Not Much Crochet - But Oops I Have Been Stashing Again

I haven't been doing a lot in the way of knitting or crochet these last couple of days as when Buster stays he has a habit of moulting over everywhere so I keep my Christmas present knitting out of his reach. I could not start my niece's black cardigan as I have been waiting for the parcel to arrive.

Today (Sunday) I was amazed to get a delivery of 2 parcels. I think that Royal Mail must have saved them up to get in a bit of overtime money before Christmas unless they really are mowed out with Christmas on line orders. The newspapers do say that more people are ordering their Christmas presents online this year.

The first order was delivered on Saturday and that was my patterns from Kay Jones (Kay's Creative Crochet) I do like her patterns and think that I have now ordered almost every pattern of hers that I like. I have quite a collection. They are written out in UK terms which is a bonus for me. I could order them as PDF's and save the postage but as I didn't have a working printer when I placed the order I sent for hard copies. I am addicted to the nice squeaky paper that she uses to print them out on. If I printed them they would just be on normal A4 paper. I have been using my new printer to print out the patterns that I have ordered PDF recently. I do like a paper copy of my patterns. I haven't as yet tried the scanner that is with the printer. I will have to read the manual for that.

The orders that I got today were from Purplelinda and McA Direct. From Purplelinda I ordered the Black Patons Diploma DK for my niece's cardigan. I also got a bag of stuffing for the Christmas decorations, a Sirdar crochet pattern for my great grand daughters, and two double ended hooks by Knit Pro. Each end is a different size. My online friend Zuleika (Life in the Zu) has had double ended hooks for ages and loves them. I am not sure if they are Knit Pros but Rachael (Artyarn) got a hook bought for her for her as a present and she loves it. I will let you know how I get on with these hooks once I have a trial run. I am famous for buying all different kinds of hooks and then going back to my old ones and giving the new ones away. Still if you don't try anything different then you will never know if you like them.

I have not ordered from McA Direct before but they were recommended to me by a Ravelry friend. I ordered from them as I love Regia wool for socks but in the 6ply and not many people stock that. I can get 4ply anywhere but I do like the 6ply as I only wear my socks around the house or when I wear my boots and so I like the thicker wool. Not to mention that they knit up much faster! The recommended amount is 3 x 50 gram balls per pair of socks and it is £3.95 a ball but as I only like very short legs on my socks I can make a pair from 2 balls. The huge knitting needles are not to knit with. I watched a video on You Tube showing Broomstick crocheting. I tried doing it many years ago but this video made everything much plainer than a book does. My broomstick needle is made of wood and really heavy to handle so I have bought two sizes of plastic needles to try the stitches out. I have the patterns in Doris Chan's latest book and also a booklet with baby blankets in that I have had for many years. The metal clasps are for stash. I cannot buy them anywhere so when I saw them online I just had to buy a couple of sets to keep in my stash. They make a nice single fastener for an edge to edge cardigan.

Yesterday I went to the Islington Mill with Rachael. We were carrying on making some more ornaments for the Christmas tree at the Kings Arms. Rachael is going to take a photo of everything that has been made so far and post it on Facebook. I will copy the photo and put it on here for you to see. On Monday we are starting to trim the tree and see whether we need any more ornaments making. Last night I made a couple of snowmen (they are flat, not stuffed ones) and a couple more Christmas wreaths. I was supposed to be going to my daughter in law's 50th Birthday party in the evening but my back and legs were hurting so much I just didn't feel like making the effort. If the weather had been warmer I would have gone as I do like their parties. They are biker events and great fun. I would have been the misery sat in the corner had I gone. It's hard to feel in the party mood when my back hurts. I don't know why my back pain has suddenly started up again. I can only guess that it's because of the cold weather. I don't know what I would do if I had the snow that Beverooni has. I would hibernate! I have the heating on and still feel cold. I am dreading the winter fuel bills despite getting my heating allowance.

Thanks to everyone for your lovely words and wishes for my Birthday. I do appreciate them. I think that the best part of any Birthday is not the presents (although it is nice to get some) or the cards, it's the fact that people take the trouble to wish you a Happy Birthday. I had visitors, phone calls and of course my online wishes. That, to me, makes a Birthday special. It must be awful for lonely people if they have no one to wish them a Happy Birthday or a Happy Christmas as well.

I have now put most of the stash back in the small bedroom after moving it for my son to take the divan bed away. I decided to take an inventory of what was in there and keep a list on my PC for the future. What I did discover was things that I had forgotten that I had ever bought! They were in plastic bags at the back of the shelf along with a couple of partly crocheted tops. I think having a list of the larger amounts will be beneficial to me when I am planning my next projects. I am not listing all the odd balls or sock wool as that doesn't count as stash. Ha Ha - well not in my eyes. I have bought quite a bit of wool recently that was on offer especially to stash so I want to keep a list of what I actually have in the stash room.

My New Year's resolution for this year not to buy wool for a few months (unless it is for someone else as a gift) lasted until about July and this coming year I should be able to last even longer now that I have catalogued my stash!

I am still waiting for a couple more parcels containing wool and then I am putting my bank cards away for a while. I had to order more as the wool is for presents. That's my excuse and I am sticking to it. Some wool for me might have accidentally jumped into my basket as I browsed but that's allowed. Think of all the VAT and postage that I have saved by ordering now. That's a good excuse isn't it? I don't count the postage as I usually order enough to make it worthwhile. If I had to go and shop for it personally it could cost me more than the postage money in journey costs especially at the moment when I am not using public transport.

I hope to get to the Kings Arms tomorrow night so will make a couple more ornaments tonight. Once I have given everywhere a good hoovering and washed the throws and cushions tomorrow then I will be able to start the black knitting and the navy crocheting.

Time for another cup of hot coffee and a bit of playtime with Buster before he goes home later.