Acquisitions/Stash Management

I managed to resist buying any yarn over Black Friday sales. This was a real achievement because those algorithms really know me and were doing their best to tempt me and at one point I was eyeing up Wool and the Gang’s packs of 10 balls of yarn! 🤦‍♀️. Even my colouring app I use each morning was showing me adverts for yarn shops!!

Felting

I have laid out 4 seascape 25cm shades so will felt and construct those this week.

The first few things I ever needle felted years ago were a minion, an evil minion and Mike Wasowski. This week I turned them into some Christmas decorations with some little glass/wood display baubles and fake snow from Hobbycraft. I may add more snow.

Fibre Prep

I have gone a little bauble crazy! I bought 2 packs of 6 smaller sized baubles and filled them with sari silk fibre and sari loom ends. I used some double sided tape and ribbon on one but chose to leave the others as I may choose to change the fibres in future and it was tricky getting the ribbon straight.

Knitting

Socks

Well I’m a numpty! I didn’t read the Regia Pairfect sock yarn instructions, and had forgotten since I used this yarn 3 years ago, you are supposed to pull from the centre of the ball, not the outside. This led to an enormous amount of plain green on the leg. I panicked and wondered would the 2nd sock have exactly the same amount of green so I cast on the 2nd sock (after winding a separate ball from the centre pull). The good news is it was a perfect match of green, the bad bit is how much boring green there now is on the sock. My next panic is will there be enough yarn on what should be the leg to knit the feet!

On Friday night I finally hit the stripy section and put them on 2 circulars so I can knit them two at a time.

Ok not sure what happened but late on Saturday I signed up to the Fairisle Advent MKALendar by Susanna Winter. I blame Sarah from Mildly Granola who showed me some pics of the first 3 days and it’s very pretty. I’ll be playing catch up so just doing the brim at the moment. I’ve had to use DPNs as I couldn’t find my circular 2.5mm ones.

Sewing

I bought 2 metres of some cotton fabric to make some pyjamas one day. I noticed on the edge a sign saying “this fabric is not designed for children’s pyjamas”. I wondered if they’d be okay for adult?? Anyway when I got home I googled it and apparently children’s pyjama material is treated with fire retardant chemicals! Not having children this was news to me.

Weaving

Inkle loom

I have continued to practice the Monk’s belt patterns from the Inkle Weaving Pattern Directory by Anne Dixon. I pulled out the mess I’d made last week and re-started. I am still making the odd mistake on the pick ups but getting slightly better and a bit quicker. Using the double pointed knitting needle is much easier than trying to use my fingers. An expert Inkle weaver at the Guild said she had a special shuttle made for her that enables her to do pickup with the shuttle, so I will investigate that after Christmas as a possibility for spending Christmas money on.

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Other News

On Monday I did most of my Christmas shopping and put my engagement ring and wedding ring in the jewellers to be made one size bigger. I haven’t been able to comfortably wear them for years and I’ve stopped kidding myself I will lose weight. I don’t really wear jewellery but it would be nice to wear my rings again.

The first half of the week I wasn’t feeling great with some medication side effects. I stopped taking it and by Thursday I was feeling a lot better…but that’s the day our washing machine stopped draining and even after manually emptying the water out, cleaning the filter and trying again twice more it wouldn’t work. On Friday my husband was on holiday and spent most of the day trying to fix it. Luckily I have some great neighbours who let me take my soapy wet clothes to rinse in their machine, plus wash a 2nd load that I’d got all wet by piling the soapy wet clothes on them. So basically most crafting happened on Friday and Saturday.

I’m conscious that we are fast approaching the half way point on the YOP year (for most) and I have some very long term WIPs and plans that are still being neglected despite being on my list for years. Something to look at in January especially as I keep doing new things not on my list. I may review/slim down the list to make it more achievable.

Today my plan is to clean the house as the parrot went back to my mother in law’s yesterday. Once its clean then I’ll put up some Christmas decorations.

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Year 12 list.

This is a Year of Projects post.  Officially the Group is in its 12th year, but this is my 5th year participating.  If you would like to find more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry.