Eat That Frog! How to get organised

Hey guys, I'm posting about being organised today - another big part of my life! Recently I bought a book called 'Eat That Frog', and the idea behind the title is this: all your tasks that you have to do are 'frogs', and a phrase that's mentioned in this book is: "if you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first". Basically, this means, if you have more than one important task that you must get done, do the hardest, most difficult one first. Then, when it comes to the next task, the worst is over and you can feel good about your accomplishment. Great, right?

I won't give too much away about this book, because I'm sure I'll get into trouble about giving away ideas from a book you have to pay for. What I will say, is that certain things inspired me to create a way of getting organised: making specific lists!

I printed out some of these free printables from Organised Home and used them to make my lists. What I have done is make four lists: my Master list, my Monthly list, my Weekly list, and my Daily list. I used the lined blank pages for these lists. You can just use scrap paper if you like, but I already had these printed out, so I thought I'd use them.

I start off by writing everything done on the Master and Monthly lists. This is things like "sort out what career I want to do after uni", "sort out my dissertation topic" (I'm a uni student). On my Monthly list I have things like my exam dates, and the essay deadlines, as well as any things that I can think of that need to be done in that month. (I don't include things such as bills to pay, as that is ongoing and repeated every month, so I have a separate calendar printable for that). I then turn to the Weekly list, and add some things from the Master and Monthly - so, you get a bit of an overlap on the lists of certain tasks - which are tasks such as any appointments I have that week, or that I need to pick up my new glasses. Finally I created a Daily list, the day before it is needed by - so, on Tuesday I write my list for Wednesday, and so on. The Daily list has all the trivial things on it, such as "do the laundry", "post X's birthday card" and so on. 

Here's a photo of my papers. I purposefully took the photo from far away so you can't be nosey and read what I've written on my lists!

These lists really help, and as you can see, my daily one is pretty crossed-out! One other thing: don't ever feel bad if there are things on your list at the end of the day. You can always write it on your next Daily list. And don't forget, you can always add things on during the day, you don't have to panic and think that you have to remember everything you need to do tomorrow when writing your Daily list.

So now, if you incorporate these lists with what I learnt from one of the chapters in the book - eat that frog! Look at your Daily list, and see which task is the biggest, meanest, most horrible task, and do it! Obviously, if you have time contraints, like you have to call your bank before it shuts, do so, but in general, do the hardest task first. For me, that's usually my uni work. I will take doing housework over uni reading any day! So, applying this rule, I sat down and wrote an essay plan and got it finished. I felt really good about it, and then carried on my evening by doing all my other tasks. Usually, I do every other task possible before I get to my least favourite, with the thought that "but I've been doing a lot of things today, I can do that one later" - but then later gets too late, and I have to transfer that task over to the next day, where the same thing repeats. That way, I end up leaving an important task until really late, and then rushing it, stressing, and not have it done properly. If I do things this way, my essays will be done on time relatively stress-free.

This method can be applied to any person: whether you're a businessperson and you have a lot of important paperwork and deadlines, whether you're a housewife and have lots of housework, appointments, and children to deal with, or whether you're a student like me, and you have essays and reading to do. This method works really well for me, and I hope it works well for others. I have my papers sat on my desk (purposefully in the way) so I remember to consult them throughout the day to remind myself of what tasks I have to do.

Also, two other pointers:

I use this application called Stay Focused. It's an add-on for Google Chrome, and you can change all the settings so that it blocks you from certain websites for certain times. You can set it so that you can't go on Blogger or Facebook during work hours, or set it so that you can only go on it for 20minutes a day. It's up to you. It works great - during the day, when I'm supposed to be 'eating my frog', I tend to procrastinate and go on Facebook, or check my email about a dozen times. With this, I can stop myself from doing that all day, so I have more of a chance of staying focused.

And finally, my last tip. When I have to settle down and do my work, I find other things to do such as tidy my room until it is immaculate, or find something, such as my magazines, that need to be alphabetised right then, and the task seems so important I forget about my essays. What I've started to do, is to open up YouTube, and pick a song that I really like at the minute, and tell myself that I only have that much time to tidy up. That way I run around my room for around 4mins30, tidying up only the most important things, so that a) I have the 'tidying up' urge out of my system, b) my room is relatively tidy so I have space at my desk to sit down and do my work, and c) I don't spend an hour looking through my CDs.

