Doctors Orders

The alternative title to this post should really be How to drive Paula slowly insane. For the past month or so I've been having pain in one of my heels which I ignored as sore feet can be a bit of an occupational hazard as a nurse. That was a very stupid thing to do as it got a lot worse about 10 days ago and my foot decided to balloon up. One trip to the doctor later and I've been told I've got Plantar fascitis, which is an inflammation of ligament in the sole of the foot and its blooming sore. So I'm under orders not to go to work until next Tuesday at least and I've got to see my GP then. I've been referred for physiotherapy also. Meantime, I'm spending a lot of time sitting down and taking painkillers. I've never been off sick for this long before and whilst extra stitching time is good, the not going to work/not being able to go anywhere is not a good thing. Especially when my sister is getting married in just over 2 weeks and there are things to do and things to buy. Internet shopping is my friend just now.
Anyway enough of the pity party as I'm otherwise healthy and happy and other people have many more problems than me. Also I've got lots of hobbies that involve sitting down lol.

There's been some knitting progress

A ballband discloth



A finished pair of rainbow socks



And a Pomatomus sock in progress



I received a lovely exchange from Lina



And I sent an exchange to Linda



I did some simple finishing



And I stitched another Essy's friends piece and finished it off.




I've been stitching on Mirbilia's Miss Valentine today and I'm hoping to finish it this week too. Other than that I've been wandering around the internet reading lots of blogs and I finally got round to using Google reader to keep track of the blogs I read. I'm a complete convert to it. The remainder of my time has been spent applying beads to 4 bridesmaids dresses and one wedding dress. No pictures of them just yet but there will be after the wedding.

Inspiration

A post by Isabelle this week made me think about how blogs and boards that I visit inspire me to try new things and discover new designers. She posted a few links of places that she visits and takes inspiration from. I followed a few of the links and got some inspiration too. That for me is one of the most interesting things about blogs - they link to other blogs, which you would probably never see unless you followed the links.
I enjoy reading Isabelle's blog as she sews some lovely dresses and I enjoy reading French crafting blogs. Karen's blog inspires me to stitch things that I wouldn't have in the past and her finishing ideas are great.

This week via Isabelle's blog, I found a blog called Molly Chicken which features a lot of sewing and stuffed toy making, especially using some fabulous Japanese patterns. The bears are particularly brilliant. I've made a few bears in the past and I quite fancy trying some of the patterns as I have a few pieces of mohair in my craft stash. I ended up on Ebay buying a Japanese craft magazine and a Japanese needlefelting design book largely because of the hedgehog designs that they have in them (I collect hedgehog items) .

Another place that I am being inspired by at present is Etsy . I love the idea of a place like Ebay but that actually seems to value hand crafted items. I bought some hand dyed sock yarn a couple of months ago from a seller and I was very inpressed by them and the yarn. There is such a variety of different things being sold. I love the prints this seller has and this seller has some gorgeous fabrics, some of which are currently flying across the oceans to my house.

Meanwhile, I'm still knitting away on a pair of socks which are very spring like in colour. I'd like to finish them before April is over but that might not happen.



I have already finished a pair of socks this month but they are rather smaller than the ones I normally knit (and they some with a hat and some mitts).





Of course I need knitting inspiration along with inspiration for the other crafts. A forum that I visit Crafty threads n yarns , provides a lot of inspiration and links to lots of stash enhancing shopping. Claire sent me the link to the forum and also supplies regular shopping inspiration too - we seem to be able to enable each other quite easily and share a few similar opinions lol.

Weekend update and a HD

Finally I've got round to posting after the weekend. I had a great time catching up with some stitching friends and I even managed to get a fair bit of stitching done.

The GTG was at Rach's house and she got a few presents for her soon to be born baby.



Kate came along and brought some of her lovely hand dyed fabrics and threads which we all looked at very closely



She also brought her lovely son who Joy made friends with.



There was lots of stitching, chatting and eating and special thanks must go to Rach's DH, who made us tea, set out lunch and didn't get too scared of a group of women descending on their house. He even joined Rach, Lindsay, Joy and myself in the local pub for dinner. All in all, it was a great weekend. It won't be too long until I see a lot of them again as a large group of Uk based stitchers are spending a weekend away together in just 7 weeks.

