New Year Goals

I'm not especially one for New Year's Resolutions but I like the idea of having a vague plan for what I want to achieve during the year. I thought today I'd share a few of the things I'd like to achieve in 2016

Firstly, and rather easily, I'd like to get this sweater finished! I'm on to the collar now which will take a while as it's quite big and needs some short row shaping. After that it's just pocket linings and sewing in the ends. Should be straight forward...




Just before Christmas the lovely Chrisknits sent me a pattern on ravelry. It's the gorgeous cabled cardigan Jurisfiction. I've decided to include this as one of my New Year goals because it's seamed. I've never knitted a seamed garment before as I'm not really a fan of sewing. The thing is though this limits the patterns I look at and I've also read that having seams can help support the garment so it hangs nicely when you wear it. Hopefully setting this out on here will be the motivation I need ;)




The third project I want to tackle is a colourwork sweater for me. It might be My Kind of Sweater which I've had in my queue for a while or it might be something different. I haven't done much colourwork at all and I want to have a go at it again.



The very "knit-worthy" Mr Soaring Sheep loves his knitted sweaters so I'd like to make another for him at some point. He really likes the Jones pattern and would love one in the same purpley pink yarn as on the ravelry page. But if I'm making a Jurisfiction for me then maybe I'll be a bit fed up of cables? The other pattern I like is Adam which has contiguous sleeves and is a bit plainer. It's bottom up construction though which I'm not the biggest fan of. Hmmm....



Lastly I have the traditional yarn stash related goal. I'm not too worried about using up my stash this year or not buying yarn for a certain amount of time like I've done before but I would like to be more mindful of my yarn buying. So instead I'm going to try to be "Stash Neutral" this year. I'm allowed to buy yarn but I'm not allowed to buy more yardage than I've knitted up through the year. I'm not sure if I'm going to try to earn the yardage by knitting it up first before buying new or whether I'll just keep a record all the way through and see how on track I am. I've had a couple of ideas for some old stash that I'd like to get knitted up so hopefully I'll have had a good turn over of yarns by the end of the year.


So that's my short list of goals for 2016. There are of course lots of other things I'd like to knit, more socks for example, but hopefully this will be a good starting point to get me challenging myself a bit more.

Does anyone else have some craft related resolutions or goals for this year? If you've blogged about them I'd love to have a read if you can share the link below

Hello 2016

Happy New Year everyone! I rather like this time of year, I feel positive and excited about the new year to come. Usually wears off by February by which time I've had enough of Winter and being cold lol.

We've had quite a chilled out and lazy Christmas break. Unfortunately I came down with an ear infection on Tuesday and after 3 days of feeling very sorry for myself I visited the doctors and was given some strong antibiotics and some lovely painkillers. I'm feeling better now and actually functioning rather than just lying in bed sleeping or crying from pain. I can do childbirth without pain relief but ear infections are much worse for me :-S

I've had a bit of a casting on session so I've got some new projects to show you in a bit. Today I've just got a quick photo of the socks I made for my Mum. I gave them to her on New Year's day when we visited and she took this photo of them



I think she's pleased with them and they fit well which is good. I used the Rye pattern and a fish lips kiss heel.

My Dad has been dropping hints about some more socks as the ones I made him he's finding hard to get over his heel. I used a gusset heel for them so would have though that would be fairly roomy. Any one have any suggestions?


Anyways, hope you all have a happy and productive 2016. I'm hoping to post later in the week with some photos of my new WIP's. I've missed this little blog space of mine so it's nice to be feeling well enough to start posting and knitting more often :-)

Evelyn x

Ready for Christmas

Hi everyone :) I failed my driving theory test last week but redid it this morning and got a good pass so I'm feeling much happier. The children are home for the holidays, the shopping is done and I'm planning on spending the next few days chilling out. I've got books to read, knitting projects to work on and lots of relaxing to accomplish.



I finished my Mum's socks a couple of days ago. Still need to weave in the 4 ends and give them a quick wash and block but that won't take long. I'm hoping to pay my parents a visit in the near future so might be able to persuade her to let me take some modelling shots :-p



My son's sweater now has a sleeve so the second one is going to be my tv knitting project as it's just plain stockinette and I know how many rows I need between decreases and how much length to add etc.



My final WIP is this hat. The pattern is called Here's Looking At You and caught my eye when I was looking for something to knit with this yarn



I think this stitch pattern is so pretty. Originally I thought it was some sort of cabling but once I got the pattern I found it's just left and right leaning decreases and yarn overs. Very easy to remember too which is always good.

The yarn I'm using is a completely different colour to what my camera has come up with. Hopefully when the hat is finished I'll be able to get some daylight shots which are more accurate. The yarn also has a bit of silver thread through it which gives a nice effect.


So that's me sorted now. I hope if you celebrate Christmas or are just looking forward to a day off that you get some relaxing time. Happy Holidays and if I don't end up posting again this year I hope you all have a Happy New Year too :-)

Take care, Evelyn x


Linking up with Yarn Along and Keep Calm Craft On

Egg-citing News

We had an egg-cellent start to the day this morning. I slid open the roof of the chicken coop to give it a quick spot clean like I do every morning and I found not one but two perfect little eggs.



It was ever so exciting, we've been wondering when they'd start laying and assumed the cold dark weather would put them off until the Spring. We did notice recently that they've started squatting down when you try to pick them up rather than running away which apparently is a behaviour they will do for the cockerel.

Of course now we've got to decide what we're going to do with these two precious eggs and how we can share them between the six of us.



Oh my gosh! I went out while I was making my lunch to give them a pear to eat and couldn't resist another peek inside their house and look what I found!



A third egg, and it was still warm :-)



How funny that they all started laying on the same day. And they all layed in the nest box too, clever girls



The black girl on the left laid the third egg, she's called Maude. The grey girl is called Merry and the orangey one is called Betsy. Thanks ladies!

Wednesday's WIP's

I had another driving lesson today. I'm definitely making progress although my instructor does shout a lot "USE the CLUTCH!" "BRAKE!" "Did you SEE that RED LIGHT?!" :-P Poor guy, I don't think I'd want his job. Today I went into top gear on purpose because I was driving along a duel carriageway. I also reversed into a parking space rather well too. We'll gloss over the roundabouts, stalling at junctions and not using the clutch properly...


I've mostly been pottering around with things at home. A bit of cleaning, a bit of ironing, a bit of playing with the puppy, a bit of revision for my theory test (next week, *gulp*) and occasionally a bit of knitting too.



The red sweater has been waiting for me to try it on my son to see how much more length I need on the sleeves. I need to do another 4 inches or so before starting the cuffs so that will keep me amused for a while.

My sock now has a heel and is nice and simple to knit again, much like the sleeves on the sweater. Seems that's what I'm in the mood for right now.

The purple garter stitch at the top is going to be a hat. I'll talk about more about that another day, hopefully when I've started knitting the pattern part. At the moment following instructions is a bit beyond me (my driving instructor probably agrees...). I cast it on because the yarn has been sat on my shelf for so long it was starting to get dusty. Rather than dust the shelf I thought knitting would be more fun ;-)


So looking forward to the Christmas holidays and things feeling less busy... Take care everyone :-)

Linking up with Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along