This way, I manage to keep my procrastination down to a minimum (because I usually put the 'pro' into 'procrastination'), and manage to get around to doing most of my work without feeling stressed!

So there you have it. My organising tips. Quite a lot in one post. I felt that this was more of a pressing post than my knitting, because the only knitting that I have been doing recently is a scarf for Mother's Day, so it would have been a very short post, just like my scarf!

Until next time.

Knitted teddy and crocheted blanket

(I never know what to title my posts with!)

Today is Wednesday, and I decided that I need to post an update of everything that's been happening! I've been knitting a teddy for my Grandma's birthday - which is tomorrow - and got it finished over the weekend. I took a couple of pictures along the way, but completely forgot to take a picture of the final product. These are the latest pictures that I took: 

So, this is the teddy without the face, the arms and the sewn-up head.

...and this is the teddy with the face (white features and black safety eyes), picking up stitches at the side to attach the arms.

I will eventually like to post the pattern for this teddy, but I'd like to post a picture-guided pattern. I need to make a teddy for my Mum soon for Mother's Day, so I can do the pattern/pictures for that one. So stay tuned!

So, I had that teddy sat on my desk for about four days, and I completely forgot to take pictures of it completed. Yesterday, I wrapped it up to send off in the post to my Grandma - only then did I remember that I hadn't taken any pictures of it! Damn. Oh well. Like I said, I'll do a picture-guided pattern once I make the next teddy for my Mum.

The next project that I started, was my crochet Granny Stripe Blanket. Last week I posted a picture of the blanket sample that I made. I was planning on waiting until I had money to buy lots and lots of yarn for it, but I got too excited so I started with one of the balls of yarn that I already have. Naughty me. I took the yarn and my crochet hook to London for the weekend (I was visiting my boyfriend), and started the first few rows. The pattern requires you to chain 240 stitches. Every 20 stitches, I would place a marker, in order to make it easier to count the stitches at the end. Each set of 20 that I chained, I would count and count again, to make sure I had dead on 240. The pattern says that if you are out by one stitch, it can mess up the pattern (as it requires it to be a certain amount due to the repeat). Luckily, I had the right amount of stitches, so went along, chaining the next few rows. It took me a while to realise that the pattern said to chain the foundation chain loosely, and I later realised why. I had gotten to my second stripe when I noticed that my work would not lay flat, and that it was curving/bunching to one side - damn too-tight foundation chain.

So, unfortunately, I had to rip back the five rows that I had done, and start over again, with a bigger sized hook for the foundation chain (and then switched to the regular hook once I'd done the foundation) and start that dreaded Count all over again, checking and re-checking my stitch count, placing markers at every 20 stitch interval, making sure that the chain wasn't too tight. Nightmare. But, I am now on the 3rd or 4th row, and all is right in the world:

The next colour in my stripe sequence is this lime green colour. It looks lovely next to the purple. This blanket is going to be really brightly coloured. There will be 60 stripes in total, so depending on how many different colours of yarn that I will use, will depend on how many stripes of each colour I need. I'm undecided as to whether to do a random pattern, or to have a sequence of colours and an order to follow. Random would be good, but I'm quite OCD so I'm not sure if I can *do* random!

That's all for this week. Looking at my blanket makes me want to crochet more of it, but I have an essay to write with a deadline on Sunday, so I really ought to get cracking on that! I'm enjoying crochet so much at the moment (this is my first project) that I want to crochet at every possible opportunity, rather than studying. I have to restrict myself and 'reward' myself at the end of the day by crocheting before bed. Oh what an exciting life I lead!

Until next time - where I will have hopefully done more to my blanket, or have something new to report on this teddy for my Mum.

A secondary introduction to this blog

I haven't posted in a very long time. I partly put this down to my university course, as I have been very busy since September, but I also blame myself, for not putting in the effort once a week to write a blog post.

