2011 - What It Means To Me

This year instead of resolutions I have goals:

I will replace the kitchen cupboard doors (thanks Lizzie for the suggestion). They now come pre drilled with the biscuit hole thingies so much easier to replace.

I will redecorate the whole downstairs of the house - not too difficult as there are only three rooms and I already have the wallpaper for the living room.

I will not replace items just because I can - see earlier cooker rant - if it isn't broken then it isn't getting replaced.

I will curb my spending on scrapbook supplies - I have one scrapbook kit sub which is less than £10 a month but apart from that I will try not to spend anything else.

I will also curb spending on knitting yarn - I have joined a club called Victorian Writers by Woolgirl and apart from that I am going to try not to spend anything else on yarn throughout the year.  That includes patterns too. Ravelery is ripe with free patterns so I should be able to find something suitable for the massive amount of yarn I have.

I will try and do more sewing - I have accumulated lots of bits of fabric so will try and make use of them.

11 shawls in 2011 - this is a Ravelry project. The aim is to make 11 shawls in 2011 (well duh! obvious really lol).  When I say shawl it doesn't necessarily mean old lady sat in rocking chair sort of shawl. It also includes wraps and stoles which are basically just wide scarves.  The Victorian Writers includes a few suitable items.

Read more - again bringing the Victorian Writers into it. The knitting kits are based around victorian books (Sherlock Holmes, Little Women, Alice In Wonderland, Mrs Dalloway's Garden, Count Dracula and Great Expectations).  I am ashamed to say I have never read any of them.  That is going to change this year though.  There was a list of books on facebook recently, I don't know if anybody saw it, but it had 100 books on it and most people will only have read a handful of them.  I am one of those people so I really need to increase my literary knowledge.

 I won't increase my crafting commitments (apart from the existing ones I am signed up for and if I decide to apply for any dts).  I mentioned before that I had joined the knitting scarf journey and that the person who had my scarf to work on had gone awol. I started another and sent it on only for the next person to decide she was no longer committed and lo and behold yesterday the next person along the line did exactly the same.  Now this person had been insulted by personal message by somebody else and had decided to leave the group BUT she had also accumulated a stockpile of everybodys scarves and is passing them on without working on them. Her own scarf on the other hand is with me and apart from my piece of knitting is ready to return to her. Every other person in the group having worked on it.  Very unfair in my opinion. Anyway that is partly the reason why I'm not committing to much else craft wise because other people cannot be relied upon.  I am still doing the lace scarf journey and will be starting a cable one very soon. No more after that though for a while.

I WILL lose at least a stone this year. I need to lose probably three or four but it is very hard to say I will lose so much.  Small steps.