New Month, New Style

Filofax Friday is coming a little late this week.

I thought I would share some changes I'm making in my planning.

I tried again in October to move into my midori and while I love it for journaling and creative pursuits, it doesn't work as well as I would like for my planning. It's truly just personal preference but I love being able to put in and take out pages at will and that's just what I do in my Filofax. 

Since tomorrow also starts a new month, it's the perfect time to try some things out. I was plotting some gifts for people so I was placing an order with Sew Much Crafting (sewmuchcrafting.etsy.com) and I decided to try a week on two pages layout for myself. 

If you follow my Filofax posts you know I'm not only a planner girl from way back, I'm also a day on 2 page user. This is a very big change. I will be trying out using the week on 2 pages in conjunction with my day on 2 pages for now. 

I'm starting my month in my beautiful purple Malden Filofax. 

Right now it's all decked out with Monsters for October but I will probably be changing that up. 

The inserts from Danielle at sew much crafting are so lovely. Bright white paper, crisp, clean printing, they beg to be written on.

I started with some simple decorations from a past Planner Society kit and then, added in the things I know need to be done this week.

Work schedule, daily cleaning tasks and a few other tidbits. I'm really curious to see how this will work out this week and whether I will enjoy using these inserts. I bought all of next year and through the end of this year so I can always use them into December and if I decide I won't continue, can destash the remainder. They truly are beautiful inserts though.

I'm excited to try something a little bit different and see how it works for me. How about you? What style of pages do you use? Let me know in the comments. 

October Projects

As October winds to a close, I find myself pretty happy with progress I have made in my knitting. I've been a bit of a slacker at actually working on projects and at having a project to turn in for Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC).

This month I decided to change that. I set a goal for myself to turn in two classes and a detention. Detention is a project started before the beginning of the month that you finish during the month. 

I admit that even last week if you had asked me if I would hit my goal I would probably have said it was unlikely. But I went camping with my knitter friends (well, two of them, not all of them this time) and I made some great progress.

I had finished this hat last week. 

It's just a simple ribbed hat knit from some hand spun English Shetland from Zarzuela's Fiber (sadly no longer in business) I started it last month but had the wrong stitch count so I ended up ripping it out, starting over and I got it right this time.

As happy as I am with how it turned out, I'm not a big stocking hat person so this will probably just go to my dear husband. Especially since I have a much cooler new hat that I didn't have to knit! Maybe I will make another post about that.

Anyway, a friend asked me knit a cowl for her sister-in-law. She agreed to pay me and I agreed to knit it. I was plugging along being completely monogamous, which is very unlike me (in my knitting! Get your mind out of the gutter!) But the monogamy paid off and I finished it while we were at the cabin! 

It's called the manic panic cowl and it's completely linen stitch. It turned out great! It was a little hard to hand it over. I would like to knit one for myself but I can't face that much linen stitch again. At least not for awhile.

Just look at the color play on this fingering Malabrigo yarn. 

So, I will be turning both of these projects in for HPKCHC! Very exciting. I'm also working hard on a pair of socks that will be perfect for my detention project. I'm getting close so I'm off to work on them.

Make an Effort

I've been a pretty big blog slacker lately and I'm sorry about that. I haven't made my blogging a priority in any way and I definitely want to so I'm making an effort.
I'm in the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC) again this term, my fifth year, very exciting. So I'm crafting away on things for that. I also have a very cool wooly gift from a friend that I could blog about but I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of it yet.
Then there's Midori Monday/Filofax Friday. I've been so back and forth in and out of each system that I have tons I could say in each instance but I haven't.
As you can see, there are lots of topics and interesting things and somehow it gets shoved to the bottom of my to do list each day and often off the list and onto the next day's list.
So here is what I propose. I'm going to make a better effort to blog each week. At least one time. Preferably two but one for now. If you don't see a post up by me on or before Thursday, email me. Bug me about it. Get me motivated.
For my part I'm going to try to do some things to make it work better. I'm going to make a bigger effort to make it a priority, I'm going to make a definitive plan and I'm going to attempt to execute that plan each week. If that doesn't work, I'm just going to write something. With or without a picture just to make sure you all know I'm still alive, I'm still knitting and planning and playing in my midori and filofax.
More soon but for now, I need to get to work.