Whilst I was away, I spent quite a bit of time stitching, including several hours on the train coming back and so I managed to finish something that I bought fairly recently - The Peacock stitching chair by The Cat's whiskers. Joy had brought her finished chair to the GTG and it helped to get me moving on with it.
I did the finishing on it during yesterday and barring a little stupidness from me (I forgot the arms and had to pull it apart), it was fairly easy. I did attach a lot of the bits together with ladder stitch rather than glue as I'm not the best with glue. My only other modification was to use self adhesive ribbon to cover some raw edges at the drawer.







I really enjoy stitching it and the instructions for finishing are pretty good. There are quite a few other Cat's Whiskers designs that I like the look of but I won't be buying any for now as I want to finish a few other things first.

Green fingers and heather

The title of this post might make you think that my recent lack of post was due to gardening but its not, especially as I don't have a garden.
Chez Celtic stitcher is still on full on wedding preparation mode. I finished making the wedding favours the other night and the green tissue that they were made of turned my fingers completely green. It took a fair bit of scrubbing to get the green dye off.
The wedding is 7 weeks on Saturday and I still have quite a few things that I have promised to do. Tomorrow should hopefully have a delivery from a bead shop with a few bits and pieces to make the jewellery that me and my fellow bridesmaids are wearing plus a few crystals for the dresses.
So in the next 7 weeks I have to make
4 sets of bracelets,earings and necklaces for bridesmaids
4 bridesmaids dress bodices to bead
1 brides dress to bead
4 bags to make for bridesmaids
placecards for each guest
some extra wedding invites to make
Plus I have one hen night to attend, Thankfully one of the other bridesmaids is organising that. My sister is fairly calm at present considering how close the wedding is but I'm sure she will get a little overexcited as her big day gets closer.
I did have some buttonholes to make for the male members of the wedding party but I made them up this afternoon. Rather than carnations, which are worn by a lot of other grooms, its traditional to wear white heather at a Scottish wedding. The ribbon is black watch tartan, which the male wedding party members are wearing.


The groom, best man and the groom's father are all English so wearing a kilt is going to be a new experience for them. My dad hasn't worn a kilt before either as its only been in the past 20 years that wearing a kilt has become popular again.

I seem to have a lot of half finished things around at the moment. Work has been pretty tiring and although I've been off work since Friday, I don't seem to have much energy to do anything other than wedding stuff and the minimum amount of housework. I have a small pile of stitching and knitting stuff that needs finishing bits done to them but the pile has been mostly untouched apart from some knitted flowers and leaves which I made in a class at Harrogate which I made into brooches.



Tomorrow I'm having a day of sewing, stitching and papercrafting I think. Friday I'm off for a few days away to meet up with a few of the UK based stitchers to have a GTG. I can't wait.

Socks and bargains

I finished my march sockamonth socks last night and I'm wearing them today. They are very comfy and soft. I bought the koigu for these when I was in Utah in September



I spent a good part of yesterday tidying up my spare bedroom/sewing room. I started tidying up my cross stitch stash and I now want to start lots of new projects. But I'm trying to be good so I didn't.

Today I wasn't so good. I found out recently that Fraser's in Glasgow has a yarn department. I knew that they used to have one which also had cross stitch supplies many years ago but I thought it shut about 10 years ago. I've been meaning to visit it the last couple of times I was in Glasgow and finally I did today. It was a very good time to visit as they had a sale on with 20% off quite a few yarns.
Here's the haul


There's some felted tweed in a purple colour which I think will become Ivy and some Tapestry in greys which I think might become a scarf and some kidsilk night because its pretty and will make some sort of lacy thing. I was chatting to the assistant whilst she was ringing it up and we were discussing how much of a bargain the felted tweed was. She asked what I was planning for it and I explained about the knitty pattern. She hadn't heard of knitty but she thought it was a great idea. I also shared a couple of other links so I think she might be in for some surfing and shopping.

