Bit of a shock. I had no idea how much stuff we had, not even remotely. It is overwhelming and honestly, makes me feel a little bit sick.

So ever since I have been sorting through everything we own in a quest for simplicity and minimalism. I’m never going to be the sort of person who can move continents with just one bag, but I do want to cut down the amount of “things” we have.

I am mainly starting with the filing cabinet. Or rather the filing cabinet, several box files, binders, random piles of paperwork. Collecting it all up, scanning it in and storing it as PDFs on our PCs and backup server. When you think about it there are very few items of paperwork you need to hard copies of, and I hope to get it down to fitting in a small lockable filing box we already have. Then we can give away the large, 2 drawer filing cabinet currently taking up a huge amount of room in the study. So far I have 75 files on the system, which is hundreds and hundreds of pages of bank statements, bills and the like.

We’ve also been to a car boot sale, sent about 40 packages to ebayers, taken many bags to charity shops and had about 30 freecyclers come to pick up bags of stuff. Each one that goes leaves me feeling a little bit lighter and I love it. There’s still a long way to go, but we’re getting there!

If you’re at all interested in having a simpler life and decluttering then check out Unclutterer and Miss Minimalist – great blogs that have really been helping me!

~ A load of stuff I collected in about half an hour to get rid of – it’s nearly all gone now! ~

Click here for the flickr notes

I also have a couple of boxes full of random scraps – one in purples and pink, one in blues. As you can see in the blues box, I’ve already bought the acrylic DK to use as the warp on the loom when weaving them up into scrap shawls. I should get 1 of each colour and possibly one mixed out of this lot. It’ll be a good way to use up all the scraps and little bits!

And finally – the bowl of DK scraps – all sorts of fibres, these are becoming the brightly coloured crochet blanket. This pile kept growing as I went through the boxes!!!

It’s now all neatly packaged into moth and dust-proof plastic bags, ready to be used for many months of crochet, knitting and weaving!

The backs are made with a size 22 jumper I got from a charity shop – someone managed to eek out 3 backs from it!

I love this ripple pattern, I’m working on a blue blanket for Andy in it and I love it. It’s been a bit too hot to work on it recently though!

I’ve also been creating another blanket for Andy, a sunburst pattern of coloured circles in cream granny squares. Some wonderful ladies from Ravelry have been helping make circles (more about that another day!) and so far I have 150ish which means 75 to go. Here’s some of them, they’re so bright and pretty, I can’t wait to start arranging them all together!

All this crochet has been very therapeutic, I love that I can sit in front of the TV for an hour and at the end of the program have a little pile of circles in front of me. Lovely!

I started this in May, worked on it for a few days, then put it away again. Picked it up last Friday and worked like a trojan for 4 days and finished it, it took an hour to bind it off!

Yarn: Regia Hand-dye effect, 85g, 390 yards

4mm needles, 7 days, lots of swearing and HUNDREDS of stitches tinked where I went wrong.

1 very happy princess of Lace!

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Also I’ve been turning this:

Into this:

Merino roving I dyed ages ago, 15 more grams and I’m ready to ply… will end up as 100g of worsted-chunky yummy shmooshyness.

With the shawl and the mittens finished off I’ve been giving the fair isle jumper a little bit of a rest and ploughing on with the Crow Waltz Shawl. Half way through the lace edging (URGH, more lace!) but it’s a very easy, 10 row repeat and once it’s done I’m on the soothing, slipped stitch pattern of the main shawl. Can’t wait!

No, this was the quarterly ‘don’t you think you should finish everything you’ve got on the go before starting another project’ chat. The thing is, this time it’s his fault! No, really! You see for our anniversary (year 1 – paper) he got me three of the Harmony Knitting Guides…. Cable & Aran Stitches, Lace & Eyelet and Knit & Purl. That’s a total of 750 new stitches to try, and he wants me not to cast anything on. Or even swatch. That’s just torture.

And, in my defence, I don’t actually have that much on the needles right now. A fair isle jumper, pair of mittens and a shawl. And another shawl… and some gloves. But to be fair those last two don’t really count because I’ve only just started them.. and the jumper and mittens are nearly finished, so they don’t count either.

