Unravel 2011

Today I went to Unravel, a knitting festival in Farnham.  I wanted to find some yarn to make my first cardigan, I wanted it to be just right and I find it hard to get the right colour on the internet (I also like squishing skeins).  I've decided that my first adult sized peice of clothing will be a February Lady Sweater.  It's a free pattern from Ravelry, thousands of people have made it so I have high hopes of being able to make it without many mistakes.

So I spent a very pleasant hour or so browsing all the stalls in the Farnham Maltings and squished many skeins.  I narrowed my search down to Fyberspates, so many lovely colours and I've already made a scarf for my Mum at Christmas using their sport-weight navy yarn, so I knew it was lovely to work with.  Jenny on the stall noticed me umming and ahhing over two colours, blue teal and water, she came over to help me.  I decided on blue teal as it was the brighter of the two and before I had time to change my mind I'd bought 5 skeins.

It really is lovely, squishable yarn and I can't wait to get started.  This photo makes it look very blue, but it really is more turquoise.

You may spot a sneaky purple skein on the left, that was chosen for a special project which I'll tell you all about later.

New Years Resolution - Starting Cycling Again

One of my new year's resolutions was to start cycling to the train station again after a long and snowy winter break.  The snow started in November in Reading and I promptly stopped cycling the 4 miles there and back to our local train station as soon as it got a little icy.  I have visions of myself skidding round a corner on ice unable to release my feet and leaving parts of my knees on the tarmac behind me :-)  I had already stopped running, pretty much after my 10k race in October, so that meant I was doing no exercise at all.  This is bad and usually means by weight shoots up as I carry on eating the doughnuts and cake needed to fuel my non-existent activities.  But this winter it didn't, I didn't consciously eat less or change my diet but my weight stayed about the same regardless of my slobiness.

 

As the snow melted and the icy mornings became few and far between I knew I had to crawl onto my bike again otherwise I never would.  The first few days were very difficult, the hills seemed bigger and even the flat sections seemed arduous.  After about a week of solid cycling (the weather couldn't make up it's mind whether it was warm or freezing so this meant a few weeks of cycling one or two days only), I was back into my old gears of the previous winter.  Now, after cycling consistently for four weeks, I am probably back to my old self.  This bodes well for my next new year's resolution of starting to run regularly again in March (when the clocks go forwards) which I suspect will be tougher and bit more of a shock than this has been.

WIP: Dead simple lace toe-up socks

Happy New Year!!

2010 has most definately been my starting-to-knit-year, after finishing my first project in about 15 years (baby blanket for my niece) in May, I've gone on to knit the following:

• 3 pairs of socks (2 for me and 1 as a gift)
• 1 scarf
• 2 baby hats
• 1 phone sock
• 1 pair of baby bootees
• 1 hat and pair of matching fingerless gloves

That doesn't seem a lot but I've always had something on the go.  In 2011 I would like to knit my first peice of clothing, a cardigan for my niece and a cardigan for me (as well as lots of socks and scarves).

Speaking of New Years Resolutions, here's how I did on this years:

1. Weekly facial - FAIL
2. Finish what I start - PASS (if you don't count buying wool and then not knitting anything with it yet)
3. De-clutter - PASS (I have thrown out lots and tried to use stuff up before buying more - not wool though)

Not bad.

Next years resolutions are:

1. Start cycling and running again.
2. Learn toe-up socks
3. Read more books
4. Watch less TV
5. Be more sociable
6. Eat more healthily

I have high hopes that this time next year I will have acheieved all of them :-)

Highlights of my 2010 have been:

• Gaining a niece - Isobel Skye born in May and still as cute as ever
• Still living happily with Pete - Our 3 year anniversary is looming in Feb and I'm still as happy as ever :-)
• Starting a counselling course - Could be a new career for me, if I can get the coursework finished

There must be more but I can't think of them.

I hope everyone has a great night tonight, I'll be snuggling up with Pete and toasting the New Year in with a lovely bottle of wine I have stashed in the fridge.  I hope 2011 will bring more joy and happiness!