A crafty tidy up and some welcome P+Q for the weekend

This is how my weekend started! with a glass of wine and some peaceful knitting! bliss!
Dh took the lads "home" to Newcastle for the weekend for the match on Saturday and they stayed over at his sister's house; I, on the other hand, stayed home! Variety of reasons, the main one being for some welcome peace and quiet!
Now, its been many years (more than 23!) since I've actually lived on my own, and I'm not saying I'd want to live on my own, but if I were to find myself ON my own, it wouldn't be that big a deal! The prospect of a whole weekend home alone, with no tv, no hungry teenagers was too much for me to turn down!
I thought I'd do nothing! just sit! and knit! but in fact I decided to sort out and declutter the bathroom cupboards and clean bathroom while I was at it which set me in the mood for decluttering and cleaning!

FIRST my magazines! Every year I try to sort them out and recycle a few in order to make room for new ones, having let my subscriptions to some lapse and retain only Simply Knitting and added The Knitter I thought it would be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy! In fact it took me 2hrs to sort through my extensive collection and eventually I managed to sort into one large box all the mags I definitely want to keep (which include 18months worth of Threads and about 6-9months worth of Sewing World and several Patchwork & Quilting mags including a few overseas mags too).


Bunged under my drop-leaf cutting out table a pile of "don't want to recyle but not necessarily attached that much" magazines in the hopes that I won't mind in a few months time moving these on!
And sorted into two piles a stack to be taken off to various waiting rooms, starting tomorrow with another Hospital appointment.

NEXT I turned my attention to the yarn! I had thought I'd tidy the sewing room but decided to start with the yarn and move onto the sewing but as that took up the rest of Saturday the room will have to wait until next week. Bertie, as you can see above, decided to help me. Note to self: DON'T leave entire stash of yarn on sofa while eating dinner in the other room and expect it to remain safe!

Bertie hopped it when he heard me return, and headed for the radiator shelf and made do with watching proceedings thereafter.

My stash laid out across the sofa! Fortunately I've been pretty good at curbing impulse to buy at random having been largely cured of this some years ago following a competition on a sewing forum.
Even so I had quite a lot of yarn and even more notions accessories and books, not to mention needles!

Luckily I have plenty of boxes and bags! Above you can see the free gift that came with my recent subscription to The Knitter, my loose patterns are stored in the underneath bit, notions in the side pockets and inside are the two freebie bags that came from old Simply Knitting as gifts that house my sock knitting project and bits and pieces, the other my crochet hooks and cable/circular needles.

My Super personalised knitting project bag custom embroidered and made by sewing-pal-Carol, above, contain the remainder of my knitty notions and current WIP's which include a nearly complete dish cloth that I'd forgotten I'd started!

The box on the left has bag of yarn for my next planned project (more on that later when I've decided WHICH of the two choices!) and the rather super laundry box on the right house the oddments and the sock yarn. This was a bargain costing me just £2 from £22 and is rather floral and fun and far too nice for boring laundry/household products!

Below are the rest of the bagged yarns and projects which will go back into plastic box when I finally sort out my sewing room next week! phew! I needed another glass after all that!


Apparently the family are about half way! they are just at the service station about to fill up with petrol and refuel with coffee and cola and rang to advise are starving hungry and could I make sandwiches for them!

Well I'm about to make the most of my remaining time, might pour another glass of wine and finish reading my book! Its been a super weekend and even some rather unsettling news that will affect me personally over the next few weeks hasn't spoiled the benefits of some time out alone. I feel quite relaxed and rather virtuous! I might even save a glass for dh ...