Over Christmas, I picked up the needles again and started knitting some more. I also began learning how to crochet, and even have taken an interest in quilling. I've been reading through a couple of craft blogs when I have been looking for patterns and designs, and have had a nosy through the rest of the blog for different people. It made me realise, that I wish I had a blog and I remembered, duh!, that I do have a blog; a very neglected one. I felt bad an immediately wanted to write in it to liven it up again, and share my crafty wonders with the world!

I have changed the URL of my blog to 'kadi2tog'. I'm wondering how long this will stay (knowing me, not very long). I thought it was quite amusing, as when you remove the 'di' from my name, it sounds like 'k2tog' anyway. ...yes, a very lame joke ...moving on...

So yes. I am back, with an introductory post telling you all that I am  back, and that I promise, promise, promise (pinky promise!) that I will start blogging at least once a week. I realised that you can't just wing-it with a blog - it's best to have some sort of idea what you want to post about each week, so you don't end up rushed for time, or end up sitting at the keyboard with writer's block, not having made anything in the past week. So, I shall take my organisation OCD and whip up a plan each week of what to write.

I am rambling. I will stop. I have done so many things recently, but can't fit them all into one post, so I may have to backtrack and cover what I've done over the past few months. My latest projects have been to design my own teddy for my Grandma's birthday next month (the design of which I plan on writing up and posting online), and an increased interest in crochet. I want to knit a blanket in crochet - but first I'd need to buy supplies and to practice my treble crochet to get it perfect, before embarking on such a massive project. I'm really looking forward to it, though.

Oh, also, I'm getting a flat with my partner soon. Yay! I shall be moving out of my student accommodation and setting up home with him within the next few months. So exciting. I mustn't get too ahead of myself because we're still trying to find the ideal place. As soon as we find it, everything is Go!

That's enough for today. I'm off to do some more knitting of this teddy. ...I'll post a cheeky quick pic just to show you what I'm up to:

This is the teddy so far. The pink bits of threat are markers for where I'm going to place the safety eyes (they're on the way in the post). I'm knitting out the right arm by picking up stitches with a crochet hook and creating something to work with. I found the method here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt5h31YgclM&list=PLAB263A84CBC405EA&index=9&feature=plpp_video

I'll post a full entry about this little fella once I get going - must remember to take pictures at different stages! This is the little guy that I'm writing the pattern for, but I may need to make a couple of them before I get the pattern right (because that's what the professional knit designers do, right?). So, that'll be a fun task for me. Plus I'll have lots of cute lil' teddies laying around.

...and here's another photo of the sample I made yesterday for the Granny Stripe Blanket that I want to make:

I really need to fix up my edges. I did it wrong, I think. I'm no crochet master, but I'm enjoying it so much. So long as I remember to keep my tension steady, everything should be fine. I found the pattern here: http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2010/05/granny-striping.html

The colours she uses are just lovely. I'd love to do something similar. It'd cost about £25 to get all the acrylic yarn that she used. A bargain, to be honest, as yarn isn't cheap. I need to settle into my new place first before I make any big spends like that. We're saving as much as we can to make sure we have enough. I'm itching so badly to go buy some yarn to start this project. I mean, I have a big plastic box full of yarn, but I need about 17 million balls of different colours for this blanket. I have nowhere near 17 million, I have about 20. So, I must be patient. At least it's something to look forward to, though!

That's enough from me today; I have to go to bed because I have lectures in the morning. Boo. I mean, yay for education, yay for learning, etc. etc.

Until next time, guys. Happy crafting ~ ♥

It's been a very long time!

I am ever so sorry, I will make more of an effort to post, seeing as I haven't posted since the 28th August! By that point I had moved back to my Mum's to get ready to move to uni, and moved into my uni house with my boyfriend and one of my best friends on the 3rd Sept (with two more friends waiting to arrive shortly). So I spent a while unpacking, but surprisingly have been doing LOADS of knitting recently! My friend has become interested in knitting and has been learning the past two weeks, so we sit knitting together in the living room every day. I've been updating my ravelry, and because of that, I have been neglecting my blog. So sorry. :(

But here's my big list of all the things I've made in the past three weeks:

This is the front and back of my catnip bunny from ravelry (seriously, I love that site so much).  It's so adorable, it's about 1x2inches big, it's so cute. ♥ The way that it's made confused and amazed me; an even number of stitches that follow the *knit 1 slip 1* pattern across, and it makes a little pouch that can be opened at the very end. I think it's adorable.

