Long time listener, first time caller...

Or in this case: long time reader, first time blogger. Which is a bit exciting.

As it's the beginning of a new year the blogging population has probably increased by a few trillion in the last few days as a result of new year's resolutions or something, but this blog has come into fruition not because of any resolution to share my life with anyone in the world who is remotely interested (even though I have been contemplating jumping on the bandwagon for a while) but because I just completed my very first knitting project and am ridiculously proud.

Here it is having been carefully handwashed with a squirt of B_E_E Delicate Fabric Wash, rolled up in a towel, and then laid out to dry as per the instructions for blocking in one of my current bibles.

It has been about 3 months in the making and it's not quite perfect due to me underestimating how much wool I'd need to finish it off, but it's done!

In other exciting news, a few days ago I contacted the organiser of Christchurch's World Wide Knit in Public Day to ask if she knew of anyone organising an event for Wellington for 2010. I had come across the Christchurch event when searching for something knitting related on the web and when I did some more investigation it seemed that there had been a 2009 event in many major centres in New Zealand but none in Wellington. Particularly shameful for the Cultural Capital...esepecially as it seems like a fun event. I love the credo of the overall WWKIP website: 'Better living through stitching together'. Partly because it reminds me of the Glad 'Better Living' ads that used to be on TV: 'I'm Leah Panapa, better living everyone'.

So, seeing as I like organising things (aka am a control freak) and am currently not heavily involved in any theatre projects, I thought I'd email and ask if Amy knew of anyone organising a 2010 WWKIP event in Wellington that I could help, otherwise I'd get one going myself. She replied today and she is so lovely, she said there had been interest in holding one but noone had done anything about it. So voila! Have project, will run with it. She also said she'd forward my email to some Wellington knitters who might be keen to help which is exciting.

Another exciting upcoming event is the Greytown Arts Festival. Being a born and bred Wairarapa girl I love going home and this is something cool to go home and do (apart from hang with the cutest and most awesome nine year old brother in the world and see the rest of the family). I'm mainly looking forward to the Art and Garden Tour (yes I'm a Nana at heart and I embrace it) and the Graffiti Knitting. Also, I love the design for the Festival. What a great image.

Finally, because I can see my tendency to write novels instead of emails is going to carry over onto here, I was all excited about casting on for my next project tonight (a hat, am pretty scared by the prospect of knitting in the round, decreasing etc but I don't want to knit another scarf and have tried to find a really easy pattern on Ravelry so I'm going to look at it as wonderful puzzle...) having been to Knit World and bought the wool (white and navy blue, following the pattern EXACTLY in the hope that it magically makes it easier) at lunchtime. However, when I sat down to cast on I checked that the needles I'd bought were right by consulting the needle chart in that old faithful and it appears the girl who helped me at Knit World got it wrong. I don't blame her, it's freaking confusing with the American vs the mm. Who knows, maybe she got it right and I am reading it wrong. But anyway, I'm going back tomorrow to check/get the right needles and then, look out hat, here I come!