebrating the fact that on Friday I was offered a job which was exactly what I was looking for. So just as soon as the HR department of my new company gets the contract sorted out I will be once again employed. I should really have waited till my first pay cheque is sitting in the bank before making a celebratory purchase but could not resist two new quilt top kits that they had in the shop and somehow ended up buying both.

I am thinking of making the blue quilt for my sister's baby to be as my sister is not a great fan of babyish stuff and the red one is for me. But before I make a start on either I really must finish a few WIPs.

Today I have been very lazy; a teeney tiny bit of housework has been done but apart from that I have spent the day sitting on my sofa either surfing the internet (and trying, so far successfully, not to spend any money), stitching or knitting. I managed a small little finish:

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I just love stitching biscornu, they are small & quick to finish and are a great way to use up scraps of thread and fabric.

Knitting Progress of Sorts

Last week was spent sorting out my knitting stash & WIPs and over the weekend I added most of it to my Ravelry pages. I shocked myself at just how much I really have, but at least now I have an upto date stash list and no excusses to just buy more yarn. I also found several nearly finished WIPs most of which I had totally forgotten about. One of which is the blue baby blanket which only needed 5 rows of garter stitching to be complete. Why I put something away so close to being finished I do not know, but I have been good and it is now completed. I have since cast on a baby raglan sleeved cardigan in the same yarn and hope to have enough yarn left over to also knit a hat. Once completed the set will be sent to the AC4C groups August charity which is Algerian Action [http://www.algerianaction.co.uk/].

Since the vast majority of my knitting stash is either baby yarn or sock yarn I plan to spend the rest of the year either knitting baby stuff to give to charity or socks to give to friends as Christmas presents. Not having to go to work means I have much more time for crafts so I have also managed to finish a pair of socks last night or rather very early this morning. The pattern was called Sunshine Socks and is one of many free sock patterns that I have found on the internet, printed off and now can not find the source for.

Then this morning because I have plenty of knitting, stitching and sewing WIPs to be working on (not to mention the housework) I cast on a new pair of socks. At least I am using a ball of yarn from my stash!!!

A Productive Day

Recently being out of work has been really getting me down and I have been spending most of my time sleeping or doing nothing. So I decided at the begining of the week that I needed to focus on using all my free time to better effect. I now have a list of jobs around the house that I want / would like to get done - the main one being to have a major clearout of all my stuff. I have decided that it is time to get rid of some of my stash, I have far far more stuff than I could ever hope to use in this lifetime. So it would be much better to get rid of some of it and the concentrate on using what remains (and eventually buy some more!!).

So this morning I got everything out of all the cupboards and have piled everything up according to type. I have already got rid of several bag fulls of stuff (I can not believe some of the total rubbish that I had put away in cupboards) and had a trip to the local charity shop to donate a whole load of stuff. Tomorrow I will start going through my stashes and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. I have already found several nearly finished projects which I had totally forgotten about.

Then in the afternoon since it was not raining for the first time in over a week I walked down to my allotment to look at how the weeds were growing. I managed to return home with broad beans, cabbage, potatoes and courgettes which means I have enough veggies for the rest of the week. I do love picking and eating my own veggies. Just as I got to the final corner before home it started pouring down with rain so I had to run the last few last yards.

Socks!!!

Last week while watching the tennis the stitching got well and truely negelected as I got bitten by the sock bug. In one week I managed to complete 5 socks; even getting two pairs done.

Back to stitching this week though as I would love to complete Monthly Musings.

June's Stitching

Sorry for the long delays between posts but my home computer has died and I am still waiting for it to be fixed so my time on the internet is limited to a few hours a week. I have however been stitching and have made good progress on Monthly Musings (hopefully it will be finished this week) and have completed another little biscornu.

May Biscornu

I just love how a flat piece of stitching can be transformed into:


Once again I stitched this from a free chart (from the http://myauntsattic.web-log.nl/ website) on a piece of left over fabric using a skein of overdyed floss from my stash.

I think I have become obsessed with using stuff up and zippered pouches:

I have another three on the go in the same fabrics. My plan for this coming week is to have a clear out of my crafting stashes, or at least make a good start on getting organised & getting rid of stuff I no longer want. As well as sorting out my stash into what I want to keep & what I will get rid of (I have far too much, much more than I will ever use in this lifetime and it is time to say goodbye to some of it) I want to get all my WIPs into one place (& each WIP into its own bag) so that I can work on each & every one sometime in the near future.