That 70's Show

Yes I have finally finished all of my planned knitting for babies that were born in 2010.

Two cuddly toys and the Starsky and Hutch inspired jumper pictured above. I am really happy with how it looks, and even happier with the new dad's reception of it - he was over the moon.

I knitted quite a lot of it during DVD marathons over the past couple of weekends - Mad Men, The Muppet Show and That 70's Show. An eclectic mix I am sure you will agree!

Unfortunately I still have several other projects on the needles - including a 4ply jumper (silly girl) another shawl and my first instalment of the Socktopus 2011 sock club.

Really it is a good thing that I have decided to have a bit of a stashdown this year and not buy any yarn until knit nation (July). Right?

Well what a surprise!

I realised something yesterday, something I am sure you all knew years ago..... If I actually want to get any knitting done, then I do actually have to take it out of the bag and move my needles!

This may sound simple, but I think I have got dragged down by having too many things that I want to do and not really knowing where to start!!!

Well I have been on two training courses this week that have been focused on goals and how to achieve them and rather than applying these to other areas of my life to start with I am using them on my knitting - that way I can see progress!!!

Last night I finally finished one of Sophie the rabbits ears and it is my goal to finish the other one tonight, which would mean that baby Ariadne can finally have her toy, I will have actually finished something this year and I can use the correct needles on that jumper I am so close to finishing.....

You know - I might actually get some stuff done this year!

There has been some knitting....

Not much, but a little!

I have continued working on my 12 jumpers and was making very good progress up until the point that I started getting terrible pains in my right arm and had to stop knitting all together for several months!

So the current position is 8 jumpers finished (and most worn very regularly), one jumper on the needles, two jumpers just waiting to be sewn up - hahaha 'just' as if they haven't each been waiting over a year already - and one jumper to cast on.

Now if only people would stop having babies, I might have a chance to get some jumpers finished!

Testing testing 1...2....3

This is a test to see if I can blog from my phone! I know that I have been a terrible blogger these past few months and have neglected you, however in my defence there has been a lot going on! Some of it sad, but recently some of it very happy. I have high hopes that the future will mean much more of the latter.

Day 2 of Elephant Hunting

We went hunting for more elephants in London on Friday. There was a whole herd in Green Park. (Although I have only posted a small selection!)






















And plenty more in the surrounding area! By 7.30pm I was up to 77 of the 158 elephants!

I am quite pleased with my progress so far, but I think I will just do a round up of a few elephants everyday - as at time of posting I am up to 87!

I'm going on an elephant hunt...

You may remember Elijah from a previous post. Today he has been out in London making some new friends....

I will warn you know that this is a very picture heavy post!

First of all we went to the V and A on my way to work.....
















Then at lunch time we went to High Street Kensington:

Then after work we went to meet some more elephants from the Elephant Parade:


Which brings my total elephants to 28. Which isn't bad for one day! Only 230 to go!

Bits and Pieces

Despite my complete lack of blogging I have actually been quite productive recently!

I have finished jumpers 3 and 4 (so only 8 to go!). I have managed to painstakingly unpick parts of jumpers 5 and 6 that I had messed up, so hopefully they should get finished sometime soon.

I have been sewing - I made another bag like the one in my last post and then went to a Dressmaking weekend at the Papered Parlour in Clapham. It was really good and I am quite proud of the dress that I made:

So maybe it is not that impressive, but I did design and make it in 10 hours!

I am really pleased with how the back turned out -

I have also got some grand plans for future sewing, here is a sneaky peek...

And finally I have been adding buttons to anything and everything - I am particularly pleased with how some nice wooden buttons look on my new shoes.

Spring Cleaning

I have been doing a bit of spring cleaning over the Easter weekend. I have had a few projects that have been hanging around that I have not been sure about for various reasons so I have now frogged them.

I love this pattern (Citron) and will definitely make it in the future, but this particular project had bad memories for me as it was what I was knitting when I found out that my Grandad had died.

I am planning on using the yarn to knit a featherweight cardigan - which is a project that I have also frogged over the past few days as the yarn that I was using just broke so easily - but to be honest the yarn is laceweight cashmere I am not quite sure what I was expecting!
Pretty colour though.

This is what they look like now:


It hasn't all been ripping back projects though - although I don't yet have a 3rd Jumper I do have about 5 potentials for that throne. They are all at least halfway through, so as soon as I can knit again ( I have got pains in my wrist/arm again) hopefully I will get at least one of them finished before the end of this month.

In other craft news I went to a learn to sew class at John Lewis a couple of weekends ago - I am so proud of the little bag that I made.

Hopefully my Mum will be bringing my sewing machine when she comes to visit so that I can sew some more things!