How are you doing so far this year? Are you on track with any New Years resolutions or have you, like me, already slipped from your aims before the end of the first month? Actually, I didn't really have any hard and fast resolutions for the new year, just a general aim to be a bit more organised on all fronts and more tidy around the house. I started out quite well, targeting the kitchen and clearing out cupboards of anything that is no longer in regular use. A day of sorting, cleaning and trip to the charity shop made things feel brighter and tidier in the kitchen.

 

 

But now I seem to have stalled. What really needs tackling is my yarn stash which has got out of hand and spilled out from it's allotted areas to take over most of the living room. The problem is it's hard to tear myself away from knitting but even that lacks order at the moment. Where I really should be buckling down and getting on with the next pattern, instead I am flitting about knitting a new tea cosy or fiddling about with blankety ideas (I keep trying to shake the urge to start a new crochet blanket but it won't quite leave me alone). I am pleased with my new tea cosy though. Knitted in charcoal grey Alafoss Lopi from Meadow Yarn from a Churchmouse yarns pattern, details on ravelry.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, there is productive knitting going on and that is good at least for reducing my stash – the more I knit the smaller it will get so perhaps I should feel completely justified in knitting instead of getting on with cleaning out the cupboard under the stairs. I would much rather be playing around with yarn, especially bunny knitting in ash grey and lingerie pink which is a colour combination that just sings to me at the moment. I finished off some Quince and Co sparrow linen dresses (one of the patterns in my seasonal dresses collection)…

 

 

And I started a couple of bunnies…

 

 

Do you love the little hangers and the cups and cake in the top right hand corner? I fell in love with them as they're perfect sized bunny accessories (made by Maileg and I got mine from Bijou).

The third dress I've made in this yarn (Rowan Cotton 4ply which is my favourite ever yarn for knitting bunny clothes from but is sadly discontinued)  just needs an animal to wear it – I'm leaning towards a grey cat at the moment but there's a mouse and an elephant in the running too. I'll have to decide before I can knit up the body…

 

 

At least the lovely new basket I bought with money I was given for Christmas is helping keep my work-in-progress neat and tidy and it's big enough to fit in all of my knitting essentials (basket from Injabulo). Well, I'm off to my cosy corner to knit a bit more – it's important work this stash reducing 😉

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PS: Any products that I mention here on the blog are things I've bought for myself or our family with my own money – I don't write sponsored or solicited posts.

I hope your new year has got off to a good start. Here we're still acclimatising to our term time routines. It always takes a week or so to adjust, especially in the mornings as Toby is definitely not a morning person – something not helped by the fact that he's usually awake for a couple of hours during the night. We've also all come down with colds (though everyone seems to have one of those at the moment) and I've been nursing mine with lemon and honey tea (with the odd nip of whisky) and lots of soothing knitting.

 

 

 

 

I have too many unfinished projects on the go at the moment; a pair of wrist-warmers waiting for thumbs; three quarters of a sock; a barely started shawl; a nearly finished scarf; around 30 assorted animals at varying degrees of development; heaps of animal clothes waiting for buttons and seaming… and yet I also find myself trying to resist the desire to start a new crochet blanket (I'm succeeding at the moment but keep catching myself daydreaming about blankety ideas) and I have a yearning for a knitted tea cosy too – something chunky and textured perhaps. I'm definitely in a flitting knitting phase and can't seem to settle down to work on a single project and see it through.

What I really need to do is have a proper new year sort out, tidy up all of my baskets and bags of bits, inventory everything and impose some order on my woolly chaos. The start of a new year seems like a good time to tackle such a task and once I've got rid of my cold I'll make a start but for now I'm heading back to the sofa with a cup of warm tea and a hot water bottle for a bit more knitty mess making 🙂

Do you have any new year desires to clear the decks and start afresh, or de-clutter and get organised? Do tell your new year plans if you have time.

Until next time, keep well and warm and dry – it looks like we have a cold snap heading our way over the next week which is bad news for my plum tree. Yesterday I noticed that it had it's first blossom which is earlier that we've ever known it before and not a good sign for a good crop of plums later in the year. I hope it feels the change in the wind and decides to wait a while before swelling the rest of it's buds.

 

 

Just popping in very quickly to wish you all the best for 2016. Here are some of my happy moments from 2015. The year we got a new flock of hens; Toby had a hair cut and was very excited by his new appearance; Amy started her GCSE year and did brilliantly in her mocks just before Christmas (mostly As and A*s and a few Bs) now she just has to do it for real in May; there were lots of wood walks; a makeover for our bedroom and of course lots of knitting for me.

 

 

While I'm here, I thought I'd look back on some previous years mosaic round-ups and feel all nostalgic now!

2014

 

2013

 

2012

 

2011

 

2010

 

 

2009

 

 

2008

 

Will be back soon, once the Christmas dust has been hoovered up and I'm in the swing of things again, til then I wish you a happy and healthy beginning to the new year x