Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2013

Tomorrow the 4th Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2013 starts and in an attempt to blog more frequently I've decided to take part eeeeep!  So look forward to an entire week of waffle from me!

Blog/Life Musing

This month marks three years of my blogging journey.  I had a previous blog which I started in a mid life crisis moment just prior to my 30th birthday.  Then, like now, it was full of intermittent knitting and craft waffle, dieting woes as I started my weight loss journey (lack of dieting woes on here signifies the distinct lack of dieting!) and pictures of the kids. 

Three years on, I still want to blog more, yet find the 26th hour day elusive!  I'm still rather mid life crisis-y with my current present for my birthday on Thursday from DH being a new piercing (hmm labret I think...maybe...)  I now harbour pipe dreams of taking my crafting further and opening a shop now I am no longer running Bums N Roses.  My knitting has definitely advanced and I at least own a spinning wheel now (I may finally find time to spin in the next year).

On a personal level, I now have four kids (and boy, is Oliver hard work!) and a husband who is here sharing life with us instead of at work 24/7.  Life continues to hand us lemons by the truck load but we are surviving.  Life is most definitely too short and I am much more confident (albeit still not 100% happy!) with myself.  Heck, I even post pictures of myself LOL

So, I guess we shall see where life takes me this year!!

You can never have enough shawls...

Despite my list of planned projects and the WIP's, I cast on a sneaky shawl last week and cast off at 3am this morning, in bed by the light of my iPhone!! 

This rather lovely skein of DyeSpinKnitUK Handspun:

quickly became this lovely Graceful Curve shawl!

The pattern is fabulous and I can very much see me casting this on again, probably in a solid colour silky yarn!

I'm just about to cast on my next WIP with the excuse I am waiting for a pair of extreme needles to knit the rest the blanket since knitting on 15mm interchangables was playing havoc with my CTS and tendinitis.  The small one is suffering from a severe case of teething/snots/growth spurt so my knitting time is rather lacking but I'm hoping to squeeze in half an hour or so later...

Planning Projects

I have always been the kind of knitter (and crafter as a whole) that buys pretty yarn and then plans projects, usually then requiring more yarn LOL!  Hence why I have quite a lot of yarn in my stash :">

I also have a bad habit of doubting my own abilities hence why this year I was/am determined to tackle new things.  So far on the knitting front that means I have mastered magic loop; as a DPN lover I was very resistant to magic looping but now love it, started (but as yet not finished as I am finding them a tad boring!) a pair of two at a time toe up socks and learnt to knit continental style.  The rest of my goals are mainly spinning related but since I have still not managed more than 5 minutes playing they may take longer to achieve!

I have had several patterns queued on Ravelry for a loooong time, some of which I have never had the confidence to knit.  Well, I'm sat here matching my favourite stashed yarn to those patterns and am determined to complete them in 2013...if nothing else I need more shawls desperately!

My plans include:

StarLight Shawl in Wollmeise Pure "True Love" and "WD Versuch (Schwartz)"
Double Knitting which I've never attemped!

Koi Garden Shawlette in Kauni Effektgarn EQ
Entrelec, which I have again never attempted!

I also have several skeins of purchased handspun I'm attempting to find projects for and a gorgeous skein of Gradiance Yarns Silver Sparkle in Tropics which is destined to be a semi circular shawl methinks!

 

But for now, I really should finish my current WIP's...