1st task complete..

one of my goals this weekend was getting to grips with the double pointed needles..which to be honest i thought would be impossible..so I’m happy to state for the record that it’s not as hard as it looks when other people are doing it..and that I have just crossed off my first 101 task….now all I need to do is make something…

remember….

this post?

okay well my list is complete and I’m ready to roll… why you ask?? because I’m like that..i need motivation and I need to keep myslef interested in life otherwise I tend to stop..and stagnate….

so in random order these aremy challenges to myself..my 101 adventures in 1001 days insha’allah

Creating your own 1001 Day Project

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past – frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

Some common goal setting tips:
1. Be decisive. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it.

2. Stay Focussed. Any goal requires sustained focus from beginning to end. Constantly evaluate your progress.

3. Welcome Failure. Frequently, very little is learned from a venture that did not experience failure in some form. Failure presents the opportunity to learn and makes the success more worthy.

4. Write down your goals. It clarifies your thinking and reinforces your commitment.

5. Keep your goals in sight. Review them frequently, and ensure that they are always at the forefront of your thinking.

start date:  Sunday November 23rd 2008

end date: Sunday, 21 August 2011

1. Felting (because itto makes it look like so much fun)
2. Handspun yarn (because I just WANT to)
3. knit some socks (and then REALLY panic when I get odd pairs)
4. learn to knit with double pointed needles
5. try some freeform crochet
6. do some tie dye
7. make a prayer mat
8. do the 2 month compact challange
9. make some cloth sanitary towels
10. plant a herb garden
11. grow 10 edible things
12. start composting
13. banish placcy bags
14. make some earth friendly cleaning products
15. makemyown yogurt
16. make my own peanut butter
17. make jam
18. quietly contemplate for at least an hour each day
19. make hijrah
20. learn all of Allah’s 99 names
21. keep a handwritten journal for each day of the challange
22. go computer free for one week
23. go tv free for a week
24. go veggie for a month
25. go vegan for a week
26. do one random act of kindness each week for the whole challange
27. learn to weave
28. once a month leave an inspirational quote in a public space
29. make a desert a day for a month
30. make some hot/cold wheat bags
31. sponser an orphan
32. bury a time capsule
33. have a snowball fight
34. build a birdhouse
35. visit my mum
36. learn a new surah/dua each month
37. teach the children woodwork
38. one week with no negative statements!!
39. make a rag rug
40. make handmade soap
41. do a photographic day in my life
42. paint my stairs
43. teach DD8 to crochet properly
44. make a sundial
45. make a teepee
46. learn to juggle with four ball (I can only juggle with 3!)
47. create an islamic happiness project
48. knit of crochet a washcloth for each month of the challange
49. get a pattern published on ravelry
50. create a family cookbook for my children
51. eat only algerian food for a month
52. try 30 different cookie recipes
53. make doughnuts
54. postsecret
55. learn to say one phrase in 20 different languages
56. toast (halal) marshmallows around a fire
57. keep an organised schedule for a whole month (hah!)
58. adopt a sunnah each week
59. re-establish our family friday halaqah
60. have at least one more picnic in the park pre-hijrah
61. make the change to cloth botty cloths instead of loo paper
62. start a womans community project
63. make a quilt  for each of my children
64. spend time everyday after fajr readingmy qur’an
65. repack my house1
66. write letters to my family (pre-hijrah)
67. re-establish family reading time
68. study tajweed for an hour each day
69. study arabic 2x week at least
70. do one blog post in french
71. get my driving licence
72. learn how to make mhajeb
73. make rag dolls for mygirlies
74. write a short story and blog it
75. make a piece of fibre art
76. make flowerpot bread
77. give up choccy for a month
78. read all of my as yet unread biogs of the caliphs
79. read ar-raheeq al-makhtoom (finally)
80. make some hairpin lace
81. fast sunnah
82. find 5 interesting things to do with aubergines
83. make something crafty everyday for a month
84. make a go-kart
85. find an learn traditional algerian craft
86. make myself 7 new dresses
87. revisit a place from my childhood
88. spend a day in silence
89. teach the four year old to read
90. make some heirloom eid decorations
91. make and give away something each month
92. learn how to make barfi
93. be consistantly nice to someone I find it hard to be consistantly nice to
94. make another 101 list
95. make a piece of jewellery
96. do a blog post for each task complete or in progress
97. blog each day for a month
98. declutter my computer
99. learn how to sew in a zip! (and make it look nice!!)
100. make boy hats (cos the boys are getting fed up with the girls getting all the makes!)
101. try canning/pickling

weekend WIP

legwarmers for the four year old..knitted flat…cos I’m STILL trying to wrestle with double pinted needles!!!!

winter warmers….

for the 8 year old who has patiently been waiting for some wooly winter lovliness to callher own, whilst the 4 year old has thuggishly been claiming EVERYTHING as soon as it came off the hook/needles….

Lovely handwarmers….didn’t even follow a pattern..just cast on did a load of 2 by 2 ribbing, an whole heap of stocking stitch and ended with a bit mor ribbing and stitched the whole thing up down one side leaving big enough gaps for thumbage….
She’s happy, I’m delighted,I might even get a pair going for myself beofre winter’s out if all the memebers of my family would stop putting their own orders in for five minutes….

a weekend of handcrafts awaits me….. I bought a couple of meters of navy and white gingham to make aprons with…so I’m going to try my hand at chicken scratch this weekend…which is something I’ve wanted to try for ages now insha’allah…. apparently we’re in for a bit of a freeze this weekend..so snuggling it is destined to be..lots of covers…lots of knitting…lots of books no doubt and I dare say quite a bit of hot choccy too…. insha’allah you all have a snugglesome weekend
xxx

so wots been appenin ere then??