I also made a cowl, which I have yet to take a picture of, but my friend thought it'd be funny to take a pic of me struggling to get it on:

...I made the bind-off row too tightly knit, so I had to struggle with it to get it on, haha. But, it's really soft and warm, and when it does fit on properly, it feels good. I'll try to remember to take a pic of me actually wearing it. :) But, it was a nightmare to make, as for one it was on circular needles (which I find difficult to hold), and the pattern was repetitive and boring (one row of k5, p5, another row of k1,p1 etc). But, I finished it, and I'm really pleased. The original pattern said to knit it so that it was about 18inches long, but I didn't want a long one so I made a slightly-wider one, with less height and used up a ball of wool for it. Will come in very handy over the winter months.

Next up that I made (which I finished in the early hours of this morning) was this Celtic braid afghan square, which I only did two repeats of the pattern for, because I got bored and wanted to get on and do other projects. Here it is:

The first picture shows the cables better, but the second shows the actual colour of the wool. Silly 2am-lighting. I was so pleased with this, I made one small mistake in the left hand corner, but other than that I did quite well. I want to do a pattern similar to this for handwarmers/fingerless gloves, have a cable pattern running up the back of the hand. Just need to get the right sized needles then away I go. :)

And finally, the best 'til last, is 'Kevin', the Sheldon turtle pattern:

I freakin' love him. I made him for my friend that I live with, and I also have projects lined up for my boyfriend and other two friends that I'll be living with, but I did this one first as I had all the materials. It took me 6 days to fully complete him, just because I kept getting frustrated and having to put him down and start on something else. But tadaa, here he is, detachable shell and all. ♥

So now, after a mad few days finishing recent projects, I only have one project left, and that's my purple socks that I'm doing (toe-up design), but I don't have the heart to do them right now. For now, I'm gonna get ready for bed, get an early night, and get on knitting tomorrow. I'm going to try and keep up with my blog, but I just keep forgetting as I'm so involved with my ravelry account.

Adios~! ♥

At last! I have finished my socks!

Yay! I'm so happy. It took like an hour of my time today to finish what could have been finished over a week ago. These have taken me about a month and a half to make as I put them off so many times. I know that if I were to make them again, though, I'd be able to make them very quickly. Here's some pics I took:

They're soooo cool! So worth the wait.

 ..and they're so comfy! If you look at the way they've been knitted, the stripes don't match because I didn't start each ball of wool at exactly the same colour point, so it gave them this unique effect.

 See here, they're off by a fair bit, but the patterns do actually match up. I just love it. If I made another pair, I'd make sure I started at the same point, but I absolutely love these. If I knew these would have been worth it, I would've knit them a lot quicker.

So, a whole post dedicated to this pair of socks. And now my hands feel cold in comparison to my feet, so I'm finding some wrist warmers to make. Yay! ♥

Lots to do, lots to do! Update of the past week

I've got so many new projects lined up, and have a fair few things to update you on. Fortunately, my projects aren't large as I'm going to make house-warming gifts for my house mates in September, so they're little teddies. Unfortunately, I don't have the right colours of wool for them, so I can't get them done quickly anyway. The 'queue' function on Ravelry is a god-sent to be honest, I don't bother writing my projects down now, I just save it all on there and can access it whenever.

Firstly, I'll update you on my socks. I had a mad knitting spree when I finished the first one, and knit about 2/3rds of the second one in about two days. Then stopped. No idea why, but I didn't feel like it, and I'm so close to finishing:

I need to knit another half an inch or so before decreasing for the toe. I need to give myself a kick to finish these, then I can wear them in bed when it's quite cold. :)

I absolutely loev the colour of this wool. I'll definitely be buying some more of this wool (DROPS Fabel, I think?) To make other stuff in the future. ...or just make more pairs of socks with it!