Thanks everyone for your lovely comments about the framing. Jim, my framer, is a lovely and talented man and he loves framing cross stitch. I stitched something for him a couple of years ago as a thank you and I think another thank you cross stitch will be happening at some point. It will probably have to wait a while as my dad has asked that I stitch him a Buddha design. Its the same design that I stitched for his Buddhism teacher and its shades of brown. Whilst its beautiful, the thought of stitching it again is a little trying. He rarely asks for anything to be stitched and appreciates how much work it takes. I just need to find the pattern in the stash mountain lol.

Returned from the framer

Finally I got my 3 things that were getting framed back from my framer. Both he and his supplier had run out of spacers so there was a bit of a delay for that. Now I've seen them they are definitely worth the wait.
The framer is a friend of my dad's who frames as a hobby and charges me the cost of materials. I let him frame them how he thinks as he paints and has good colour sense. I've not been let down so far.

First up, Portrait of Lauren in blue by Nora Corbett.




Taj Mahal garden by Chatelaine, which is huge now its framed.



And finally Titania, queen of the fairies which I finished in 2004 and got semi forgotten about when I moved a couple of years ago and didn't want to frame stuff just before moving.



I'm pretty pleased with them, I just need to decide where to put them. Taj Mahal is going in my bedroom but I'm not sure where the other two are going to go.

Bringing things up to date.

Things seem to have been a little busy of late. I had a good time at the Glasgow stitching show but I didn't buy too much - some beads to make into various items of jewellery, some wool to knit a wrap cardigan and one little cross stitch kit. There wasn't a lot of cross stitch at the show but there was a lot of papercrafts. I did buy some new papers and some card blanks too. Other than the show, I've spent quite a bit of time with my mum - we got the sad news that one of my uncles died just over a week ago. He was married to my mum's nearest sister in age and they live in Ontario. He was diagnosed with a fairly aggressive cancer late last year but sadly he lost the fight against it. My mum was pretty upset as she couldn't get a flight to be at the funeral to support her sister. Its all been pretty sad as my mum is very close with her family (she has 5 sisters and 4 brothers).

Wedding preparations are still taking a lot of my time. The invitations are done and sent away in plently on time - the 2nd of June is the Wedding day. This past week, I've been making Wedding favours



Only about 30 to still get made. There was a minor disaster this week when my mum had the bridesmaids over for fitting as one of the dresses doesn't fit. Its getting sorted as we speak. Next its on to place cards, bridesmaids jewellery and buttonholes for the men.

I have still been managing to knit. This month's Sockamonth project is BFF socks in Koigu. The pattern is designed by the fabulous Cookie A and its the first of many of her patterns that I want to knit.
I've turned the second heel and I'm on the home stretch. I really love these socks and the koigu is gorgeous and squishy.



I also finished stitching another baby pressie for my friend's new baby.



I should have some pictures of newly framed stitching in the next day or so. The framed pieces are currently at my parents but I haven't seen them yet due to work commitments. I'm told they look great.

Time for an update

I find it ironic that when I'm off work for a week, I always seem to end up not blogging as much and sometimes not at all. This week so far, I have been mostly going out for lunch with various family members and knitting.

I heard from a very good friend on Sunday that she had her second baby on Tuesday so a bit of baby knitting was on the agenda. I should have started it weeks ago but I'm a terrible procastinator. I knitted the baby kimono from the Mason Dixon knitting book. Its in Rowan handknit cotton. I made it a little bigger than the patterns as my friend's new daughter was over 9lbs at birth. In the end, I ran out of yarn as it took about 2 1/2 balls of the cotton to knit this up



There is also some booties to go with it. They aren't terribly practicable as they are a wool/angora mix but hey they look nice.



I can safely share pictures here as she doesn't know about my blog. I've also bought some other yarn to knit something else for the baby and also some yarn to knit a cardigan for her big sister too.

Stitching wise I've finished a square for an online friends quilt but she hasn't received it yet so I don't want to post it here just in case she sees it.

I did hear earlier in the week that Veronica had received the redwork exchange that I stitched for her. Thankfully she likes it. Again, I've used DMC 115 on linen and I used finishing forms to finish them off. I'm lucky that I have a lovely local shop which stocks hundreds of ribbons and trims so I can get these pretty easily. I wish they stocked stitching supplies as I don't have a LNS within 1 hour of me now.







