I Must Stitch

I have totally lost the inclination to do any stitching, all I seem to want to do at the moment is knit. Which wouldn't be a problem except that I really must get the pre-stitching done for four classes that I am taking later on this year and also finish the final round of the UFO Round Robin that I am participating in. I am sure that part of the reason why I don't fancy stitching is the deadlines and the fact that I currently feel that even if I stitched for every second possible then I would still not make enough progress to achieve the deadlines. So in order to get past this I have decided to set aside most of this weekend to stitching. The only other thing on the agenda is taking my Mother and Niece to a fund raiser tomorrow for a guinea pig and rabbit rescue centre.

I have been making progress on reducing my knitting stash and so far have completed 5 squares that will be donated to The Ghana Project. I also have 3 other squares almost completed and 3 scarves on the go (why have only one WIP when you can have half a dozen?). I have decided that once I have reduced my stash by at least 12 balls (or skiens) of yarn I will reward myself by starting a new pair of socks. So far I have turn two and a bit balls into squares and once the scarves are finished that will take the total number of balls used to 6. This is partly due to the fact that one of the balls of yarn that I am trying to use up is a masive 500 grams of DK yarn.

Fantastic Post Day

At the end of a very long Monday in the office trying to deal with the aftermath of yet another weekend of downpours and floods I got home to find two wonderful parcels waiting on my doorstep. I am begining to wonder if there will ever be an end to the rain this year. On Friday my niece (who is nearly four) very glummly told me that she hated the rain and thought that the sun was gone forever.

The first parcel contained a skein of beautiful blue and green sock yarn from Cherry Tree Hill, which I can not wait to start knitting with but need to find just the right sock pattern for, and two packets of coffee. This parcel was recieved from Sarah as part of the Fiber & Frappe exchange organised on the Fiber Freaks BB.

The second parcel was a gift of a gorgeous hand stitched bookmark from my friend Maria, who is very naughty to be sending me gifts. Both parcels are amazingly wonderful and sure made a fantastic start to the week. Huge thanks to both Maria and Sarah for spoiling me.

Now all I need to complete my week is for the weather gods to be kind and to send us a dry spell. Work is bad enough without having to cope with emergencies which invariably result in people having to work weekends and being extra grumpy on a Monday. The downpour on Friday was especially bad and meant that a number of my work mates never made it home on Friday and were stranded over night in their cars.

Thank Goodness Its The Weekend

It has been a long week and boy am I glad that the weekend has finally arrived. We are going through a restructuring process at work, at the sametime that we have hit a really really busy period and the IT bods are also changing all our hardware and software. Which added up equals long hours, long boring meetings were people argue round in circles and get all defensive about minor matters and training courses (I just love training courses designed to tell me how to do the work I have been doing for the past couple of years just with slightly modified software). So all around I am glad for two days off, no alarms, no deadlines just plenty of sitting on the sofa watching tv and stitching or maybe knitting or if I feel like it doing nothing at all.

Charity Knitting

My new addiction to sock knitting has led to an addiction to sock wool and over the weekend I indulged in a bit of retail therapy. Because I am very bad at making decisions I have managed to order a small mountain of sock wool - it was really really hard to decide which ones I liked the most. In order to halt the rapid increase of my stash yesterday I decided to have a clear out and discovered several balls of yarn that either I can not remember why I brought them or have been left over from completed projects. So I have decided to turn the stash that I no longer want into scarves, hats, squares etc. and donate them to various charitable causes.

While searching the internet for charities wanting donations of knitted items I came across the Crafting for a Cause Blog which I have decided to join in order to try and help them achieve their amazing goal of producing and donating to charity 3000 items in 2007.

Snap

I have finished my first ever pair of socks. They are not perfect but I am pleased with them.

Knit with Regia yarn using the free basic sock pattern that came with the ball ofyarn.

Baby Photos

It is very hard to take photos of baby guinea pigs since they hardly ever stay still but yesterday I took the babies back to my mother and she helped by making them stay still so here are some photos of my tiny ex-house mates.

It was sad to let them go but at least they are only at my Mum's so I can go visit. I think she is going to keep one of them and give the other two to my sister.

Half A Happy Dance

I have a sock. Now in I just have to create a matching pair and avoid getting a pile of single socks. In just a week I have somehow managed to aquire a small mountain of sock wool, all of which I am itching to knit with.

