So, while I haven’t sorted them out yet, I did make something. It was a rather belated birthday present for a fellow crafty librarian, the lovely Jennie Law.

It’s a kilt/shawl pin, with vintage pearls and silver findings. I also busted out some embroidery thread and did some paper embroidery, using a modified image from What Katie Does’s tutorial but didn’t think to take a photo of that, alas!

I started the stashbust with a Calorimetry, which used up the remains of some Artesano Aran in green and maroon. It’s a little big and I didn’t think the colour change out too well, so there’s no photo for the blog, but you can see it on its Rav project page. I am mostly just happy with something that keeps my ears warm and used up some odds and ends.

The next stash bust was this, a Hap Blanket from Ysolda’s Whimsical Little Knits, which rejoices under the project name of The Hogswatch Hap.

It originally started life off as a Hemlock Ring Blanket but I stuffed up the feather and fan and decided to just frog the whole thing. I only had the one colour with me because I was working on it at my parents’ this Christmas, so it became a single colour hap. I absolutely love it! It did get a little awkward to knit once the edging was started but the end result is large enough, delightfully warm (I am sitting under it as I type) and used up a significant chunk of my stash, consisting as it does, of 7.5 balls of DROPS Alaska. It’s definitely on my list to knit again, this time with a contrasting colour.

And excitingly and also, more on the WIP finishing resolution than the stashbusting, I finally stopped sulking about the sleeves on my Cherry – er, round about August I knitted them and discovered that one was about an inch and a half shorter than the other, cue some knitterly sulking and the project being stuffed in a bag – cast on for sleeve attempt number three (the return of the electric boogaloo…) and ended up with a matching pair. Now all I need to do is sew it up, pick up the buttonband and collar and I might actually get to wear the damn thing for this spring/summer! Miracles may never cease, I tell you.

So, so far, so good and I’m determined to carry on with my stash knitting. So, here is a short list of things I am going to knit and the yarn from the stash that matches. (all links are Ravelry)

• Erika Knight’s Lace Top in pale blue Kidsilk Haze
• North Sea Shawl by Cheryl Oberle in DiC Baby in either Forest or Mystic
• Eunny Jang’s Endpaper mitts in two of the many colours of Sheldridge Farm’s sock yarn I own
• Featherweight Cardigan by Hannah Fettig in DiC Baby, whichever colourway doesn’t become the North Sea Shawl.

This is not the full list of course but I’m slowly working through my queue and rearranging/assigning yarns. I’m looking forward to making a dent in both the stash and my long list of queued patterns.

I started 2010 with a bang. That’s the costume I made for the New Year’s party I attended. And when I say made, I mean, I sewed that skirt! Oh yes! The week before Christmas saw me back with my family, hunched over my mom’s elderly sewing machine making the occasional squawky noise and being watched by my mother. But in the end there it was, a skirt in taffeta with channels for ruching up one side with ribbon, a zip and the the most annoying to make but awesome once attached ruffle.

I also made the fascinator and the goggles I wore and my ray gun. The one I’m holding in the photo was made for me by my other half for Christmas and is amazing but not something I wanted to take out on a evening, so I spent an entertaining afternoon sticking masking tape on a water pistol and then there was fun times with spray paint. In fact, masking tape featured heavily as my goggles involved heavy amounts of it as well.

2010 is the year I do far more sewing. My sewing class starts next week and I’m rather looking forward to it. The other plan for 2010 is to knit my damn stash. I fear it slightly but there we are, it must be done. I’m going to do another post about what I have knitted in 2009, what I have to knit and what patterns I want to knit in 2010.

Thankfully they did and Maria has kindly let me use the photo of one of her kitties (George) providing scale to the tiny, tiny shoes. I can’t wait to see the wee one in them as soon as they decide they’re ready to appear!

Otherwise, it’s mostly baby knitting at the moment and secret baby knitting at that. It’s kind of amazing how many people I know are pregnant at the moment!

I’m particularly fond of the sewing themed buttons and the crayon buttons but the teeny, tiny buttons are also high up there.

The rest of my afternoon was taken up with a walk through Hyde Park, the purchasing of an ironing board (haaaaaaaa!), which required me to walk home with it clutched under one arm and then some time spent at my sewing machine, getting some more practice in, particularly in regards to seams and the straightness thereof. I have signed up for a sewing course in January, so I want to be far more comfortable with sewing by then than I am now.

Out of my practising came a useful item though. It’s a pincushion, the pattern (in so much that there is one) comes from Diana Rupp’s Sew Everything, which Jam brought me awhile ago. It’s a very helpful book and I am looking forward to making quite a few of the patterns with my shiny new pincushion by my side!