Tomorrow, I will be surrounded by craft supplies as I'm off to the stitching show in Glasgow. I had been planning to visit on Thursday but a local train strike put paid to that as the centre where it is held is only really easily reachable by train if you don't have a car. Its a shame for the show organisers as last year, the last day of the show was ruined by a very heavy snow fall. I'm sure the rail strike will have affected the takings for yesterday and today as the trains going to the centre are packed on show day. I'm going to the show with my mum and aunt and we're planning to have lunch out too, which would make it four meals out in restaurants since last Saturday.
The other thing that occupied my time is wedding preparations. I should point out that it is my sister who is getting married but she has no craft abilities. I'm making the wedding invites etc as a wedding gift to her. She is a pretty easy going bride so far, which I hope will continue. Between my mum, my sister and myself, we are trying to do as much as we can ourselves as a lot of the wedding stuff that other people sell are very expensive and it seems crazy to spend so much on one day.
I'm off now to watch Doctor Who.

Stitching to share

Sadly, the new stash has not yet arrived. The post office have been a bit useless this past while. Somewhere in the mail system, there is also an order from Get knitted and some stuff to finish the Wedding invitations; both of them should have arrived today. I did get the Spring issue of Interweave knits in the post today so I will be reading that later.

I also got a parcel containing my Redwork exchange from Judith.






Its lovely and the design is very appropriate.

I also got my two SB finishes for February framed up - Egg basket and The sheep's in the meadow. I love the little mats that came with these kits, they are so sweet.






The past few days have been a blur of work, sleep and making wedding invitations. This next week will be good though - work is off the schedule until a week on Monday and the wedding invitations are almost done. Thats really just as well seeing as the Wedding is 3 months tomorrow.

Socks

I've been knitting away the past couple of nights so I've finished two more pairs of socks. The first pair are made of Lana grossa cotton stripe yarn. I knitted one of them last year and I though I'd better finish the second one.



The second pair are in Jitterbug sock yarn by Colinette in the shade bright charcoal and are my sockamonth pair for February. They are very soft and warm socks and I plan to buy more Jitterbug yarn in the future.



I picked up the frames I ordered today so I'm planning to get a couple of things framed up tonight. My dad's friend frames bigger things for me and yesterday my dad went off with a couple of things which have been unframed for a while - Taj Mahal garden, Titania and Lauren a portrait in blue. My dad's friend is a painter so his colour sense is pretty good. Hopefully I will have them back next weekend as he's usually pretty quick at getting things done.
I have done a bit of stitching this week but it was for an exchange so no pictures just yet. I've been plugging away on Mirabilia Miss Valentine and Japanese Octagon box too.
This week I'm going to be stalking the postmand - I've ordered some charts plus the new Mirabilia New Year fairy from Stitching bits and bobs and I got a shipping notice on Thursday. I've also ordered the Peacock stitching chair from Cats whiskers design studio like a lot of people and I'm really looking forward to stitching it.

Finishing and fimo

I seem to have quite a lot of unfinished things and ideas for various other crafty things at present but time isn't as plentiful as I need it to be. I spent a fair part of Thursday cutting up paper and card for my sister's wedding invitations and I'm happy to say I'm at about the halfway point of getting them done.
Having spent quite a bit of time on them, I then didn't feel any guilt on spending the rest of Thursday working on things for me. First off, I dug out some fimo which has been hanging about my flat for a while. I love stitched pieces with buttons so I thought I would try out making some myself. I found some tiny cutters in my local craft shop and this is the result.



The bigger shapes are, I think, destined to be needle magnets. The little flower bouquets are something that I just wanted to try.

I also got two things framed up using some bargain wood frames from Ikea and some leftover paint. The blue one is the colour of my bathroom lol. I would have more framed stuff to show but the place I order frames and mounts from, phoned me on Friday to say that my frames had arrived but one was damaged so they would need to get another.





And finally, there is this little ornament. Shamefully I stitched it in July 2002 but I had no clue at the time how to make it into a round ornament. Recently I used some metal finishing forms for the first time and voila I realised I could get it finished into an ornament. Around the edges, I've used some rats tail cord to trim it and make a hanger.


