Plans

What? You want to know where I've been? I'm back here because I want to make some crafting goals, and this seems the best place to keep track of them. It's possible I'll catch up with what's happened since I was last here-you never know ;)

Nov Goals
1. Finish Caitlin's vest-this is black and plain and soooo boring, so at the moment I'm working on doing half an hour daily to get some progress without losing my mind. I've finished the back and am 13cm into the front. Thank goodness it doesn't have sleeves!
2. Start & finish both KAL (knitalong) hats in Woolly Wormheads Mystery KAL . I've got stash yarn lined up for this already.
3. Finish Mayrose Beret-I've already started this and I'm hoping to get a fair amount done on this in the last few days of October.
4. Work on Fred & Albert which is a cross stitch design. I have a rotation planned for my stitching, and this is to be my focus piece, which means it will be worked on the most. I'll go into my rotation plans in another post. If I finish up the 10hrs planned for this piece I'll move onto the next piece.
5. Look at my magazines/patterns and see if I want to do any Christmas sewing/crafts.
6. Load more knitting stash onto Ravelry.

I'm planning to make a more concerted effort next year to use things from my stash. I don't plan not buy anything, but I'd like to use more of what I already have. I'll work more on my plans for this in the next couple of months.

This weekend Ron & I head to Melbourne for a weekend away by ourselves. We haven't really made any plans other than going to see Mary Poppins on Saturday night. I'll hopefully be back next week for another exciting installment!

Blogtoberfest

I have signed up for "Blogtoberfest" - there's a link in the sidebar, but basically it's a commitment to post at least once a day for every day of the month of October. Can I do it? Who knows? The worst that will happen is that I don't. We may be going away for a couple of days at the end of the school holidays, and although I've read blogs where the blogger writes a blog in advance and somehow sets a timer to release the post at a set time, I'm not sure I have the capability with this blog.

We've nearly finished the first week of holidays, and Luke is off tomorrow for a 3 day scout camp in preparation for the Jamboree in January. I took Caitlin & a couple of her friends to the movies on Monday-it was her belated birthday outing. Because her birthday is in the middle of term, there are no new kids movies released, as the new releases are kept for the school holidays. We went to see "Up" which was lovely. I do enjoy the kids movies that have something for the adults too. Saturday we are heading to the "city" to hit the shops. There is much shopping we need to get done-shoes, clothes, knitting, softball mitt, jewellery,......... Poor Luke will miss out-unfortunately for Ron, he will not.

Craft-wise I haven't really stitched or knitted much since the holidays have started-what routine I had seems to have gone out the window. I need to take some pictures of the progress I have made, but because I have nothing to show, and it's night time and therefore a bad time to be taking pictures, I will show a picture of a project I am planning on starting soon. It is quite large (as usual with most of my stitching projects)-"Marriage of the Minds" by The Drawn Thread. The quote comes from a Shakespeare sonnet (and it has featured somewhere in a book I have read sometime in the last year-but I cannot work out which one-I read quite a lot.....).




Speaking of reading, I love my libraries (I belong to two). Caitlin & I have visited both this week, and we have quite a large & varied selection of books, DVDs and audio books now. I have also quite a few books on my hold list, including Sock Innovation or here for a non-Ravelry link.

I had better head to bed-tomorrow's exciting schedule includes: getting a 13yo boy to pack for camp, going to dentist for sore tooth examination (me), and writing another riveting post for the blog-the fun never ends ;)

Some progress at last......

Two posts in a week-who would have thought? I must point out that the picture featured in the last post was the first project in my rotation. It's the Patchwork Sampler by Jan Houtman stitched on 36ct linen with 1 strand of DMC over 2 threads. Here's a picture of the progress after I've finished 5(ish) hours working on it.

I've also included the photo that I took before I started stitching, as I've worked out that the progress is much easier to see that way. I did enjoy working on it, and I also worked out that I want to rechart part of it to remove the "title" and replace that with continuations of the motifs. I don't think that this would be ideal for a focus piece.
Next up was Celtic Autumn which is being stitched on 28ct Jobelan Stitches & Spice "Tundra". This one might be a candidate for a focus piece-I will see how I feel when I've gone through the list. Here's the before & after pics.


This week I also want to get some work done on a couple of Christmas ornament WIPs as well as some knitting.

We have one more week of Term 3 left, and then it's 2 weeks of holidays. In other news, our next door neighbours have put their property up for sale. It's a lovely property with a pool and potential for subdivision, so it has a substantial price tag. They had an "open house" this afternoon and it was interesting to see the cars that prospective buyers drove-Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, BMW......... We will have to wait and see if any of them move in next door.

Hopefully I will be back soon with more progress, and maybe even some knitting pictures.

I have a cunning plan...

Well, I'm working on one, anyhow. The rate I'm posting this year seems to be working out at one per season. Hopefully this become more, but this is not what I am referring to when I mention the plan. It's a stitching rotation. Before I elaborate, I will quickly update family news, so that you can read and move on, if you have no interest in my stitching & knitting.

We survived winter quite well-it was not that cold and quite wet- which was good. Kids continue to grow and do quite well at school. We had our house re roofed and insulated (note-not reinsulated, because we found when we got the bathroom renovated that we had NO insulation whatsoever-just the tin attached to the roof beams!!) which has made a huge improvement in the temperature in the house as well as markedly improving the look of the house. Last month we had the sad news that my Uncle Albie passed away. After a bit of juggling, I hitched a ride with my brother down to the SE and then over to Western Victoria for the funeral. It was a bit surreal at times as it ended up part of the trip with Mum, Dad, me and my brother & sister-just like old times?! It was also a bit strange catching up with other relatives that I haven't seen for 20-25 years. The summer holidays (gasp-so soon?) are starting to come to mind as we will be having Christmas lunch with my family here this year (and also those who don't live in Adelaide will stay with us). Early January Luke will be heading off to Jamboree for 2 weeks, and Ron's parent will take Caitlin on a mini holiday for 1 week of that time. This means that I will be child-free for 1 week of the school summer holidays. I'm not sure what we will do, but Ron & I plan to have a mini trip of our own.

Enough of the chit-chat, now to the stitching. I have recently felt my stitching mojo return-I don't think it has been fully back since I've recovered from my tendonitis in my elbow. Along with this urge to stitch, I have felt the need to get a rotation started. I have used one in the past, with some success, and want to get stuck into some old WIPs as well as a few new projects. I've rummaged amongst the WIPs and charts, and come up with a starting list. For my first run through of the list I will work on each project once, just to see how I feel with each project. I may possibly decide on a focus project (one that is worked on more than once each time through the list) or not-I will decide after the first run through. I may even ditch some projects (not really likely as I looked at all the WIPs and still like them). Because a lot of the projects (all right most of them) are on the large size, and none are close to being finished, I'm introducing a few smaller/simpler projects so that I will get some finishes in the near future. I've still got some Christmas ornaments to get done (have done 2 and have 2 that are partly done) because I will have exchanges later this year, as well as teacher presents, and I want to send off at least one to the Vic. bushfire families. I'm not sure how I will work this into the rotation-maybe one night a week until I'm caught up? For the rotation, I'm going to give the "min 5hrs/max 10 hrs" timing thing a go, and tweak it if need be. My plan is that I will take a picture before I start stitching on a piece, and then post again with the progress.
I am still knitting, and will continue to do so as it is handy when less concentration is needed, but I do find that I knit less in summer. Our local knitting group is still going and a few new people are attending, so at the very least I will knit there each week.
I think I will stop there, before this post just stretches on & on........ Off to stitch for a while is it quiet.