A New Year and New Goals

Happy New Year my friends!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday season.  I sure did, although it seemed to go by so quickly this year.  One of the highlights though was celebrating with these 3 sweet little ones.  So. Much. Fun!  Everything was exciting for them, from watching the tree "glow", as Morgan said, and looking at all the lighted Snow Village houses, to opening presents.  It's been quite a while since we've had little ones in the family to enjoy the season.  I didn't realize how much I missed it.

We hosted dinner on Christmas Day with our siblings who could join us.  I had to take this picture for Tom's mother who made these snappy aprons for all her sons last Christmas.  Not only is it an apron, but a tool belt too! LOL Her response when we sent her the picture was "See how smart Mom is?  Your brothers must be informed!"

We spent New Year's Eve at a house party with our neighbors.  This party has become a tradition in our neighborhood and we look forward to it every year.  Thank you Sean and Michele for your wonderful hospitality!  We're looking forward to next year already!

Look how much hair I have now!  It is coming in crazy curly too! I'm wondering (hoping?) that it will relax some as it gets longer.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see :-)

Now, since this is mostly a knitting blog, I thought that I should share my knitting goals for 2015.  I don't think they're too crazy, but sharing them makes them feel more real.  So here they are...

1. Blog at least twice a week, because I often do something, or make something, and think "I should blog this" and then.... well, life happens and I don't document it.  I'd really like to change that!

2. Use more yarn from my stash than I buy!  This will be tough one because I am easily distracted by the "new" and "shiny".  But my storage bins are full and I refuse to buy any more of them!  (Honestly, I don't think I could handle the (mostly) kidding ribbing from my family ;-)  I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about!)

3. Knit at least one pattern from each sock club shipment.

4. Knit at least 4 sweaters for me!  From stash!

5. Finish or frog ALL current WiP's on my project page.  Some of them are more than 3 years old, so honestly, what is the likelihood that my gauge will still be the same?  If I haven't finished it by now, I probably never will.

6. Build up the Gift Basket to 20 or more items for Christmas 2015.  I'd love to cover my loved ones with warm wooly love :-)

7. Complete any KAL's that I might join.

Speaking of KAL's, the first one starts Sunday.  I've joined the Jimmy Beans Downton Abbey Mystery Knitalong.  It will be a shawl and uses Lorna's Laces Solemate with the Limited Edition color Edith's Secret along with a second complimentary color.  I LOVE Edith's Secret!!!  As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to join the KAL.  I bought a kit, choosing Buckingham Fountain for the second color.  

I often don't swatch for shawls (super naughty, I know) but I was reading through the KAL thread on Ravelry and a lot of knitters were commenting that their gauge was way off with the suggested needle size and had to use much larger needles to get gauge.  I decided that it might be wise to swatch for this shawl and I am very glad I did!  I had to go up 3 needle sizes to get gauge!  Now I'm ready for the first clue AND the first episode of season 5 :-)

I've started a few new projects over the last week, but I think this post is long enough already.  I'll show those to you sometime next week.  See you soon!