Really I’ve only got a shawl on the needles and that’s in wool and it’s far too hot for wool right now. I’ll just swatch a little bit for a cotton lace tank top… can’t hurt…

On another note, I got another parcel this morning from one of the girls in the We Love Lucy group on Ravelry. Several of them have been sending me circles for one of Andy’s crochet chemo blankets (They don’t count as WIPs either!! If Andy tells you they do he’s lying!) It’s so lovely that total strangers are sending their love and concern to us through the post, and that every time we snuggle under the blanket together on a chemo day we’ll remember that people care. I’ve got about 100 circles now (out of 225)  so we’re making good progress!

Finally, a very bored looking cat. She batted the yarn twice… and then just ignored it. And me. Thoroughly unamused…

I have many things to share with you though, there has been a lot of knitting, crocheting, weaving, sewing and general floweriness going on! At the moment I’m in the process of writing up some knitting & crochet patterns which is quite exciting, the first of those should be published in the next few weeks.

It lept along. By half past 2 in the afternoon I had myself a scarf. Very proud, I decided to warp up the full 32″ and go for broke with all my scraps. Mistake. If you use bamboo, wool, cotton, acrylic and various blended yarns in 4-ply, DK, Aran and chunky weights for the warp, you are going to find yourself with some serious tension issues young lady. I did not listen to the advice on the internet, nor from my wise, materials-savvy husband. Therefore I was about to scream, however by midnight I did have a lovely, colourful shawl around my shoulders. And a desire to buy some multicolour 4-ply cotton to get the same effect without the stress!

I’ve already got another scarf on the loom, and hopefully that will be finished soon too. I love how fast these things go! I think we can safely say I’m hooked. My dear knitting doesn’t need to worry though, I can’t take a loom on the train!

I bought a loom. Poor Andy, poor, poor boy. I’d like to tell him I’m sorry… but I’m not (!) It’s arriving sometime this week and I’m very excited.
I decided the best way to practise my selvedges is to just go, and weave until I run out of yarn/patience/energy! So I went through the yarn stash and sorted it all out, putting the pretty/expensive/’earmarked for project’ hanks into plastic bags and taking all the little leftover bits and acrylics for my first weaving project.

And this picture is what I’ve ended up with (so far!) I’m so excited about all the different colours and textures in this pile and I’m hoping I’ll be able to weave enough squares to make a good sized blanket – all together I think I will end up with a rather whopping 3kg of yarn!!

Going through the stash made me realise all the beautiful yarn I do have, and inspired me to get on and create some beautiful things when my loom arrives – I’m already sketching out very simple plaid patterns for scarves. Can’t wait!

It’s all got a bit much recently. If I’m not at uni, I’m at church. Or on the train. Or at work. When I am at home I’m cleaning, doing laundry, washing up, cooking. Any other time I have to be doing uni work. Last night I had one of those ‘I’m so exhausted I need to go cry in a corner’ moments… other women will understand what I’m getting at! I think the time has come to re-prioritise some stuff, and to have a break. We’re heading down to Devon on Friday for a few days, hopefully I will return refreshed and invigorated!

Tuesday was a mite stressful. We went on a uni trip to the Horniman Museum in south London. It was half term. I think you get my drift? If only it had been a nice day we could have strolled around their wonderful gardens…however it rained. The bright points of the day was the wonderful Penguin classics below, got for 75p each in a charity shop near the museums. And when I got home I took a trip to Morrisons to get the lovely pink flowers which have been brightening up the house in the past week.

Wednesday was lecture day, it required much thinking. I also started repotting seedlings which I finished on Saturday – We now have little polystyrene cups on every south-facing windowsill, filled with delicate green leaves.

Thursday was definately a crochet day, I got lots done on my cushion covers and spent time thinking about the cushion covers I shall knit for the living room.

Friday, back at uni… model making, head full of ideas!

Saturday I was at work in the coffee shop, it was pretty quiet again and I got plenty of sketchbook work done during the down times. Then had a lovely lazy evening at home.

And on Sunday we went to Andy’s parents and cleared out all his stuff. He left home years ago and yet there’s still a lot there. We took away about 9 carrier bags full of stuff, as well as two tiny chairs that had belonged to his great-grandmother. They’re beautiful and I will post pictures later on this week, as well as some of the other goodies we discovered.

Now my task for today is to find homes for all his stuff! Plus laundry, cleaning, housework etc!!