I also started designing my own blanket squares. I'm making a charity blanket as I've mentioned before, and I've made notes on the design for it. I need three different kinds of squares, and I was making notes to design my own. This is how far I've got:

 Above are my notes and general scribblings and the start of the square. It's a basic "YO, K2tog" pattern but it looks pretty cool. I did a little test-knit, and I should've taken a picture before I unravelled it all. But yes, hopefully it'll be good enough to make as part of a blanket. But I'm not sure about the colour, because the wool is horrible cheap stuff that doesn't feel nice at all, but I use the wool for test knits, or making teddies, as they don't have to be softy soft.

Speaking of teddies, I've started making a 'Miffy' bunny for my house mate, but encountered a problem. I ran out of wool. I've made the head:

...which needs stuffing and the face, but, I don't have enough wool to start on the body:

This isn't enough for the body. Plus, I bought the wool years ago and have no idea what it is, so I've got to go to my local knitting shop and ask them if they can help me get something similar. So this project is on standby until after the bank holiday.

So, I don't have many projects that I can do at the moment, other than finish the socks, which I'm going to crack on with right now.

Oh, one final thing, I was reading through some blogs earlier and they mentioned wordle. I used this ages ago, but now they've introduced a feature which lets you add your blog URL. I did this, and created one from this blog:

They're so fun to make, and you can sit tweaking them for ages, changing the colours, angles, etc. I've been playing with it for quite a while now. It's very interesting. And of course, the largest words would be knitting and socks and patterns. So yeah. That's about it from me today. Happy Knitting! ♥

Finished elefante!

Yay! I finally finished the little elephant! His ears are floppy, and his head lolls about, but nevertheless he's still very cute and my sister is going to love him:

He's so cute!  He's my proudest achievement in knitting, I'm so pleased. I feel sad giving him to my sister but I know she'll look after him. He was quite easy to make (and the pattern can be found on ravelry), and the hardest part was sewing his head onto the body - I'm terrible at sewing, and the reason why his head is floppy is because of this, but yeah, he still looks cute.

Also, I've been getting broody to knit baby clothes, but don't have enough wool or the right size needles to make cardigans, so I made a teeny tiny sock from a pattern on ravelry that I found:

 This is the ickle sock on it's own...

...and this is it next to the sock that I made for myself to wear (with my diddy size 3 feet, so even that sock isn't that big). It's so cute, and I'm in love with this wool. I'll have to remember what brand this wool is, and get some more in different colours. Speaking of my pair of socks, I've almost finished the second one of the pair - I need to knit a few more rows then begin the decrease for the toe, so soon I'll have lovely warm socks to wear.

Right now I'm not sure what my next project is going to be - I might finish off this little orange chubby chirp that I'm making, as well as finishing off my sock. I'm also trying to come up with a design for the teddies that I make - y'know, the ones that I showed in my first post:

 I want to change the pattern so that it can be knitted on dpns, and will show the purl side on the outside, rather than be made with garter stitch. All I've got to do is work out the frequency of increases and decreases, and do a test knit for the sizes of the arms, legs, etc. Should be a fun project. One day I'd like to create my own patterns, such as sock patterns, and see about selling the patterns or the actual socks. I know it'd take a while before I get to the stage where the patterns are good enough to sell (I'd have to start off with free patterns) but hey, you have to start somewhere.

Right, I'm off. It's my sister's birthday tomorrow so I've gotta sort my stuff out today to travel down tomorrow morning. Adios, knitters!

I am a bad person!

I haven't posted in goodness knows how long, shame on me! Unfortunately I've become somewhat addicted to World of Warcraft, so a lot of my spare time has gone to playing that. On the bright side, I have a new job (making milkshakes and smoothies), so I can start earning some pennies and hopefully buy some more much-needed wool, and in even better news, I've literally just finished my first sock!

It's sooo pretty, and sooo comfy! And the greatest thing is that I have size 3 feet, so it was quick to knit the sole part of the foot, haha. I'm looking forward to knitting the second one - my initial idea was to make any old pair of socks, just to say I've done it, but this one fits so snugly, I actually think I'll wear them!

