A Year of Unravelling Jumpers?

So as the official start of our year begins tomorrow, I've been thinking about how I'm going to have to be far more creative than I've been during our warm-up of the past couple of months.

This week I've started knitting a hoodie for the kids again (there was a long pause after K was born), and it's reminded me how much I love knitting and how that is another avenue for making gifts and getting clothing etc.  However, for anyone who's bought wool in the last few years, it is a very expensive option, in comparison to buying anything in the shops.  (I honestly don't know how they can justify the cost of clothing as it is, even if you halved the cost of wool!)   So buying more wool to make things; toys, stockings, jumpers, pen holders etc, seems like a dead-end.

Then revelation hit!!  (Amazing what things you think about in a darkened room whilst breastfeeding in the middle of the night...am never sure if I'm awake or dreaming up these things).  In my regular charity shop trawls, I can hunt out wool jumpers and unravel them for a giant supply of cheap wool!  It surely can't be that hard, once I've managed to undo the sticking that holds it all together.  So watch this space on whether it works or not (photos to follow later in 2012).

I've also decided I need to be more creative on food production.  This week I managed to get our new compost bin in place, in the corner of the backyard.  I've never been too optimistic about the amount of food we could generate in such a small space, with little sunshine, and lots of paving slabs.  Although the pots have done us proud, with tomatoes, apples and bay leaves.

But I noticed that we have a little strip of soil between the slabs and the wall (probably not quite 2 foot deep), which is hidden under bits of slate.  The soil underneath seems really good.  And all I need to do is relocate the apple tree pots (I'll probably need to get rid of a few shrubs, which aren't that exciting anyway), and we'll have a little strip farm of our own.  So I've emailed our friends who have a real strip farm (the source of our apple harvest earlier this year, and the beautiful bunch of mistletoe on our front door this Christmas...thanks!!!!) to get some tips on where to start, and hopefully we'll get some veg going later this year.  Something else to try and regularly fit into the week, but I've always aspired to an allotment later on, but am put off by the distance we'd have to travel to get to it....so no excuse on this challenge!

So as the New Year dawns there are lots of ideas and activities bubbling away.  It really is exciting, and I'm hoping that January and February (traditionally my least favourite months of the year (even though my birthday is in the midst of them)) are more positive than normal.  The biggest challenge will be time, especially as I juggle returning to work too, but I like nothing better than change and a challenge...so here goes.

So Happy New Year, to anyone reading this, and I hope you find something to challenge you this coming year, and find some richness in less too!