Farewell lovely 2006 and welcome fabulous 2007

It is a glorious, blue skied crisp winter day here in Oxford - a perfect start to what I hope will be a wonderful year.

2006 has had its ups and downs but on the whole it has been really great - we said farewell in style last night with a small group of friends and, as it should do, that final memory for 2006 casts a golden glow over the rest of the year.

2006 will go down in my history as the year that I took up knitting and found more than a hobby. I have found a way of spending my time that brings enormous rewards in feelings of achievement and self expression, a means of making gifts that people love (even when delivered late or in part!) and a whole community of knit sibs. Not a bad achievement for a year.

I had a lovely Christmas, suitably blessed with some knitting related gifts - mainly some books which I'm enjoying dipping into but haven't fully explored yet. My crafting auntie also made a lovely decoration for my tree and a wonderful stripey pouch (pictured) which is perfect for storing needles and small bits of knitting kit.

I've done plenty of knitting over the break - still for Christmas gifts of course! Mama seems to like her scarf (see below) - I cast on for this on Christmas Day using my new Stitch n Bitch Nation - it's the Yo Drop It pattern and I feel pleased to have added a new skill to my small but growing repertoire. It was still in progress when she arrived here on the 27th, that was all planned of course as it allowed her some creative input into length and whether to tassel or not! The fact that she did half the tassels herself seems a little mean but she just proved again that she is always there to help me out wherever needed in my life. The yarn came from an ebay store - http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Unusual-Yarns as part of a mixed reds lot and was great to knit with.

Dad's socks are still very much a work in progress, no 1 is still on the needles (hiding out in the top corner of the picture of Christmas pressies) and seeing as he built me a wardrobe during his stay of 3 days this is just not good enough! More feverish work on those tonight.

This afternoon I'm off to a lovely New Year Party - a crafting open house - all welcome so long as they bring some craft to work on - I would take the socks but I've got a scarf to do for a birthday on the 4th! Luckily it's for a soon to be 2 year old so I think I should get it done this afternoon - chunky needles and shimmery eyelash yarn at the ready.

Happy New Year!