Also, I've been making an elephant for my sister's birthday, which is the 24th August. I found the pattern on ravelry (called 'elephante') and so far I've done the body and the head. I'm struggling with the ears as they need to be crocheted and I haven't the foggiest how to do it, so I'm going to nick some ears from a different pattern. Here's my progress so far:

(Mm, and look at the difference in picture quality. I may start taking more pics with my actual camera rather than my blackberry). It was so fun to make, and the stripy pattern is so cute. I'm so pleased with this. These two projects, the elephant and the socks, are my more complicated but rewarding things to have made.
So I'm off now to finish watching The Back-Up Plan (which is hilarious) while the other half is doing a raid on WoW, and to continue by finding something else to start knitting. ♥

Oops

I haven't posted in over a week - that's because I haven't knitted in all that time. I started my new job on Monday, and it's awful. I don't have any spare time during the week, so I haven't had the chance to do anything. And at the weekend, me and my boyfriend were geeking it up playing World of Warcraft, so again, I didn't knit.

I'm going to change this.

I've been on ravelry for an hour or so, looking for ideas for things to knit. I wanna make a hat/beret for my mum, and some knitted toys for my siblings. Also, I've been looking for squares to make for my Refuge blanket; my total is still at five. I want to design a pattern for my squares to be honest - as in, decide what squares I'm going to have and where they're going to go, etc. I might go do that now actually.

Oh! Wait, I lied. I have knitted this week; I knitted a bit further with one of my socks. I managed to get to the heel, make the heel, then got stuck and stopped because I didn't know what 'slip slip knit' was and didn't look it up. I ought to carry on with that tbh.

Pretty pointless post today, but it was just an update to show that I'm still alive and well. Hopefully I shall carry on posting regularly.

Socks!

Yes, I have finally started on my pair of socks. Yesterday, I went along to the knitting group at Nest (which is between 2pm and 6pm) and took my casted on sock, and managed to finish the ribbing and start on the main ..leg part. I made a couple of mistakes, but I'm not going back to correct it because I'll never get it done if I do. I'll just power through and hope that they're not noticeable! Here's my work so far:

(Cue bad picture quality, as always). Yep, I've done 2-3" of the first sock, and you can kinda see the lacey pattern that's forming. I love love love the colours of the wool. I am looking forward to finishing this, because I want to see what they turn out like.

Anyway, just a quick one today. I've gotta go do housework, and get ready to leave at 2pm because I have an interview at 3pm to work with a charity that supports St John's Ambulance. Very excited, and nervous. So, I've gotta go get sorted. Will keep updated about my socks.

Cabled headband

Yay! I've learnt how to do a simple cable! I picked a pattern off ravelry, which can be found here and here. And here is my headband:

The pattern asked to use 4mm needles, and create 19 cables. I, stupidly, used 3mm needles, and ended up needing to make 25 cables. Longgg. It was tedious, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'm keeping this one as a prototype, and will create one in a different colour that I'd actually wear - I'm thinking a reddy-purple.

Next up, is going to be a pair of socks (just need to find a nice pattern), and then some more chubby chirps out of my scrap yarns from the sock wool.

Also, yesterday, I had a go at crochet, and managed a chain stitch and a double crochet - I was trying to make a mini scarf for my boyfriend's teddy; I made a really long chain stitch, but by the time I'd finished the double crochet, it was a lot smaller as it twists etc., so I've gotta go back and make an even longer one! Ah well. It's quite cool that I can kinda crochet. I'd like to try and make something, now.

But today, I am having a duvet-day so will not be knitting very much.

Completed Chubby Chirp!

I finished my little chubby chirp! (You can find the pattern here) It didn't take long to make up, and it looks sooo cute!

How adorable is he?!

I also got some more wool today:

(The colours look better than in the pic). The reddy ones are for a pair of socks that I want to try, as I've never made socks before, and the blue is to make the little elephant I said about two days ago - only the pattern says 1 ball of 100g wool, and I bought a 50g ball and didn't notice until I got home. Damn. Oh well, I can start on the socks next.

So excited about all the knitting I'm doing at the minute. And, when I went to Nest today, I found out that there's a knitting group that meets on Mondays and Fridays 2pm-6pm and I think I'm going to go along on Monday, providing I have a project on the go.

Anyhoo, off to apply for agencies and jobs. I applied for a charity door-to-door job, and I have an interview for next Tuesday, to work in local areas in London. I'm so excited, I really, really, really hope I get it.

Chubby chirps and refuge squares!