Knitting wise, I am alllllmoooost finished my Cherry (by Anna Bell), just one and bit sleeves and the ribbing to go. I have also signed up for the Knitting Goddess’ sock club after Sadie linked to it (I am so weeeaaaaak!), so I am looking forward to getting squashy parcels through the post soon.

The Socktopus Mystery shawl is complete! I did end up casting on again on bigger needles, 6mm this time and that plus the DK-y weight of the yarn means my shawl is huuuuge. But still, lovely!

Clue one of the Socktopus Mystery Shawl

I’ve joined the knit-a-long for Alice from Socktopus’ Mystery Shawl [Rav Link] and up there you can see clue one, in its completed state. I’m knitting mine in Socks that Rock (Heavyweight) in Jaded and I’m loving both the yarn and the pattern. Although, really, I think I should have knitted the first clue on 6mm needles as the StR Heavyweight is very much a DK-y sock yarn but I do like the effect it gives now – and there’s still the blocking to take into consideration.

Hilariously, this is the first time that Jam and I are knitting the same pattern at the same time – we often knit the same things but staggered, so it’s quite nice to be able to compare and contrast as we go, particularly as we’re using very different yarns.

I was on holiday in sunny Cornwall recently and aside from the walking and the constant eating (om nom nom, clotted cream!), I got quite a bit of knitting done. Chiefly, I finished off CosmicPluto’s Milkweed shawl.

It’s an absolutely lovely pattern to knit – I had one or two hitches but it was mostly where I’d missed out an kfb a couple times and tinking back soon fixed that. Mine [Rav Link] is knitted in Fyberspates’s BFL sock yarn (a very old sock club colourway) and I just made it on yardage – I think I stopped two rows early to make sure I had enough yarn for the bind off.

And as soon as I bound that off, I immediately cast on for the Dream in Color shrug in DiC’s Classy (Go Go Grassy), which I am juuuust about to finish, so I will save that for another post. It’s another very quick and easy knit – ideal for a holiday!

(I am trying to get back on the blogging horse, so there may well be a flurry of posts shortly as I try get into a posting routine again!)

Now that I’m done with academia and work has settled down and the summer actually feels like it’s actually going to arrive, we’ve been spending a lot of time in what passes for the garden – we do actually have bed space as well but it’s still a bit of a mess until we finish dealing with a pest problem.

But I have herbs (although my majoriam hasn’t taken, woe!) and window boxes and shortly, salad leaves!

And because it requires me to do a lot of it outside, new uses for Altoid tins which have involved spray paint and a semi-fruitless trek around various different hardware stores. Further photos to come, once I pick up the remaining bits and assemble the whole thing.

And, of course there has been knitting. Some of these are finished and others are still works in progress. And there’s more works in progress that don’t have photos yet.

I knitted Ysolda’s Ishbel in Lorna’s Laces sock weight but try as I might, the pattern and I just never properly clicked. There are some mistakes in the finished shawl but they’re all ones I’m willing to live with and it’s certainly been used often since I finished it, so it was a success in that sense! The Abby cowl is my commute project at the moment and is also using up some handspun lace weight wool that I bought off Etsy ages ago.

The socks are Mona Schmidt’s Embossed Leaves [Rav Link] from 25 Favourite Sock Patterns. They’re knitted in Sheldridge Farm Ultra in Apple and I <3 them. And the final picture is my Lace Ribbon Scarf, which was another commute knit.

Also on the needles but currently not photographed is Anna Bell’s Cherry, which is knitting along nicely in a plum Debbie Bliss Cathay and Jared Flood’s Hemlock Ring Blanket, which I attended a class for with the lovely Jared himself at Socktopus last week and look forward to having on my lap come Autumn! I’m using Drops’ Alaska in grey for it.

I’ve also been secret squirrel crafty but I can’t post pictures and talk about them until I’ve posted them all off to their respective recipients! Soon though, soon.

Oh, oh dearie me. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Er. I moved flat (again, still sharing with Jam), changed jobs (still a librarian but now out of the legal sector) and graduated (Master of Science, baby! Wooooo!) and blogging kind of fell to the wayside for a bit.

I have much more to show but for the moment, I’ll just point at that image there and go bweeee! My Cheshire Cat Stole [Ravelry] is done, blocked and making me grin every time I wear it because the colour is just So Damn Cheerful!

There’s a few more photos of it on my Flickr, plus some photos of the other things I need to post about. Sneak preview, if you will!