Out with the old.....
...and in with the new.....
Well hasn't it been a long time since I posted on here? 2010 kidnapped me and took me away from bloggerland...to be fair it was mainly Ravelry that took me away!
One other major thing that got in the way in 2010 was...Life....it seriously sucked me in on a number of occasions, spun me around and knocked me for six, but...I guess there is too much Doom and Gloom in this world already, so I will leave those episodes in the vault and concentrate on 2011.
I know that some of these things will follow me into 2011 with some gusto, but instead of allowing them to dictate what is going to happen this year, instead I'm just going to front them up and say 'Bring It On!'


So, as I said....Ravelry stole me away from Bloggerland and the whole world of Knitting and all things Yarny, seduced me even more than the year before and thus I didn't do a lot of stitching. Because of this, I forgot to update my blog with the things I had finished as without even using one single brain cell....I automatically uploaded them to Ravelry instead.


For those of you who are on this incredible site, you can see all my finishes here if you haven't already got me as a friend.


For those of you that are not on there, please find below a little collage of various finishes.







They include a lot of shawls as I took on the challenge of knitting 10 in 2010. The bottom 4 pictures are of the item I was most pleased with, a rather charming little jumper from the wonderful Stitch in Time Book
For once I think I found an item of clothing that suited me and it goes with various pieces from my wardrobe and will get a lot of use.


If anyone would like any info on the shawl patterns then please leave a comment and I will endeavour to give you the info you need.


Enough about knitting.....my first finish of this year sees me going back to cross stitching. It's a little piece that I've had started for years and for some stupid reason didn't finish. It's a chart from a freebie that I can't even remember where I found it. The picture isn't fab as it's in the downstairs loo and there is no natural light in there.

It's stitched on a little hand towel that has a piece of aida type fabric across the width. Of course it features bunnies....what else I hear you cry, and no I have not yet knitted a jumper with bunnies on but I guess there's time yet!
It was really nice to get back into a bit of stitching and there will be more on the horizon. I want to finally finish the Mirabilia Autumn Maiden of the Season that I have had on the go since 2009.
I would also like to get Mirabilia's Royal Holiday finished for Christmas 2011 as again, I have had this on the go for a while.
It might also be a good idea to finish the Teresa Wentzler Millennium design that is virtually done. Only a comet and part of an angel left.

So...that's a rather short(ish) update on me. I am sat in my lovely conservatory complete with underfloor heating, knitting on yet another shawl, whilst wearing a home made knitted tank top and knitted socks, catching up with the Electric Sheep podcast, wondering whether or not I will get any readers to this post or whether indeed I have just dropped of the Bloggerland radar due to being AWOL!


So, if you are out there and are reading, then I thank you for not forgetting me, and as usual wish you well and ask you to feel free to rabbit on....

Finally another finish....
Again folks it has been a while since I posted to my blog. I have been taken up with the knitting side of things and as I post to Ravelry all the time about my knitting WIPs and Happy Dances, I tend to forget to post them over here too.

Well, yesterday, my stitching mojo made a brief appearance and I picked up a Shepherd's Bush Needleroll that I had started sometime last year. It's the first time that I have made anything like this....I've just oohed and ahhed at other's people's prowess in this area of Stitcingdom. I am rather pleased with the finished result.

I have another kit in my stash, the Birdhouse Needleroll complete with Birdhouse charm! The Beehive one will live in our conservatory in a wicker basket and will be rather lonesome until I finish the other one!
I do have plans to make a few small items like these, biscornu, small pillows ect and will display them all in our conservatory.
Thanks for reading folks....feel free to Rabbit on....

Cross Stitch? What's that?...
It's been sooooooooooo long since I stitched anything let alone finish anything! I have been bitten well and truly by the knitting and yarn buying bug. Strange then that on Christmas Eve morning I got up and felt compelled to start the Country Cottage Needleworks Butterfly as shown to the left!
Well indeed I did start it and have finished it just now...
In other news....I have a house guest for five days. He is called Barney and looks like this......

