One more present and then onto the planning....

I thought I had finished making presents, but I forgot that I promised myself to make a present for my brother's cat. Silly I know, but he is part of the family and he always makes me welcome whenever I stay. I made a cat toy a while back for my puss cat and she loves it to bits. (i.e. it drives her crazy). As this toy was such a success and took me no time to make, I decided to do exactly the same toy. I used some left over yarn and here is the result.



And from another angle.



So now I have finished Christmas, I have started to plan my projects for next year. I have several small projects that need doing. The first is the baby blanket I started when I found out that my friend was expecting. That is about half way done and I have until March, so that won't be a problem. I will finish my scarf, which will probably be done by Christmas in the many car journeys I have booked in, and my bag, which will also be done fairly soon.

After that I have the Porom hat by Brooklyn Tweed lined up and I want to do a pair of gloves too. I am sure there will be lots of other little projects that I will get on the needles in the new year too. However, the one big project I have for next year is a KAL (a Knit ALong) project. I am going to make a year in a blanket. Well, that's what the KAL group is called. The idea behind the KAL, is to make a blanket in the space of the year. It doesn't matter what design you do or how big it is, but we are to try to get a 12th of the blanket done each month and post our progress to the group on Ravelry.

I have been getting quite excited about the blanket and have been doing lots of planning. I have bought the book, Blankets and Throws to Knit by Debbie Abrahams and got 200 Knitted Blocks for Blankets, Thows and Afghans by Jan Eaton out of the library. These two books have really helped me to plan out the ideas I have for my blanket and I have all sorts of ideas fermenting in my brain. I have also been thinking about what yarn to use. I studied the yarn at Mary Clare's yesterday and I think I will probably use Elle Elite, which has 50% cotton 50% wool, which should make a nice light fabric and also give good stitch definition. Clare has said she can order the colours I want and I found a pdf of the colours online. I bought a ball of Elle Elite to try knitting with, to get a gauge to design the blanket. All this work on my plan is making me quite excited about starting the project in January. I hope that over the coming year, you will enjoy seeing my progress too.

I'm not sure that I will be posting again until the New Year, so if this is my last post, I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thank you for reading my blog, I am amazed every time I receive a comment, as I never thought anyone would read my musings except me, and possibly my mum who always supports my endeavours. Hello mum (waves). So thank you for joining me in 2008 and I will look forward to seeing you in 2009, hopefully with many more new projects.

So have some big Christmas hugs on me.

Lots of love

The Crafty Cripple

xxx