My Very Own Craft Room

Thank you all so much for your good wishes following my husband's retirement.  We're settling into a pleasant routine, helped by the lovely warm weather we had last week.

As a result of his retirement, I have taken over the room he used as his "study" and it's now been re-designated as my "craft room".  I had the foresight to decorate the room bright pink some years ago, so it was as easy process to convince him that he wouldn't want to use the room after his retirement.

I have collected together all my crafting bits and bobs.  They were previously scattered (hidden) around the rest of the house.  I must admit that I shocked myself at how much "stuff" I actually had.  Craft books alone fill most of the shelves in the bookcase.  I found so many duplicate items that I had bought that had been stored and forgotten about.  All I can say is it's a good job that I have spent this year de-stashing my yarn, because I would never have been able to fit it in the room otherwise.  It's certainly made me appreciate having a more streamlined yarn stash.

My mini sweater bunting is decorating the walls, and it's lovely to see all the different yarns and remember what I originally knitted with them (mostly socks).

There's still some more organising and tidying to do before I'm happy with everything and can remember where I've stored various things.

And because I'm no good at being disciplined, I bought three more craft books this week!  I'm going to struggle to fit them in the bookcase, but they were only £1 each, so I couldn't leave them.

There's something interesting in all of them.

This week I have finished the cardigan I was knitting.

Most of my cardigans are cropped or just below the waist length.  This is my preferred style for cardigans as I tend to wear dresses and skirts all the time.  Occasionally I wear jeans but I don't have any longer cardigans to wear with them, so this boyfriend-style cardigan fills a gap in my wardrobe.

It's in worsted weight yarn that had been frogged from a previous unloved cardigan and the pattern is a free one by Vanessa Townley.  You can see full details of this project on my Ravelry page, here.

 I'm now working on a shawl with the last of the unused yarn that I bought at Yarndale last year.

I love the colours.  The pattern is for a two colour striped shawl, but I'm just working with the one colour throughout.  It's semi-circular and the body of shawl is in stocking stitch with a lace edging.  The pattern is from a book by Kirsten Kapur and is called Cladonia.  I'm hoping to get this finished over the next week before Yarndale.

Finally, as well as the craft books, I bought some fabric this week.  I wanted something to make dresses and skirts for the Autumn.  I ended up with two fabrics, one for a skirt and one for a dress.

Dress fabric

Skirt fabric

I don't think I'll have time to make a completed outfit this week, but I'm hoping that I can get the dress cut out - ever the optimist.

Oh and finally, finally, I just remembered, Grace gave some some amazing fabric when I saw her recently.

Isn't it fabulous, Paddington Bear is my favourite character from my childhood and I still have all my books.  This fabric will be made into a tote bag for a knitting project.  Something else I'd like to get done this week - so long as I can find more hours in the day.

Well I had better get a move on if I want to get everything done.  I hope you all have a happy and productive weekend.  Bye for now.