Projects I'm trying to finish

While I've been "offline", I've managed to finish Corey's jumper. It is quite possibly the thing I'm proudest of accomplishing this year. I often start things and then stop them for months on end, but the only thing stopping me from finishing the jumper was the fact I ran out of wool. Now, I know that you're supposed to buy the correct amount of wool PRIOR to starting the project, not half way through so that you don't risk getting a different batch of wool, but that's just not how I roll! Ok, actually, I'm not a knitting rebel, I just couldn't afford to buy so much wool in one go. My mother then bought me some more of the same batch (or so she thought) as my graduation present. Turned out it wasn't the right batch, and so I had to wait till March to get the rest of the wool I needed. But, ho hum! I now have more wool to work with, so I can't complain!

Excuse the quality of the picture, I don't have a nicely decorated flat to use as a background!

In fact, I'm currently using that wool for another project. Currently our bedroom is where the living room was, due to the hole in our ceiling caused by a leak from our neighbours flat. But once the hole is sorted, we'll be moving the furniture around again. However, the floor in that room is laminated flooring, and so gets freezing cold in winter. I'm using the wool my mother bought to make an i-chord rug. I love the i-chord and the way it grows to rapidly! One minute you're starting out, the next minute you've knitted about 3 metres worth! I'm hoping the wool will make a decent size rug to go in front of the sofa when we move back into that room.

My i-chord before I started sewing it up

It's still got a fair way to go!

My final project is a cushion that I'm making as a housewarming present for a friend. He's just moved into a studio flat, and I was hoping to make him something nice to have on his sofa. It's a crocheted item, something I have started up, again while I was "offline". I'm hoping to improve at crochet, as it's so much faster to do than knitting. I think I'll pick up knitting again, soon, once I've used up the spare wool I have lying around the house, but for now I'll stick to crochet. I have all sorts of plans for what I'm going to do for people's Christmas presents, plans I should probably put into action once I've come back from my holiday, as it might take a fair while to do these. And I'd rather not be sitting on Christmas Eve trying to finish off a garment/toy like I was last Christmas! I'm also very excited about these plans, and I really hope that people like what I'm doing for them.

I've done the one half, just on the second half and then I'm done!

In the meantime, I've made my first home-made jam. That was pretty fun, although exhausting as I went on a crazy baking/cleaning/creative binge where I made bread, biscuits, cupcakes, jam and cleaned the house.

Exhausting, but worth it

 And that's some of what I've been up to since I've had no internet or working keyboard.