Friday 2 January 2009

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a relaxing/fun/busy/family/partying (please delete as appropriate!) New Year's Eve! Has anyone got used to writing 2009 yet? It usually takes me a while.

We had a lovely New Year's Eve at home. I usually find the whole night a bit of an anticlimax - you know, let's stay up really late, oh look it's another year, let's go to bed - and I have to admit I really don't like big New Year's eve parties - although if Jools Holland invited me to the Hootanny I wouldn't say no as that looks like a lot of fun. My ideal New Year's Eve is to invite a few friends round for some food and maybe games like 'who's in the bag', and that's exactly what we did this year. Nicky and her family and Katie and Tim and baby Gracie came round - Nicky's little ones slept upstairs (the youngest in B's room with him which worked amazingly well), Gracie was downstairs with us as at this age they sleep through everything, and we had a great relaxing evening. Well, I assume everyone else had a good time too - T cooked curry from the book Katie and Tim gave him for Christmas and we haven't had any phone calls complaining of dodgy tummies!

I haven't set any resolutions of the "I must eat less chocolate/go swimming once a week" sort as there's no point, I never ever keep them. In fact, I'm wound up until I break them and then relax as I can go back to normal again! I have, however, set myself some goals for this year. Some of them were written on the back of an envelope (in small print!) when Nicky and I went out for a business meeting (aka pudding and a drink at the local pub) before Christmas. Some are business, some are personal, some are family. One of the personal ones actually is to go swimming more as it's something that I enjoy and find relaxing, but never seem to find the time for. I've come to realise that unless I timetable things in, they won't happen. For example, T goes out for a drink late on Tuesday evenings with friends. I know that's his night, so I never book anything else in - and then I moan every now and then that I never go out unless it's to teach a workshop! There is absolutely nothing stopping me going out if I organise to properly and get into some kind of routine, so that is what I must do. Oh, and I suppose the exercise swimming will give me will be good too!

Another goal is to do more of other crafts. Don't get me wrong, there is no way I'm going to reduce the amount of silversmithing/jewellery making that I do. I'll be doing more when (do you like the positive thinking?!) my other goals are achieved. It's more that there are so many crafts that I can do (thanks to my Mum, my Grandma and a great textiles teacher at school) and I've hardly enjoyed them at all since B was born. And it is this goal I have been working on this evening! I decided that it was about time that I learnt how to knit gloves. I learnt to knit when I was 7, so it's daft that's it's taken me this long! I want to make myself a pair of fingerless mittens to wear in the workshop when it's cold in there, and found this pattern on a great site called Knitty. They've got a blog that I think I will be adding to my list of daily reads too. The thing is that not only have I never knitted gloves before, I haven't done any cable knitting since I was about 15 for a GCSE Textiles project, so I'm really hoping that I haven't over reached myself this time! The pattern does say that it's a quick project, though, so fingers crossed. I really like the fact that they only need one ball of yarn too. They seem to be coming along well - what do you think? It does get a bit tricky when I'm trying to control 5 needles at the cabling parts in the pattern! Nicky, if you still want me to teach you how to cast on and off, I've got a spare ball of wool, just get yourself a set of knitting needles!


I've joined Flickr at last, mainly as I thought that Lupin's Crafting 365 Flickr group challenge was what I needed to kick start me into the New Year. So, if you feel like seeing whether I meet the challenge of crafting every day this year and posting a photo of what I've done (remembering to take the photos will be by far the harder part!) then come and see me here!

2 comments:

  1. I havent even thought about my "resolutions", actually scrap that, I have thought about them it just dont know where to start or what to do lol. I think the knitting is definatly one of them though so i will hunt down a pair of needles (i think my mum has some i could use) and you can teach me !

    Happy New Year hunnie xx

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  2. I'm all for positive thinking :) Some good goals you've got there. And you got me thinking about other things I can do, apart from making jewellery. When I left school, I studied fashion design but gave it up as I didn't really enjoy it. But I can sew and haven't touched a sewing machine for years! So I can start off by making my little girl summer dresses! She'll be walking soon so it's perfect timing. Whether I'll do it or not, is another matter. But it's the thought that counts, hey? ;)
    Good luck with all your goals. And all the best for 2009!

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