It has been a very busy 6 months and with only having one day off I haven’t managed to do as much I wanted to.

This year I am setting up a reminder in my phone calendar to remind me to write a post once a month. If I manage it more than once great, if not then at least I will have done the one.

Harry still loves his yarn and when we went to John Lewis a few months back he rushed to the yarn section and chose some wool , Rowan don’t you know, for his hat for me to knit. I used the left overs with extras I had  to make a stripey scarf to match his hat.

This is one of my favourite pictures of him.

Evalyn on the other hand loves sitting with me on the sewing machine and watching me sew her taggies. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of her and myself sewing yet.

Anyway, for 2016 I plan on continuing to make my stash smaller. Be ruthless with the clutter , donate lots and lots to the charity shops and do more things for me.

i couldn’t think of a title so minidisc pump seemed appropriate as I am doing well with my de stashing . I ahem de stashed two black refuse sacks to charity stores ,sold enough yarn to pay for my new glasses and swapped loads of my sock yarn for a hand crocheted blanket. I am determined to only knit from stash this year. It has had a couple of aargh moment like finding the yarn for the Outlander MKAL. I had a couple of skeins that were had enough yarn but had 200m more than I needed and I just couldn’t bring myself to use them in case I found a shawl with thAt amount of metres. I have almost finished Harry’s sweater, finally started another mystery blanket square and am working on a shawl. There are a large number of empty yarn boxes which is great but there is still a lot more to be got rid of and I haven’t started on the fabric yet.

On another note I have been a little extravagant. I decided a while back the only way I am going to get back on track with this years mystery blanket is to take it away with me on holiday. For this reason alone I purchased one of Liberty gorgeous mini suitcase. This will be used for my holiday knitting only, after all it is the most important Item to pack. 

A friend who I hadn’t heard from in a while contacted me and had read the blog, this got me thinking that I should revisit an old post and see what was still ongoing project wise from the pre Christmas post

• The Vibrant Sweater is back on track slowly but surely.
• Hog warts Express shawl is finished and gifted 
• Lille finished and gifted
• Mystery Blanket 2014 no change
• Evelyn’s dresses no change 
• Advent calender started
• Stocking for Evalyn finished
• Tulip dress half done
• Vintage top, no change 
• Sew buttons on a coat done
• Shorten sleeves on top no change
• 2 pairs pjs no change

 hogwarts expresss  

A few weeks ago whilst browsing the web I saw a poster which made an impact on me, The poster said instead of giving something up for lent why not fill a bag a day for charity. I had been planning to destash from my various craft collections so I decided to  take it on board and was soon destashing for England. I am still doing this and  have a large number of bags in my kitchen ready to go to one of the various charity shops in my area, much to my daughters annoyance. I have managed to donate at least two shelves of craft books. Numerous items of clothing, shoes I haven’t worn for years and even household items. Tonight I decided to open Pandoras box AKA the unfinished projects  box. Wow there was (is) a lot. This is where I even surprised myself. I looked at each item and decided if it was something I still wanted to sew. If it wasn’t the pieces sewn and unsewn with the pattern and project bag went into the charity bag. I am ashamed to say there were some garments I had cut out for Evalyn which will not fit her now. I am undecided whether to sew these or just donate the lot to the charity shop. There aren’t any baby girls due in the family so I shall finish the others then decide. I have already reached my 40 bags, a mixture of boxes, large carrier bags and large bin bags. I shall be continuing to do this long past the 40 days and would encourage every one to try it for at least week

Well it has been a good start to 2015 and I have managed to gift 3 refuse sacks of yarn to a new knitter. I still haven’t managed to do any sewing this year which I find extremely frustrating. I am re-evaluating things and have made a tough decision regarding my freelance work. I am now fully booked for workshops for the season which is great but on the personal knitting front I keep going wrong. I knitted most of the back of Cosy by Kim Hargreaves only to discover a dropped stitch which when I picked it up made a ridge in the fabric. I had to undo 20 cm of knitting. Thankfully I have now finished the back of this. Next to go wrong was Wee Cria by Ysolda, this time I read the pattern wrong, The sleeves were finished only to discover on rereading  the pattern I should have increase every fourth row not every alternate row. This is knitted top down so 20 rows of 4ply knitting was ripped back, This still isn’t back on track yet. My vibrant sweater is on hold as I keep going wrong on the row I am on. Work is going well and I am enjoying it.

Life is good now if I can just get some sewing done .

I had hoped to go to the knitting and stitching show at Alexandra Palace but I didn’t have the time. I was mainly going to renew magazine subscriptions which I really don’t need so maybe it was just as well.
As I never made it there I decided to treat myself to a few purchases online. This year is Evalyns first Christmas so I bought a lovely Hello Kitty stocking panel and a mini stocking advent calendar panel. Square DPNs are a favourite of mine and since suffering from Tennis Elbow figured a more ergonomic shape might be beneficial, so I invested in a knit pro nova set which I will be knitting Evalyns hat on. My final purchase was the amazing new book from Kim Hargreaves Still. There are three patterns I definitely want to knit from this book and as soon as I have finished my vibrant sweater I will start one. Now I’ve made my purchases I’m glad I didn’t go as I would have spent at least four times as much on stuff I didn’t necessarily want or need. Instead I have exactly what I want and I can buy a couple more bits next month.