He is my DH's niece's rabbit and we are bunny sitting whilst they are away for a few days. He is a cute little fellow and is settling in well. It's the first time a bunny has been in the house since the Queen of G died and to be honest, it's made me realise I don't want another on a permanent basis. Whilst Barney (or Rubble as I'm calling him!) is a sweetie, he does make me think of Bunny and I was a little sad to be honest and I knew then that Bunny cannot be replaced and that I wouldn't be comfortable being a permanent Petmum to another bunny just yet.
I will hopefully be updating this place a bit more in the future but no promises now!!!
Feel free to Rabbit On...

A Rotation Round-up...and a little S.E.X...
Hopefully, this will become a four weekly regular unless I get really excited over something in the middle of the rotation that I can't wait to show you!
Week one as some of you will know, saw the completion of the baby cardigan that had been languishing in the bottom of a bag for a couple of years. It also saw me pick up my Violet Green Entrelac Socks.
Week two saw me move onto stitching a wip and I made good progress on my Rabbit Run Sampler.
Week three was the Anything Goes week so I decided to finish my VG socks and boy do I lurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrve them! I like everything about them, the pattern was really simple and the colour IMHO is gorgeous. I then picked up a new start, my Nutkins which I also like a lot.
Week four was the beginning of the injury/bug/'I feel ill' week. It also saw me start a new cross stich piece, namely Mirabilia's Summer Maiden.
I am stitching this on Sugar Maple's Malory on 32ct lugana. As with Winter and Spring, I am leaving off the borders so it fits on a 13" x 18". I think the colours of the threads go really well with the fabric colour. Well, can I tell you, this baby stitches up fast. The pic to the right shows you a week's progress, bearing in mind the first day was stitched whilst my hand was in a sling (nothing keeps a crafter from her crafts!!) and the rest of the week, I have done no more than 3 hours a day, and they havn't been continuous. Seeing as this lady wants to be stitched quickly, I don't think she will take me long. I've bought some invisble thread today to use for the beads. I've not used it before so we will see how I like it.
So, I am now back to week one and have picked up my nutkins, but I have also added a new goal and that is to stitch 10 rows a day on another WIP regardless of what week it is. This adds approx 1" to the project which I need greatly!!
Oh...what is this project? Well it's a scarf I started after I bought the yarn back in Nov 2005 at the Harrogate Knitting Show. I fell in love instantly! The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill's Merino Lace in Peacock and the pattern is called Cloud by Sue Morgan. I have a long way to go as I am making a wrap which 1s 65cm x 176cm. Since the pic I have added 3".

Now,I have also acquired some new stuff, as well as the previously mentioned Debbie Bliss Stella, which arrived on Tuesday. Today saw the delivery of January's Ltd Edition CTH sock club installment. It is a Supersock Solid in a colour called Cornflower and it's very purty! You can see it here. I also bought a new book, namely Mason-Dixon Knitting: The Curious Knitter's Guide. First impressions are that I will enjoy using it more as a book than as a knitting book if you catch my drift, although some of the patterns are growing on me...
I also ordered some Noro Silk Garden and will update with picks as and when it arrives and will be looking at some Rowan Tapestry once I've finished here. I am really pleased that I am enjoying both knitting and stitching as much as each other, despite the trapped nerve in my shoulder!
Ok...again I have Rabbitted on for ages...something I seem to be doing a lot lately. As always...til next time...

The PLAN seems to be working...
I mentioned a few posts back that I had a plan to organise my hobbies and stash. So far so good except I have changed the weeks in the plan around to suit my needs.
Week one was implemented and as a result I did finish a knitting WIP, namely the baby cardigan I posted about. I also then picked up my Violet Green Entrelac socks that I started in October last year. I made good progress on them and then went onto week two...