I need to get into the habit of posting what I've made on the day that I actually made it, rather than the next day. So, yesterday, I almost finished off my Chubby Chirp (I just need stuffing, and need to put it all together). I love using dpns, and I'm so chuffed that I've managed to make it all right, without messing it up.

You can kinda see the pieces, through the awful-quality pictures from my phone.The little wings at the sides look like tiny mittens, they're so cute. So, I'm going to Nest today to get some wool to make that elephant that I mentioned yesterday, and get started on that, and fingers crossed, get some stuffing as well so I can finish off my Chubby Chirp.

Also, I made a blanket square for my Refuge blanket. I'm going to aim to get one done every few days, so I should have it done by the end of the summer, hopefully. This is the one I made:

 It needs stretching around a bit, to make it square shaped. It's knitted diagonally; instead of casting on about 48 stitches, you start with one and increase steadily then decrease. It was quite fun to make.

Here's a close-up of one of the hearts on the square. I think they're really cute. (And, the squares are actually bright red, just my phone's silly with pictures - need to get some batteries for my camera).

So that was yesterday's work, now I've gotta waste 15mins until Nest opens to go get more stuff for today. Everybody Loves Raymond it is, then.

Chubby Chirps

Yesterday I started to make a 'chubby chirp'. I've just found the link where I found the pattern from, and you can find it here. It was my first time using dpns, and I was so chuffed with what work I'd done.

I used some old wool that I had sitting around. I need to stuff it and then sew up the top, but alas, I have no stuffing! I need to go buy some. I'd go right now, but I'm house sitting waiting for a parcel, so I can't go anywhere yet.

I want to create a page of all my projects that I have to do, to see what I need to finish, etc. I have a habit of starting a project and not finishing it, because I get sidetracked by other projects - typical, I suppose.

But yeah. I'm so pleased with my work with dpns and want to make something else, now. That little thing up there that I made took me about 3-4 hrs! Very long process (and to be honest I was watching tv at the same time as knitting) but very rewarding. I look forward to finishing it. For now, I'm off to start on another square of my Refuge blanket.

Knitting supplies

I haven't posted in a few days because I've been so busy. It was my birthday on Monday, and yesterday I moved to London and went out for the whole day, so today's the first time that I've been able to sit down and blog. In the past few days, I've discovered an amazing knitting magazine called Simply Knitting - I've got two issues of it already (as I got them at the end and start of the issue's month, yay!) and there's so many things to do.

One of the things in both of the magazines was this charity called Refuge; it's a charity for women and children subjected to domestic violence. The magazine is asking for knitters to created blankets to give to the women and children; you can knit 6x6" squares, and join them together to create a 6x5 blanket - that's 30 aquares in total! I already have about four squares from when I was making little testers when beginning knitting. I've decided that I'm going to do it - you have until December to make and send in your blankets; hopefully I can get it done a lot earlier than that.

Also, with the first magazine, was this free mini knitting kit to create a corsage. I made it on Monday and think it's so cute!

Above is the pattern, and below is my corsage, on my knitting bag. So chuffed.

Apart from that, I haven't done any knitting this week. Yesterday I went shopping in Covent Garden with my boyfriend, and bought this really cute little notebook:

It's adorable. It cost £10, and I have absolutely no idea what I want to use it for - it's almost too cute to use. But I'll find some use.

Also, I found the most amazing knitting shop ever, in Crouch End in London, called Nest. It's so cute - I bough £20's worth of knitting needles, dpns, etc. but didn't buy any wool - I'm waiting until I know what I want to knit before buying any more. 

I've never used dpns before (I bought 3mm and 4mm ones) so it'll be really interesting to learn to use them. 

I've got my eye on making these things called Chubby Chirps, I found them on another blog, and I'll repost the link once I find it again.

But I've also got a list of things I want to make out of these magazines, such as crochet squares, a square for my Refuge blanket, and this little adorable elephant:

How cute is that?! I can't wait to get started, but I need some wool for it, so I think I'll be making another trip to Nest within the next two days. I think I'm going to be spending a lot of my time and money in that place.

So, for now, I think I'm going to practice with my dpns - maybe make a chubby chirp, and then get some wool to make that elephant. So excited to have loads of ideas for projects!