My to be finished off pile is starting to reduce in size lately. I still have a couple of stocking to make up and about another 12 or so things to do non framed finishing with. I think I might be spending a lot of time reading Focus on finishing that Karen and Anne have set up. It looks like a brilliant resource.

Valentine exchange

I've heard that my Valentine exchange has been received by Joanie.



The design I stitched is from issue 67 of a french magazine called Ouvrages broderie. I used designs from the same issue for my needlework smalls exchange too. Its stitched on linen using DMC 115, which is a really lovely variegated red. I really loved stitching it and the magazine has a few other similar designs which I can see me stitching in the fairly near future.

Needlework smalls exchange and a finish

I got home tonight after a very long and trying day at work which drove me nearly insane and I found some lovely mail waiting for me.

I got this lovely little fob that Natty stitched for me as part of the SBEBB Needlework smalls exchange. Its very sweet and over one. I'm not very good at over one stitching so anyone who stitches lots of over one deserves a medal.



She also sent a little stitching chart and a piece of fabric.

Whilst I was off at the end of last week, I felt the need for a quick stitching finish, so I started Egg basket by Shepherd's bush and finished it the same day.



The kit came with a lovely mount. I couldn't buy a ready made frame locally to fit it so I've ordered a frame which I will hopefully get on Saturday. Whilst I was ordering the frame, I ordered another one for a different small Shepherds bush kit which I'm going to stitch later in the week and also a mount for Mirabilia's Miss Valentine. I had hoped to finish Miss Valentine before Valentine's day but thats unlikely to happen.

In the past week, I've been stitching away on my Chatelaine japanese octagon box WIP as the finishing class is at the end of next month. I've still got a fair bit to do but I really think I might do it.

After tomorrow, I have a couple of days off again. I expect to spend it largely knee deep in paper and card as I've still got quite a bit of work to do on my sister's Wedding invitations and the Wedding is in June.

Socks, Socks, Socks

Or more in my obsession with knitting socks. The last time I posted a picture of my socks in progress, it looked like this.



Since this picture was taken, the socks on the top right and top left have had both socks finished. The middle socks on the top row (the red,grey and blue ones) have the first sock finished.

Recently I started taking part in the Sock a month KAL on Crafty threads n yarns, which has been lots of fun so far. It has fueled the sock obsession a little more though.


February's socks are knitted in Colinette's jitterbug yarn, which is so soft. The colour I'm using is Bright charcoal. I've just turned the heel on the first one and I'm knitting along the foot.



These are some of the other socks in progress - on the top row from left to right Hedera in 4ply soft, a simple pair in Cascade sassy stripes, a sock in Regia cotton and a sock in opal 6ply Ladybird.
On the bottom row, a sock with contrasting rib, heel and toes in Lorna's laces in violet and black purl, opal sock in Doctorfish and finally a sock in Lorna's laces Georgetown. In each these are first socks of a pair.




And there's more
A second sock in Lana grossa cotton, a single sock in Lorna's laces Argyle which I haven't cast on the pair for and a regia sock which is my first short row heel sock.


And finally, a first sock in Trekking shade 100 and a first sock in Fleece artist Jester


Which makes 12 in progress (not including the Argyle one which I haven't cast the second one on for). I think I need to knit faster, especially since I've done a little online shopping and today I visited K1 yarns, which is my nearest yarn store. I got to see lots of yarns in person and I can definitely see me knitting some more Colinette yarns in the future. The Cadenza DK is gorgeous.



On the top right are two skeins of Lisa Souza Sock in Limenviolet and little devil which arrived in the post the other day. Today at K1 yarns, I bought some Tofutsies sock yarn, some Hummingbird DK alpaca and some fyberspates sock yarn. I also got some Inca cloud alpaca which will eventually become gloves.

Valentine exchange arrives

Today has been mostly unexciting - some housework and food shopping. But there was a high point when I got my Valentine exchange package from the sorting office. I'm sure the postman only tries to deliver things when he knows that I'm out.

My Valentine exchange was stitched by Helen, who will, I'm sure, have beautifully posed pictures of this as she takes amazing pictures of her stitched things. By a strange coincidence, I stitched for Helen in the Needlework smalls exchange this month.