Week two saw me pick up my Rabbit Run Sampler. I didn't do too bad on a week and you can see the progress to the left. During this week I worked on the bottom row of rabbits, fully completing the right hand one and the grass underneath. I have yet to do the backstitching which I dislike doing since it's an Anchor design and I hate their BS charts. Since the pic was taken I have also started on a motif of carrots on the right hand side. I think that when week two comes around again, I will be able to finish the carrots so will only have a rabbit and some cabbage to do and it will be a finish!

Week three was changed to 'Anything Goes' and I decided to pick my Entrelac socks back up and hey presto! I finished them. They are knit in Regia Canadian Color in the Ontario colourway. I love how this yarn looks on this pattern. I was left with 36g of it after finishing so will put that to some good use in a future project I am sure. I then decided to start some socks that I had seen on Ravelry, namely Nutkin. As you can see from that page I am using some of the Rico Designs Superba. This pattern is knitting up very fast and as I am knitting two at a time I am halfway through the leg on each. I have til Thursday on this week so I think I will manage to get to the heel shaping on both by then.
Week four will see me start a new cross stitch piece. I have chosen Mirabillia's Summer Maiden of the Season as I have Winter on my wall at the mo, to be replaced by Spring on 21st March, so I need to get Summer and Autumn finished this year.

As far as the plan to use all my bath stuff, that's working great as well and I have already dispensed of one of my Christmas pressies and have moved onto the next. My hands are really benefitting from using the hand cream twice a day and I am rather pleased that I am keeping up with this goal too because I am developing space in my bath cupboard!

I have also kept up with my fitness, completing a run this morning. My Mini-me shows that I have only done 4 runs but I have actually done a 2mile and a 5.15 mile run but I messed up on transferring one over and the nano messed up on the other!. I was really tired this morning and was surprised to see that I had upped my pace. I had been out walking in the Lakes this weekend so my legs were tired, but maybe not as tired as I thought!
Well, I have rabbited on again...til next time folks...take care...

A finishing frenzy...
Since my last post I have taken photos of some recent finishes. I stitched some little tote bags for the daughters of two of my friends for Christmas. They are from Charles Craft
The natural coloured ones are for a 7, 6 and 4 year old and the denim one for a 5 year old. They were all stitched using various threads from GAST, GAST Simply Shaker, WDW and Six Strand Sweets.
This is the 7 year olds. Her favourite colour is purple so that's why I chose the colours. I also bought some books to go in it, as I did with all the girls. The other bag with the purple border is for the 6 year old as she too liked purple but also liked yellow. The pale colours were chosen for the 4 year old as she liked pink! They are all quite head strong and know what they like! They didn't take long, about a week each. The letters I used are from Lizzie*Kate's A-B-Crazy
They were all stitched between the middle of October and second week of December so I did leave it a bit late to decide to make presents for people! I then bought the new Country Cottage Needleworks Garden Party series. I really like these designs and as I already have a set of Crescent Colours threads, I knew I would like stitching them. Being from England, I didn't want to put Ladybug so I altered the chart to say Ladybird. I did also sub out the spot colour to a black rather than the brown colour supplied in the kit. They are stitched on 28ct lugana and I hope to back them all in some fabric that co-ordinates with the borders and hang them in my downstairs WC on a pegboard.
Excuse the creases!


Then, once I had finished those (I have the other two on order) I decided to finish a baby cardigan that I had started years ago and never finished. A girl at work had a little girl on 4th Jan, so I am giving it to her. The body was knit in one piece until the stocking st and I knit the sleeves on DPNs to avoid the seam. This worked really well as they were drop sleeves, you just have to swap back to straight needles when leaving the marker for the sleeve extension.
I am caught back up with my knitting bug. It's down to buying some Knit Picks Harmony Needles from Get Knitted I love Get Knitted, they always parcel things up in a great way, and I also adore the DPNs.They are sooooooooo smooth and a joy to knit with.
Then thanks to a post on Ravelry, I was introduced to The Knitting Goddessand I bought some lush sock yarn from there. It can be seen in my Ravelry stash page.
Well I've rabbitted on for a while so that's all for now folks...I'll talk about my latest obsession another day...