I also have to report that my dinning room has now been turned into a maternity ward. I am currently looking after my mother's guinea pig who this afternoon produced an unknown number of babies. I have counted at least two babies but there may well be more. She is doing very well so far so I am leaving them alone as much as possible. I shall try and get photos later in the week once she has adjusted to motherhood, this is her first litter and she is currently looking a little bemused.

End of the 50 Project Challenge

I have made the decision to drop out of the 50 Project Challenge. I have come to realise, with the help of my doctor and several very good friends, that I put far too much pressure on myself by setting so many goals and targets that it would be impossible to achieve all of them. When I fail to meet goals, however unrealistic they are, I then get down in the dumps, annoyed and stressed out. None of which is good for the mind and soul. Especialy since my hobbies are often what keeps me sane. So I have decided, for the time being at least, to stop setting myself goals and targets. So the excel spreadsheet detailing what knitting, stitching and beading I need to do over the next 2 and a bit years (yes I am truly that anal and it was going to take at least that long to complete the challenge) has been deleted. I am still going to try and keep my stash purchase to a minimum as I would love to reduce my stash but I am not going to worry too much over it. Last night I put away all my ongoing projects (apart from my socks as I can not be parted from them) as having them lying around the living room was only serving to remind me how much work I have to do. I intend to then concentrate on making progress on the pre-stitching for the classes that I am doing in the autumn and to use my smaller stitching projects and my socks as light relief. But other than wanting to get the pre-stitching complete I have set no targets for myself relating to my hobbies.

My first sock is growing I have successfully completed the heel and am now onto the foot, hopefully I will complete it this weekend. The only problem I can see is that I run the risk of having dozens of single socks. I have been spending my lunch hours this week surfing the net for patterns and have amassed a rather sizable collection all of which I would love to knit.

Weekend Report

This past weekend I went away for a long weekend in Derbyshire with a collection (not sure what the collective noun for a group of stitchers should be) of UK stitchers. Four days of sunshine (for the most part) stitching, knitting, eating, drinking and laughing was the best medicine and I now know that I can once again cope with being in a large group of people without freaking out & having a panic attack. The place we stayed (Dove Farm) was ideal and even had its own herd of alpacas that included an adorable baby called Cocoa, before leaving we had to count the alpacas to check that none had been kidnapped. The cottages were also in easy reach of a lovely patchwork shop where I just had to visit and I gave in to the need to have some fabric.

While away I managed to make good progress on the pre-stitching for one of this years classes and also on the UFO round robin that I am currently participating in. I also gained a new obsession – sock knitting. I managed with a tonne of help from Maria, Karoline and Paula, to make a great start on my first ever sock.

Awhile back I had purchased several balls of sock yarn convinced that I would be able to teach myself how to knit socks but after several failed attempts put the yarn in the back of the wardrobe. Now all I want to do is knit socks. To ease the pain of having to return to work after a four-day weekend I spent my lunchtime searching the web for free sock patterns and sources of inspirations & supplies for sock knitting. I have to confess that, despite being on the stash wagon (for knitting, stitching and beading), I also acquired 3 balls of sock yarn over the weekend and gave into clicky finger syndrome at lunchtime today and purchased enough wool to make another 3 pairs of socks. I had always planned to allow myself a reward for reaching the halfway point on my 50 Projects Challenge so I shall just count the purchase of sock wool as my reward even though I am a few finishes away from the 25 mark. I can see that I am going to have to start a new stash list just for sock yarn as I can see that as soon as the challenge is over I shall be making several purchases.

A Happy Dance

I stayed up until a few minutes past midnight last night because I just had to put the last few stitches into Vicki by Bizzi Creations before going to sleep. This has been a really fun, and for me quick stitch. Yesterday afternoon I spent a very happy couple of hours going through my stash trying to decide what to stitch on next. Part of me (the good part) says to work on one of my WIPs but there is also a naughty little voice in my head urging me to start something new. In the end I have decided on a compromise and have pulled out one WIP (Above the Clouds by Teresa Wentzler) .

and four new projects:

Cherry Heart & Mother's Heart by Shepherd's Bush, Celtic Heart By Dinky-Dyes and Random Hearts by Erica Michaels. My plan is to work on whichever of the new starts shouts the loudest until it stops shouting and then to put in a few hours on Above the Clouds before working on another of the new starts. I shall proceed in this manner for as long as I am enjoying it or until I have finished all the projects whichever occurs first. While working on these projects I also have the last two rounds of the UFO Round Robin to complete and some pre-stitching for a class to get done so I am going to be a little busy but since all I want to do at the moment is stitch I might a well take advantage of being well and truly bitten by the stitching bug.