Well ok, so it's as old as anything in the knitting world but I've never done it before.

This is the beginnings of a knitted rag rug made from strips of old sweatshirts that are being sewn together as I go. I originally cut the strips about 1/2 inch wide and after only a few rows it's becoming quite difficult to manipulate, so I think cutting the strips thinner would have been a better idea.

The result is a nice squishy bouncy strip and because the sweatshirts were both fleecey type material it's quite soft too.

Well I finally finished my 'red hot' jumper.

This was originally part of my Finish It Off In February campaign. Well the end of March isn't bad I suppose.

The pattern is taken from a Machine Knitting Monthly magazine, and the wool was a charity shop find. When I bought it, it was a cable knit jumper, I then knitted it into a plain jumper, but that rapidly became too big since I began cycling more. So now it's a much smaller jumper and it fits really well. It's lovely and toasty too.

Whilst I haven't been making entries, I have been knitting. It's been quite hard to move this to take a picture of it.

There have been times where I've had seven or eight strands of yarn running from the back of the piece. Spaghettification at it's most complex.

I am now in the process of kniting the top border so I'm down to one colour. It's been great fun to knit, the chart is well written for a knitter with the colours usually joining in quite efficiently as I've moved from row to row.

Most of the yarn has been recycled from the stash, it's been nice to use up some of the Jaguer cadet blue that has been sitting there for literally years for example. The rest has come from a local small supplier.

when you're knitting away and something develops?

This is one of the sleeves for the 'Red Hot' jumper machine knitting pattern I started last month. Part way through it decided to rewrite itself, and because it's a ribbed pattern I didn't see it until it was too late and there was a huge hole.

So, back to row 1 then.

The best time to knit presents is when you don't have to rush them. So I decided to build up a general Christmas / anytime present stash to help me out. Two of my efforts for this are pictured below.

This is a mistake rib scarf in Kidsoft wool, which is just so lovely and warm. The scarf is knitted over 31 stitches.

More donated yarn, this is Rowan magpie tweed this time.

Right, pass the mince pies, I'm ready.

Since finishing the socks there's not much actual knitting going on, but I am still acquiring things.

This from my local charity shop for 10p.

This through the post from a friend.

And this through the post again from another friend. This will go towards knitting blanket squares for the Lluest horse and pony trust.

And we are finished!

SharonJ wrote in the comments:

I'd never thought of knitting my own dishclothes until my daughter knitted me a couple last year and they're soooo good.

Got to agree, knitted dishcloths are just so much more fun than shop bought ones and they compost down after they are worn out as well so there's no need for waste.

You can do so much more with a dishcloth than use it as a cloth though.

This is a bathmat I made based on a dolphin design cloth from the dishcloth monthly knit-a-long group (see link in right hand column). I added some non-slip rubber matting donated by a friend at each end on the underside and it works a treat.

It's a popular question. "What's the simplest way to increase in knitting?" Simple.

Make more knitters.

These are needles I am sending out to two friends this week (There, I've written it down now, so I'd best get on with it). One of them will be using the needles to teach a new generation of youngsters how to wend magic with sticks and string.

All of the needles are a donation, either from Aine, or from the contents of the box she brought round and who knows where they came from originally. It goes to show that knitting really is the ultimate in recycling.

I love a good freebie as much as the next person (I've just asked him, he assures me that this is true.) so when I popped a few things into my local charity shop yesterday I was delighted to be given these.

That's a knitting machine yarn brake, a card puncher and a roll of punchcard tape. It should have been with a knitting machine I bought a few weeks ago, but the donator only just found them. I am really pleased.

I keep being given lots of knitting things, I really do think that the universe is trying to tell me something.

The problem with a Finish it in February challenge is that the month is too short. The normal extra two or three days at the end of the month can be just the thing to help you finish that knitting project. As it is I had just 28, and I've still got a huge amount of things to finish, which probably means that I wouldn't have finished them in any ordinary month either, but at least I would have had another two or three days.

As it is, I have one more dishcloth.

This is the Snowflake dishcloth from Dishcloth Corner. Again its knitted in donated DK Rowan cotton.

Does this mean that there is an end in sight on the DK cotton. Nah! I swear there's just as much now as there ever was.