Happy New Year!

The first week of 2013 has been a funny kind of week.

I fully expected work to be quiet, after all, no one in Penrith could possibly need a prescription after the madness that was the week leading up to Christmas! How wrong can a girl be!? I took my knitting to work as normal, and didn't manage to do a stitch!

New Year means resolutions.  I don't make them - I always break them within days! I set goals these days. My goals for 2013 are:

• Lose 5 stone in weight! (gulp!)
• To design and publish patterns
• To spin a laceweight yarn and knit a shawl out of it

I'm dieting and exercising in an attempt to sort goal 1 out. It's a daunting task, but I've done it before, and I know I can do it again. My mind is focused on smaller less scary mini targets, so we'll see how that goes.

Ideas for patterns are shwooshing around my head. My first pattern is written and is now posted on Ravelry as we speak! I'm so excited! Someone has even bought it! Snag is, I'm now having kittens hoping that she likes it!  Busy work days can generate ideas in themselves! I found a lovely elderly lady heading for one of the Doctors' surgeries where I work.  She was wearing a great chunky knitted hat. Inspiration hit me, and I wanted to jot the pattern down before I forgot.  I didn't have paper, so I asked the poor woman if I could take a photo of her hat! So now the inspiration is with me while I design my version of it! It's going to be called The Lakes Hat, because that's the name of the Doctors's surgery I found the inspiration in!

Spinning has finally returned to my life! Whenu, my wheel, is happily back creating yarn. Christmas brought me gift vouchers for an online spinning supplies shop. I very nearly blew the lot on more fibre.  My finger was hovering over the buy button when I thought "NO!!!!" I have so much fibre from last year that I still haven't spun up. So I'm aiming to spin a significant chunk of it up before Woolfest this June. That's a mere 6 months away! I'd better get a wiggle on!

This week I have a week off work, the partner and the son are both back at school, so I have the week to myself.  Once I've got my chores out of the way, I'd love to spend time working on my projects. I'd like to get a significant chunk of the Evenstar shawl chart 2 completed, I'd like to get started on The Lakes Hat pattern, and I'd like to finish (or very nearly finish) my log cabin blanket! Oh, and just to stop me getting bored, I need to clear the Damson marino/silk blend off my wheel so that the next project can start!

Hope everyone has a productive week! Until next time -
Ellen x