Need to STOP! (And I don't want to)

Morning,

Does it count if I made a new year's resolution to stop spending as much money on yarn if I buy them before it hits midnight?

I bought 2 skeins of yarn yesterday. One from Goddess Knitting, and another from a little shop called Wollmeise.

Yep.

I fail at not spending money on yarn. I ordered the Goddess skein from the website direct, but the Wollmeise is coming through swaps with ever-so-kind-and-enabling Ravelry users. I'm also in talks to buy another 2 skeins, just waiting for the payment details.

Excited! I'm getting a skein of 100% merino Ballerina (a luscious purple that I've seen a gorgeous shawl for, my first lace work?), a skein of 80/20 twin WD Vergissmeinnicht (Forget me not which will make lovely socks) which are lovely, and (supposedly) lastly a skein of 100% Fuschia which is a shocking bright pink that would make amaaaazing socks :D

Now I'm really impatient for them to arrive (which will take aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages, and I'll have to pay for customs probably) and then not buy any more for the next 3 months. Which will probably be really easy, on account of how hard it is to actually buy them from the online shop when there's an update!

At midnight tonight I can start making my sock for this month's YOSS sock!

xx

Crafty New Year Resolutions

Morning,

I've decided to make some crafting new year resolutions. Care to join in?

This year I intend to:

- learn to use my sewing machine properly, and make a garment that I can wear
- knit more socks!
- complete my knitting course, and my project for it
- update this blog more often
- complete a 52 photography project (1 picture a week, minimum)

At the moment it's fairly open ended, which for me is good because I get tied down in specifics and then if it doesn't look like I can do it then I give up.

I'm going to join and knit up more socks as part of the Ravelry group 'Year of Stash Socks 2011' which aims to get people using all the lovely yarn hidden away in stashes and make some lovely socks to display them.

I'm going to sign up because as of right now;

- I have 5 skeins of sock wool that I need to use before I buy more in the next Knitting & Stitching shows, and so that I can get better at knitting overall.
- At least one pattern of the 2 provided each month will be free, so that will help budget wise - and I won't be buying yarn and then not using it, which will also be better for my budget as it will (supposedly) stop me from buying any new yarn!
- I liked knitting my first sock, and I want to see where it goes :)

I also subscribed to Making magazine yesterday, so that will provide lots of lovely inspiration for dressmaking ideas, and the more crafting I do the more pictures I take of what I make, and the more the blog gets updated!

It all ties in very nicely! What are your new year resolutions?

xx

Merry Christmas!!

And a happy new year! I hope you all have time to do something you like over Christmas :)

Yesterday was lovely. I had a sewing machine!! Well excited about that, does anyone know of any blogs with sewing tutorials on? I've not used one before so I'm looking forward to doing new projects and learning as I go. There is a dressmaking for beginners course run by the centre where I attend my knitting course, but it's 15 weeks long and it's going to be too difficult for me to rearrange all my shifts in work so that I can attend them all.

I also had a brilliant knitting solutions book (I'll get the proper name soon) which is written by an experienced knitter and is basically full of answers and solutions to problems knitters may come across. I've only had a quick flick through but it does look great - a brilliant Ravelry alternative if I can't get online as well!

I made a chocolate log yesterday, I'll post a picture soon. It looked pretty good (even if I say so myself!).

Unfortunately 3 out of the 4 of us are ill with something, but it's still nice to be home even if I am ill!

Merry Christmas xx

Finished!!

Evening!

Only a quick post as I'm desperate to go to bed (and the toilet, but that's the Guinness talking)!

I finished my sock last week and I love it! I've ordered another two skeins of wool from Abstract Cat yarns as a Christmas present to myself!

I've also started and completed a scarf for my friend Angharad. She picked out some Sirdar Squiggle yarn in 'Applejack' back in October and I've been wondering for ages what to make with it. It's a super chunky yarn made of two chunky yarns twisted around each other - and each strand is variegated which means there are different colours running throughout it! Took a long time, and some Ravelry advice but I decided on a scarf pattern in the end. Actually only took about 3 hours to knit from start to finish, really quick and it actually looks pretty good to! It uses twisted drop stitch so each stitch opens out and shows the construction of the yarn with the double strands. I think it looks pretty good, and it should be nice and warm and cosy!

xx

Sock Progress!

Morning!

Gosh I haven't updated my sock report on here for ages! I literally spent the week before last knitting my sock every spare moment I had - on the bus, breaks, at home... Then an expansion for one of my favourite games was released and I spent a week pretty much just playing that!

I've completed the gusset (which took forever). Knitting 7 inches of stocking stitch is really tiresome and boring, to the point where I was just getting bored of the whole thing so the game was a good distraction.

However I'm pleased to report that tonight I have finished the toe shaping! Yay!! I'll post a picture when it's finished, but I think I've just got the kitchener stitch to do to stitch up the seam on the toes. Not really looking forward to it as it does look a little confusing on the tutorial I'm using (Silver's Sock Class) but if I can turn a heel then I can definitely do it :D

More pictures soon!

xx

Turning the heel!

Well, not quite. But I'm getting to that point! Exciting :-)

xx

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Inspiration

I know exactly what to with my other skein of Pool Party :-)

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Ripped my Sleeve

Evening,

Monday night was Knitting Night. Week 4 of the Knitting course. I'm really enjoying it so far. I'd nearly finished my sleeve so I took it along with me, and Gabrielle came to have a look at it. Me being impatient and overeager - it turned out I'd read the pattern wrong, and instead of doing increases on each end of a certain row, I'd only done them on one side. I ripped back 82 rows! Then started another so that I can steam the kinks out of the old ball so as to not affect the tension in any way.

Bit of a horrible day in work last night. It seems like everywhere apart from Reading has had snow this week. One of our courier collection points was snowed in, and meant that instead of us getting ~100 samples at 5pm when there were lots of us around and plenty of time to process them, we were told we were getting 120 of them after 10pm!

Didn't make the for the best evening. We finished all the samples by 9pm, and then had to lose 1.5 hours. Thankfully I had my knitting with me so I did about 12 rows of my sleeve which is good.

The exciting news for yesterday is that more wool arrived! I naughtily bought some more Abstract Cat yarn last week. I blame Laura (the lady that makes them) for making them look so pretty! She currently has a sale on (so be quick) and I picked up two skeins of Pool Party. I'm not supposed to be buying any until after Christmas but I justified it because it was on sale... hehe!

I rolled one into a ball while I watched a documentary on iPlayer, thankfully it didn't take very long!

I did think about using them for a shawl or something, but I've impulsively just cast on my first sock!

It's so pretty :) There's plenty more left on Abstract Cat if you fall in love like I do!

I didn't fancy knitting any more of my sleeve, and this week was Sock Knitting focus week on the Knitting course. We have two ladies making their first pair of socks on magic loop, and on Monday Gabrielle brought in several pairs of hers to better show how to construct and turn the heel, and finish the toes.

I've been saying that I was going to make socks for a while, I bought my 2.5mm dpns two days after I went to the Knitting & Stitching Show back at the beginning of October. Well now I'm finally using them! I'm using Silver's Sock Class as a tutorial, which has plenty of pictures of the different stages on dpns and I'm trying to get used to holding 4 needles at once!

Wish me luck!! 

xx