{Ditzy Tuesday} Rainbow Coloured

I'm reading ... Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, as well as The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, as well as And Another Thing (the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sequel by the author of the Artemis Fowl series), as well as about 6 non-fiction books. I'm a bit obsessed by reading at the moment.

I'm working on ... a rug that I started twenty years ago. I wish I was exaggerating that, but I'm not! It's made from yucky acrylic, because I didn't know any better back then, and it's oh-so-70s, but I'm finishing it anyway. Yesterday I counted the sections and was delighted to discover that I've finished 3 more than I thought I had. Not long to go now!

I'm drinking ... endless cups of tea and eating chicken soup. I've still been sick on and off, so the simple comforts of flavoured liquids are my favourites right now.

The picture ... My rug doesn't look like this. I'd love to do something like this, but I don't have the patience for all that weaving in! Urgh!

{Ditzy Tuesday} It's My Blog....

I'm reading ... the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. I mainly only started it to see if the author might be in any way qualified to write the sequel to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. (Many might wonder how anyone could do it justice, but I'm willing to be open-minded). I'm actually really enjoying them and I've chomped my way through to the seventh and final book in only two weeks.

I'm working on ... blankets and more blankets! The mindless crocheted squares are pretty much all I can handle at the moment. They're a perfect match for all the mindless TV I watch every night!

I'm sorting ... my clothes. On the weekend I did my semi-annual summer-winter clothes swap-over and purge. I actually did get rid of some stuff this time. I'm trying to tell myself that doesn't give me permission to buy more clothes! Perhaps I'll make some...

The picture ... I'm torn between feeling guilty for being so neglectful of my blog, of only posting shallow fluff and no actual project progress. On the other hand, I feel like going ... nyer-nyer-nyer, it's my blog and I'll do whatever I like with it! So I thought this image was appropriate.

{Ditzy Tuesday} Crochet Loving

I'm reading ... A Left-Handed History of the World by Ed Wright. Fellow left-handers who've achieved so much more than I have! I'm up to the section on Ghandhi at the moment.

I'm obsessing over ... reconciling the books I've downloaded with my list of books I want to read. I downloaded nearly 3,000, so there's a bit of work there.

The picture ... these hand-carved crochet hooks are just gorgeous. I've been heavily into crochet lately. Any other craft just seems a bit wrong and unfamiliar. I get like that when I'm obsessed with one craft! I'm even planning on some larger projects - blankets mainly. This is a big change for me; up until recently, anything bigger than a scarf would freak me out completely. Speaking of scarves, I finished (another!) one recently. I'll post pictures soon.

{Ditzy Tuesday} Crafty Home

Starting today, I thought I'd make Ditzy Tuesday a little more interesting by listing a few things that I'm doing, reading, etc, along with the luscious picture from Pinterest of my choosing. This idea is plagiarised from inspired by the weekly post "Things I Like Thursday" on Nessbow's blog. So here's edition No. 1:

I'm reading ... Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. You can almost smell the gardenias and the summer rain.

I'm sorting ... my wool stash. Technically, I've finished, I just need to get around to bagging up the rejects and taking them down to the Op Shop.

I'm obsessing over ... finishing off my list of 1,001 Things To Do Before I Die. Finishing writing the list, that is. Not finishing doing all the things on it!


The picture ... How wonderful it would be to live in a crafty wonderland like this! At first glance it seems cluttered, but you just get that feeling that everything has a sentimental value.

{Ditzy Tuesday} Homewares

I was given some lovely cushion covers on the weekend, which has resulted in my feeling quite couch oriented at the moment! I love the calico cover here contrasted with the retro coloured granny squares.

Spring Cleaning

I'm in the mood to get rid of stuff, to purge, to make lists and cross things off them. Starting with my stash!

I mentioned last week that I have a list of all my yarn stash on Ravelry. I printed that out and went through it, trying to make some decisions about what to keep and what to toss before even looking at the wool. It was 9 pages. Nine pages!! A bit of a daunting task. But I was really in the mood to get it done yesterday. My ideal goal is to have all of the stash fit into our upright cupboard. This will free up a lot of the storage tubs and drawers that I have it all stuffed in. I did have some definite ideas going in: after my experience with making the Fuzzy Lavender Scarf recently, I know that one or even two balls is not enough to make anything useful. So I wanted to be ruthless with those.
Any eyelash yarn - gone! I hate that stuff.

Anything black - gone! I don't have a lot of black yarn anyway, but I can't see myself making something in black for myself or anyone I know. Plus it's hard to work with because of the dark colour.
Anything that I can't think of a specific project to make with it within the space of about 10 seconds - gone!

So it was a tough brief I set myself. Soon after I got started, I realised it was going to take even longer than I thought. About 20 minutes in, my head started spinning and I needed a short break. I had the typical hoarder's voice in my head: 'But I could use it for something' and 'but it's so pretty!'. I had to keep reminding myself that I'm ruthless, that I won't regret this.

I got about two-thirds of the way through my entire stash before I could take no more and gave up for the day. I was quite proud of myself though, and I'm looking forward to finishing so I can count the number of balls in the toss-box and see how well I did.

All this motivational de-cluttering has spurred me on to more, and I've decided to embark on a Spring-Cleaning-A-Thon. I've already done a bit with my books. I used the LibraryThing to check what series I have. If I had any unread series where I didn't have book 1, I tossed the rest. I got rid of 6 that way. Some other things I've thought of are:

* Toss 10 old make-up products.
* Toss 5 jewellery items I never wear anymore.
* Toss 5 pieces of clothing I never wear anymore/I really can't be bothered repairing.
* Go through the 3 boxes of random stuff I still have from moving house, and toss, toss, toss!

I'll let you know how it goes.

Celebrating my 5,000th

... my 5,000th Pin, that is!

I mentioned a little while back how I'd just discovered Pinterest and was becoming increasingly obsessed with it. Well, the obsession hasn't waned. It's practically a full-blown addiction now. Yes, I'm a Pinhead! It's even gotten to the point now where I'm subscribing to photo-blogs just to find new images to add to my pinboards.

I tend my boards like they're farms. I've noticed that they tend to get a bit buggy if they have more than about 400 pins on them, so I'll start a new one and divide the images between them. I had to divide Fashion into Summer, Winter and Accessories, but the original board was still too big, so I added Nail Art and Skinny Jeans and consolidated some pictures from different boards into a more atmospheric-themed one called Forest Girl.
I created another one recently as well for Tea and Coffee-themed images, to take a bit of the weight off my Things I Want board (which I call 'Straight to the Pool Room').

At the moment I'm having trouble with Just So Pretty - it was where I was pinning any kind of gorgeous, atmospheric image that made me go, 'aaah' or 'awww'. But now it's insanely long, and there are so many different types of pictures on there, I don't know how to divide it up. So for now I've just created Just So Pretty 2, and I'll decide later - if I can - how I want to divide them properly! At the moment I have 36 pinboards.

If you think I'm a complete Pinhead ... in my wanderings around the site, I've found members who are a lot more obsessed than I am! The largest number of pinboards I've seen is 137, and the largest number of pins about 23,000. It's my dream to have that many one day!