She also included some lovely extras.

Needlework smalls finish

I heard today that the exchange piece that I stitched for the SBEBB Needlework smalls exchange has arrived with Helen today.



The smaller one is a scissor fob and the bigger one is a pinkeep. You can't see the back of the pinkeep but its got a magnet on the back. I can't claim this idea as my invention as Aniza sent me a pinkeep last year in the pink quaker exchange that had a magnet on the back of it and I thought this was a brilliant idea.
The designs are part of two designs from a French magazine Ouvrages Broderie No67, which I bought specifically for the red and white designs that are in it. They are stitched in DMC 115, which is a lovely variegated red thread. I wanted to find glass headed pins to finish the pinkeep but I can't seem to find coloured ones in the right colours so I trawled ebay for some coloured plastic ones. I ended up buying some in a couple of different colours so I have hundreds of them for future finishes.

Last day of a four day stint at work tomorrow and then I have 4 days off to try and catch up with lots of things. Hopefully I will get some stitching and finishing done.

Its all Seahorse's fault

So I'm casually reading Seahorse's blog and I see her post about some great fabric that she bought from an ebay seller. 24 hours later, an envelope arrives at my letter box containing lovely cotton fabrics. The piece on the far left is a free piece that I got for buying the other 3 and I have to say this seller has great judgement in picking the free piece because if I had seen that bit of fabric, I would have bought it.




My bedroom has quite a lot of chinese texiles and Oriental themed stitching on the wall so I think the oriental prints will become cushions or cushion backs. Its ironic that I really love going shopping for fabric now as when I was very young, I hated it when my mum dragged my sister and I around every local fabric shop. My mum trained as a sewing machinist and made us most of our clothes when I was a child. It was pretty good as I got older as we could take her into a shop and show her something we liked. She would then make something very similar and it fitted much better too, given that I'm not very tall.
I didn't pay enough attention when she tried to teach me to sew when I was younger so I'm not very confident with a sewing machine. Ironically, my mum isn't much good at hand sewing and she doesn't have the patience for cross stitch. I tried to teach her a couple of years ago but she says that it takes too long. At the moment, she is sewing my sister's wedding dress and 4 bridesmaids bodices/skirts. They will be coming to me very soon to have beads applied to them.

I had my sewing machine out this week as I finished my Scared stitches piece from the Shepherds bush retreat. I'm not 100% happy with all the seams as they aren't as straight as I would like them. The pictures make them look even more squinty.





I also made a couple of pieces of oriental fabric that I got from Satomi into cushions and also an Oriental themed round robin into a cushion. I forgot to take pictures of them last night. I've also finished off 2 exchange pieces this week but pictures of them will have to wait until them reach their destinations.
Tomorrow is my last day off work this week. I was off sick at the start of the week so I feel like I haven't been there in ages. I'm kind of dreading going back as I've had enough of work there at the moment. There's still no news from the company that told me at the end of last year that they wanted to employ me so I guess they still haven't got any vacancies. I really need to get myself motivated to learn to drive. I've had a lot of driving lessons in the past but after a very upsetting driving test 8 years ago, I haven't had any lessons. I actually like the driving bit but the test bit is so horrible. It would open up a few job opportunities if I got my license so I should go for it.

300 years ago today

What follows isn't knitting or stitching but just some random recent thoughts on the history of where I'm from
300 years ago today, the original Scottish Parliament passed the Act of Union which joined Scotland to England and Wales as Great Britain under one Monarch but with separate legal and education systems and a independent Church of Scotland.
At school, I learned about the Act and the turbulent and rebellion filled time which followed and I was encouraged to be proud of my country's history inspite of the many failures. I do sometimes wonder how things might have been if the Act of Union had never happened and if an independent Scotland would have thrived. Or perhaps the hard times are what made Scotland the nation it is today. I guess the world would have been different for many countries as so many Scots left to seek better times elsewhere as times got tough at home.
Today I choose to remember that we make our own decisions about how history affects our future. In the past, Scotland has let itself dwell on past injustices and how a now 300 year old act, which many were opposed to, caused the country to feel resentful about its bigger neighbour. The best thing that any country can to do is to look forward to a better future and ensure that its talented people are helped to achieve their potential and great traditions are preserved so that future generations can appreciate the country they live in, not forced to leave for whatever reason.
Today I am proud to be Scottish but also British. It makes for a interesting bag of different experiences.

