No pudding!

My lovely daughter pointed out to me yesterday that we hadn't done a Saturday Pudding this weekend. She's absolutely right.

We did, however, have an incredibly naughty chocolate fudge brownie cake as Monster's second birthday cake to share with his (very tall and deep voiced!) friends, who came round on Saturday for his birthday 'do', which involved much playing on the XBox. No photo of the cake though....cos we eated it (I eated far too much of it!).

Due to an unfortunate accident with an uncovered razor that someone's Darling Husband had put in the toothbrush pot (my fault for not seeing it, according to the man himself....ahem) , there's been little by way of 'making' going on over the past few days. To stop me going completely barking I've been having a good old sort out - tidying up ready for Christmas, and putting some thought to where my crafting will take me in 2013.

This has involved reading a couple of copies of Craft Seller magazine cover to cover twenty times and treating myself to a subscription. I've picked up lots of useful, sensible information and have a head full to bursting with ideas and possibilities for the new year. I've also been chirping about on Twitter, following all sorts of people, and have spent my non-knitting/non-crocheting/ non-spinning/ non-sewing evenings catching up on some of the beautiful work happening out there in the world of blog.

So, I now want to get cracking on making lots and lots and lots and lots of beautiful things.....however, the bossy person living in my head has told me I cannot possibly start anything else until I finish what I've already started. No 'pudding' of nice new crafty things for me until I've finished my 'dinner' of WIPs

I knew I'd got a few bits and pieces sitting next to my comfy chair, waiting to be finished, but as none of them have a deadline (other than Mr's 40th birthday socks that should have been done by 3rd September), and some (ha!...all) of them were started on a whim and all of them involve having a healed-up poorly finger (my current favourite excuse), not to mention none of them are as exciting or sexy as whatever it is I decide to make next, I was managing to maintain my happy state of denial.

All that tidying up for Christmas, however, led to me unearthing them and has made me face up to the pile of WIPs that might be holding me back from achieving my next big crafting dream (whatever that may be)....and I took a photo.

In the cold light of day it doesn't look soooo bad - I've seen some folk on Ravelry with such enormous numbers of WIPs that I'd be having terrifying woolly nightmares were I in their shoes. For me, though, this is quite enough:

7 socks in progress - three of which are total no-brainers that I should be picking up in any odd moment but, for some reason, they've sat there for three months or more.

1 pair of rainbow fingerless mitts - only cast on a week or two ago for Minx, with a Christmas deadline so not making me feel too guilty just yet.

1 jumper - another easy peasy knit as it's just stocking stitch, knit in one piece from the neck down and I'm making it up as I go along....which seems to be why I stopped as I need to work out a bit of shaping.

1 fluffy waistcoat thing - have knit the back. It grows really quick. Not sure I'm feeling the love enough to finish it. Don't think I'll ever wear it. Might have to frog it and reuse the yarn.

1 owl motif towards the eight needed for one of these bags. Not as easy as I thought it'd be. Not as excited as I was when I first started it. Was planning on making four of these bags for Christmas presents. Have changed my mind. Now have ten balls of brown cotton yarn to do something else with.

1 crochet shawl - not loving it - may be off to the frog pond.

1 simply enormous yarn eating granny stripe blanket - worked a bit last night but got bored as stoopid sore finger made the going very slow.

1 simple patchwork quilt - middle panel done  (months and months and months ago), needs sashing, backing, binding and hand-quilting. I can see the finished quilt in my head and would quite like it out of there and on the sofa.

The next bit makes me a little nervous. I tend to avoid setting myself targets, if at all possible. That seems to be a recipe for failure and disappointment as far as I'm concerned. I'm the person that looks at you blankly during my performance review when asked about my five year plan.

I prefer to think of myself as a take it as it comes sort of a person, living in the now, not big on the old long term plan and target setting bit....not great on the short-term plan thing either, if we're being really honest here.... but maybe, just maybe, setting myself a bit of a target, with you as my witnesses, might be just the thing to help me clear the decks ready for all the backlog of crafty inspiration that's currently wedged in my poor tired brain to be allowed to come spewing forth in readiness for a truly craft-tastic 2013.

Maybe.

So here's the target. Amid all the usual happy chaos of life in the run-up to Christmas I am going to throw myself headlong into that there pile of WIPs and before the bell tolls to ring in the New Year I will have finished (or frogged) every single last one of them.

I promise.

Did I also mention I wanted to knit Monster some new fingerless gloves? Maybe I should cast them on right now and add them to the WIP pile?

Moogs xxx

p.s. I will not be including two huge sacks of raw alpaca fleece waiting to be spun or some funny crazy patchwork sewing that I've been making for the past three years in this target. That would be silly.