Another year closes and everyone starts their new year resolutions. Mine are more or less the same as last, to reduce my fabric and yarn stash. To make more memories with the grandchildren and enjoy life. I would also like to be tidier- but don’t tell any one.

Last year I managed to donate/sell/gift over half of my yarn stash. I also donated/gifted 50 metres of fabric so that is going well. In 2017 I managed to knit 22 items which equated to 7543 metres of yarn, Thats 7 hats, 6 shawls/scarves, 3 items of clothing and a few cowls.

Stephen West has been knitted a lot the latter half of the year with the  Disastrous Bandwidth Hat that will teach me to check my tension.  the gorgeous Mudmilk hat of which I ended up making 2. In the same Rowan Felted Tweed Chunky I knitted Modish Cowl a really nice quickish easy knit.

The other designer I knitted more than one item from this year was Jo Storie. I finally finished my Cove Cardigan which if I was to make again I would make a little shorter. I also knitted a Cove Snood and another Suffolk Hat making this the third one.  I need to knit another Cove Snood in the same yarn as my cardigan and I may knit the hat this year too.

As usual the year has been one of ups and downs, I prefer to focus on the ups as all in all it’s been a great 2017.  I was lucky enough to spend lots of time and days out with Harry and Evalyn and 2018 I plan to do the same again.

Happy New year everyone, remember, Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

This week has been very productive. I have decreased my WIPs/UFOs. Now there are only blankets still needed to be finished. All are Debbie Abrahams, 2 are from her books and 3 are Mystery blankets. I finished the gorgeous cove tonight and picked up MB2015 to finish a square and have really got the knitting bug back.

Still destashing and am being more ruthless wth what I am getting rid of. Next year I need to work on destashing the fabric  more

As usual life has got in the way of  an update, and crafting. Why do I always leave it to the last minute to knit gifts for christmas and winter birthdays? I do it every year, in January I may knit a hat or a set of mittens with the intention of knitting one item every month to prep for the festive season. Of course it doesn’t happen.

These last few months I have crammed knitting into every spare minute and have managed to knit 2 scarves, 1 shawl, 1 pair of mittens and  3 hats. I am still in the knit zone so want to continue until I lose my knitting mojo.

One of the hats I knitted was Stephen Wests Mudmilk design. I used Rowan Felted Tweed Chunky from stash, this was to be for my appreciative son in law , this was until I tried it on and liked it. This is now mine and I need to knit another one the same for him.

This has been the season for continuing to knit from stash and it has been a successful quarter. I continue to donate oddments and those yarns and fabrics I will not be using to a local school. For projects since October I have used from stash:

• Rowan Alpaca Chunky x 1 for some last minute much needed mittens
• Rowan Alpaca Chunky x 4 for the Decemberist shawl (will be knitting another one of these)
• Rowan Felted Tweed Chunky x 6 for Mudmilk hat
• Knitting Academy Gemstone x 1 for Maddie hat
• WI chunky for a unicorn hat scarf 
• Mirasol Nuna x 3 for a slip stitch scarf 

Once again this year I am not giving up a single thing for Lent, however I am donating at least one item a day to charity. So far I have donated 2 pieces of furniture , loads of craft magazines and books as well as a few handbags. It feels good to destash and to give to charity. I can wholeheartedly  recommend it . My chosen charity I am donating to is Cherry Lodge Hospice .

It has been a busy year. I have started two course and signed up for another.  I don’t do things by halves do I?

I have been keeping up to date with my projects………..well sort of!

My aim was and still is to make one item a week, knitted or sewn, big or small, it doesn’t matter. I just need to make something from one of my stashes.

The crafting has got off to a good start and so far I have made :

3 x baby doll dresses

Evalyn chooses the ribbons for her skirts

3 x baby doll skirts

4 skirts for the lovely Evalyn , who chose the fabric and ribbons and helped measure them.

1 tote bag

1 felted pouch from an unfinished sweater

1 shawl

A hat for Harry

A baby hat

Well 2016 has rollercoaster of a year. I am looking forward to 2017 and will be doing the jar filled with sticky notes of good things as well as aiming for more creativity. Sewing has really fallen by the wayside in 2016 and in the coming year I will be sewing a minimum of 4 hours every week. This will be put in my calender as a normal appointment and I plan on treating it as a work date so cannot be cancelled unless I am away.

I only managed a couple of handmade christmas presents. A knitted hat for my son in law and a project bag for my best friend. I had lots of items cut out and prepped but I just ran out of time. I haven’t been updating much but a friend encouraged me to use Instagram and I have been doing at least one most a week. This I have found quite inspiring. I am flickchickknits on Instagram if you wish to follow me

This year I am determined to get the fabric stash down and to make at least an item a week. I will doing more upcycling and making lots for my wonderful granddaughter Evalyn. The blog has been a bit neglected this year so I want to update this more and again have added a calendar reminder to ensure I do it.

I would like to wish all of my followers a fabulous, happy, healthy and crafty 2017.

Its been a tough year but I am just about holding it all together. I am quite self aware and I do recognise my faults and try and work on some aspects of them .

On the whole I am quite easy going and very tolerant. It has come to my attention recently that there is one are where I have very high standards and am some what intolerant. What is this I hear you wonder? It’s the work ethic. I just don’t understand how people who have a good job, can’t respect their other team members and  ensure they share the load or use their common sense to ensure one person is not left holding the baby so to speak. I have been thinking back over the years and luckily I have only experienced this in two of my job roles.
In one role one of my colleagues stole my ideas and sold them as their own, they also played the victim card, so would break down in tears if any one asked her about how they came up with the ideas. This same person would also take things off the shelf to do work for their other role and prep this stuff at work.

In another role I had a colleague who was consistently late and when you tried to speak to them, they had a don’t care attitude. You knew the time you started when you took the role. Why do think it’s okay for you to be late and others not? They were quite happy to go off the floor numerous times for cigarette breaks not caring if there was anyone left in the department or not. As long as their needs were met that’s all that mattered in their eyes.

In both these examples I guess it’s down to bad management. If you let someone continuously get away with things they will never think they are accountable and will continue their bad behaviour. Some one said to me recently that I should accept that people have different work ethics to me, which I guess is one way to look at it, but why shouldn’t everyone in a good job, at the same level have a good work ethic?

My grandchildren aren’t really babies anymore. As you know little miss Evalyn loves the blue fabric with spots and carries her blanket everywhere with her. I thought I would make her a bunny in the fabric. Unfortunately it didn’t go down very well, when I first have it to her. The reason we discovered, was , that she thought I had taken her blanket and turned it into the bunny. Harry after seeing Evalyns said he would like one, I had already promised to knit him one , but as this is quicker, I readily agreed. I brought one of the boxes of fabric down and he repeatedly chose the Liberty Tana Lawn Zoo print fabric. I readily agreed and as you can see in the end they both love their rabbits.