Wet and wild

Wet and wild pretty much describes the year so far around here. I've been off work for the past week and I've spent most days indoors because the weather has been so awful. I had big plans for my week off - I was going to paint my living room and think about paint colours for my bedroom but post Christmas lethargy has set in. I have moved some furniture around and tidied out some stuff that I no longer need but thats pretty much it.

I did knit a pair of socks though.



I'm taking part in a Sock a month knit a long on Crafty threads 'n' yarns forum
and this pair is January's pair. They are knit in Posh Yarn's Lucia yarn in the shade Highland mist. The yarn has been in my stash for a while so its good to see it knitted up. I do have quite a bit of it leftover as I do with most of my sock yarn as I have quite small feet. I'm starting to have quite a collection of leftovers. I took a class with Kerrie Allman of Hipknits at Harrogate which was about knitting small flowers for decoration so I think some of it might end up being used up that way.

Stitching wise, I've started Noah's sub but there isn't really enough progress to see yet. I have also been stitching on some exchange things too, which I can't share either but look out for pictures of them next month once they reach their destinations.

Happy new year and a review of 2006

Happy new year everyone. I've been taking it easy and generally relaxing over the past few days. I was going to to say I had been chilling out but that phrase grates with me a bit now as someone at work uses it every five minutes and I can't bear to hear it anymore.
2007 came in with a bang in Scotland. Pretty much every outdoor event was cancelled because of 70-80 miles per hour winds and driving rain so my plan to stay at home was the right decision. I was a little worried at several points during the evening when the power flicked off and then on again as my heating is electric powered but thankfully it was okay. In quite a few areas nearby, they weren't so lucky and engineers are still trying to get the power back on.

Scotland pretty much still grinds to a halt at New Year. The only shops that are open tend to be garages. Many shops are still shut on the 2nd of January as it is also a Scottish bank holiday as well as the 1st of January. There was an outcry in 2005 when one of the department stores in Edinburgh suggested that they might open on the 1st. New year has always historically been a bigger thing around here than Christmas - my dad tells me he can remember working part of Christmas day when he started working in a wire factory in the early 1960's whereas they always had New years day off.

And so another year is over. This year promises some excitement - my sister's wedding and now my cousin has announced her wedding too. I'm not sure where my cousin's wedding will be - she lives in Leeds just now but her parents are near Southport and her fiance's father can't travel too far so the wedding might be near them in Kent. Its apparently going to be in June also so June is looking busy with the big GTG that I'm attending with a load of UK based stitchers.

At the start of 2006, I said that my main aim for 2006 was reduce my WIPs. I started 2006 with 29 WIPs plus 1 round robin. During 2006, I started 68 projects and finished 61. I also gave up on 2 projects which were never going to get done. I'm no maths genius but I don't think thats gone in the right direction as I ended up with 34 WIPs lol. I did get the count down to 27 in April but from July onwards, the only way was up. Part of the problem is that I didn't stitch as much in 2006 as I did in 2005, which is due to the knitting bug biting hard. I need to balance it out a bit better this year.

My aims for 2007 are
1. To take part in the Bloggers Christmas ornament SAL each month. In the past, I haven't been that good at keeping up with SALs but this year I hope will be different
2. To take part in the pair of Socks a month KAL on a knitting forum I visit. I need to be careful with this one as I've been having an occasional bit of wrist pain after knitting and I really don't want to make them worse and end up not being able to knit at all.
3. Start Noah's sub and make some progress on it (another SAL)
4. Get at least one Chatelaine WIP finished.
5. Reduce my stash - I have lots of lovely things in my stash waiting to be stitched and its a waste for them to sit there gathering dust. I'm not going completely on the wagon as each time I say that I'm going to do that, I end up buying even more.
6. Most all, I want to enjoy all the crafts that I do, especially cross stitch, which is still my favourite.

I will be interested to see how I get along with these.