I know…..I’m taking this winter hibernation thing prety seriously huh?

but enough is enough.. you can only hibernate for so long without becoming a complete vegetable..so here I am to tell you about my week…

Okay so the day in the life idea didn’t work out and that was mainly because I….. erm…forgot! but I’m about 2/3 of the way through my 101/1001 list and I’m almost raring to go…..what is it with me and my almost impossible to achieve goals ??

Alot of the week was spent dodging the plasterers/tilers who invaded my home…and next week it’s destined to be spent avoiding the decorator and  the man who’s supposed to be laying the vinyl on my bathroom/hall floor…

there was an ultra impressive thrift store find..this is only a fraction of the embroidery floss that I found for £5 in one of the more bypassed thrift shops in our area…but what a treasure eh? each skein would have cost 50p in the sewing shop so it was a good bargain…

and the thrifted book finds are becoming ridiculous now….

there has been quite a bit of making… and alot of craft learnng…DD18 and I both learnt how to crochet broomstick lace last week and also how to crochet tunisian style, which is such an interesting way of crocheting..so next purchase on my list of crafting things to purchase is an afghan hook because in tunisian crochet you cast on like knitting!!! and whats more you can replicate knit and purl stitches!! just imagine something that looks like knitting without the hassle of wrestling with two needles..or becoming intertwined on those sadistic little circular jobs!!! or impaling yourself on a trio of double pointers….

have I lost my new found love of knitting?? No! in fact…. I’ve been practising different stitches and trying to actually get more than halfway through a pattern before realising I’ve dropped a stitch or that i’ve purled when I should have knitted and I have bits and bobs of pattern on both sides of my piece…ah well…..and I think I won’t mention the hat I got halfway through midweek..which I tore out because i couldn’t understand all the tuttorials about unknitting your way to the hole and picking bits of yarn up……{the thing that’s keeping me at it is the fact that despite my inability to actually produce a whole garment..my knitting is actually neat and tidy..I’m sure if i was having those problems and was a sloppy knitter I just wouldn’t bother..but I just know that somewhere inside me is a knitter just chewing at yarn waiting to get out!!}

I think at that point I must have hit meltdown because I haven’t been near a hook or a needle since…in fact it sent me scuttling over to my sewing machine where I produce a new frock for myself….

there has been crafting with offspring and crafting with sisters and our resident baker has been treating us to her wonderful homemade goodies masha’allah  ..though our wednesday crafting session has been put on hold till our buildy type people have gone

also thingys for our “shop” being handmade it’s hard to make alot fast..so we pootle alog and will add things as we finish them…we’ve come up with some lovely ideas for kiddies beginner crafty kits..but you’ll have to be patient with us until the influx of tea drinking, loud talking time wasters builders have gone

sneak previews….

should also mention that if anyone sees anything that they like the look of we can make it to order insha’allah…

so that’s me….. I’m off to finish that 101 list and have the pancakes DD17 is making for brekkie…..

been thinking alot…

about lots of things…. my relationship with Allah…my relationships with those near and dear ..the way we live our lives.
I’m not disatisfied, just eager to make some changes and do some things better.

And with the thinking has come the first tiny seedlings of change…plans of sorts..new chanllanges on the horizon to keep us me motivated…

I’ve decided to take the 101 in 1001 days challenge…and have been busy compiling my list….

Shop will be up and running on the 17th of this month…mainly because we have builders working in the house this coming week insha’allah…sorting out my hideous bathroom…

tomorrow I’ve decided to do a “day in my life post” probably subconciously in the hope that it will seem infinately more appealing and productive once it’s docmented and photographed .. and I’m sure there will be crafting of sorts…there has been an upsurge in the crochet this week..and some very interesting crafting plans discussed between teen DD’s and i….ah well…off to bed to dream of mould free bathrooms and yarn…

xxx

well….

I would treat you to a picture, but a child has lost my bluetooth and I can’t be messing about with usb’s not on ONE cup of coffee…so pics will have to wait till all small people have obediently got down on hands and knees and  diligently searched for the bluetooth so that crabby mummy can once again become calm and serene mummy we’ve found the bluetooth!

So what’s going on in my life this morning?? well…you know the bolier that was broken? leaving me hot waterless and grumpy? Yes I know the men came and fixed it last week, but guess what? In the great and glorious tradition of british workmen, they’ve fitted a dud’n…I have a dead boiler….grrrrrrrr…or actually to be a bit more precise….brrrrrrrr

but to look on the bright side this actually gives me a valid reason to be sitting and making winter woolies doesn’t it..you see it’s true every cloud DOES have a silver lining…. I have even sent DD16 off to the thrift store to get me the circular needles I saw last week….

and on the subject of knitting.. I was discussing with DD17  at the weekend why i’ve discovered a love of knitting…promted by her suggestion that amongst  crocheter’s (of which she is one) I could be classed as a treacherous and brazen traitor for casting aside my hook…. anyway i thought about it and realised that knitting presents a challenge… i already know how to crochet so whle having nice things at the end of a project is all well and lovely..it doesn’t present as much of a challenge as knitting does…

I’ve already made a mental list of things I want to learn and projects I want to make..and you can blame RAVELRY for that one ….

anyway..on the list for today…handwashing, yes the machine is still broken, cooking…..been a bit lax on the cooking front since being poorly..the girls took over most of my cooking duties so it’s time to get creative in the kitchen insha’allah….also some knitting of course, learning to work in the round…DS10 has requested a hat…and I have  a queue of children wanting handwarmers…..suppose we should fit in a bit of home ed here and there really….

BTW the observant amongst you might have noticed another page at the top of me blog….. shop will indeed be opening as soon as I can get the page looking gooood..and will be full of home made lovliness…

tata for now…got to go and look productive.