Looking forward

 This New Year I made no resolutions, I drank champagne and watched the fireworks and just enjoyed the end of 2010.

The year did end well, Holly's wedding was everything I ever wished for her and more, Christmas was noisy, fun and festive and the sadness of Blaise leaving home for good was tempered with the work of making her bedroom into my new workroom.

I'm so excited to have this new space, the entire time we have lived in this house (4 yrs now) I have shared the upstairs lounge, firstly with Flash as an office space, then when Maria moved out and Flash turned her room into his office, as a den/ workroom so that Flash could watch TV while I worked, now that I have this decent sized space all to myself we finally get a nice clutter free upstairs lounge and a door can be closed on work at the end of the day (that's what I'm telling myself...)

I scrubbed and filled, sanded and undercoated and finally painted the room a lovely blue my furniture was already white, beech and cream - so I felt it was important for the room to have a colour, it is cool without being cold, an enveloping colour, a sanctuary. I finished it off with floor length charcoal slub satin drapes which add a touch of glamour to an otherwise useful space.

I haven't "worked" in this room yet, it was only finished yesterday, but today I sat on the couch looking out on the 9 frantically flowering gardenias who love the dappled sun outside the window in one direction, and the pool and crazy summer vegie garden on the other side, while I sat and watched and thought about what I want to say and do this year, while I sipped vanilla mint tea out of a pretty cup and breathed the scent of a green tea mint candle (you get the theme here?)  I tore fabric into strips, knotted them and then rolled them into balls, the first cushion I made using fabric strips knitted up on large needles turned out so good I've decided to make more, and I have this pink lining fabric from Trelise Cooper's workroom sale that I have wanted to use for ages, the print is so pretty, but quite frankly the fabric is rubbish, it crushes and snags on everything, so I bit the bullet and repurposed it. I'll run a strand of dk weight cotton with the fabric, cast on 60 sts and knit until the fabric runs out, then I'll add another end of the dk and knit the back. I love how the knots work themselves to the front of the fabric, it's rustic and tactile, the smoothness of the silk and the unfinished look of the fraying knots. The other ball is strips of blue tulle to be worked the same way.

As for the things I want to do and say...for a start lots more designs should be percolating through now that most of the crazy is over, this year needs to be one of consolidation, of settling in and nesting, enjoying friends and family, and home.

What are your dreams for this new year, this new decade? or are you carefree as Frasier, only dreaming of birds!