Musings on a rainy day

It's raining again but it's a softer kind of mizzle - mist/drizzle all wrapped up together. The cars are swishing by through the puddles, sounds outside are quite muted and it has a quiet, soporific feel, inviting you to relax for a bit in a comfy chair with a warm cuppa. I'm wondering if there is a good film on that I could lose myself in whilst comfort knitting. Might have to get out the dvd's and find an oldie....

You know what I really feel like doing today? Spinning. Out of the blue, not planned, and it's not as if I really need to start anything else new with so many things already on my to-do list. But it seems to fit this afternoon perfectly. I'll have to dust off the spinning wheel as it has been quite a while. In fact, there is a roving still being spun on it so that should be rectified immediately :) So I'm going to follow my muse today and just 'be'. I always find spinning quite meditative - keeping the hands busy whilst letting the mind wander off wherever it likes.

So a nice pile of roving to get stuck into. Now, just need to put the kettle on...... what does it matter if it's raining when there is good fibre yumminess to enjoy?  Back soon with some spun yarn maybe? Enjoy your day!

Red poppies

Well, back inside today doing a spot of tidying up and re-organising my work space - commonly known as procrastination! - since the sun has decided to disappear and the clouds are making everything look grey and cool. Not summer at all! So to remind me of the sunshine, I thought I would show you these lovely red poppies that appeared in the garden this year. A neighbour down the road has some ginormous poppies in their front garden and I can only think the wind has kindly blown some seeds our way to give us these beauties. We've had so much wind and rain these last few days though, I was frightened the petals would be blown off before I could get out there with my camera. But I was lucky:)

Three out so far and loads of buds waiting for some more sunshine to bloom. One of these would fill the palm of your hand easily and mmmmm, the colours! I feel a purpley-red yarn begging to be dyed just looking at the centre detail and the intensity of that red. Now, what could I use that for???? Mind is whirring with possibilities!

I thought I'd wander around the garden to see what else has come out in bloom over the last week. Mostly the bright orange lilies which are settling in their new home very well this year and have many more flowers waiting to open too. Funny thing about these lilies. I split the overlarge original plant last year and planted two new plants further up the garden. This one above has kept the strong orange colour but has a much more complex flower centre - a double lily even, a flower within the flower.

You can see it better in this close-up. But the second plant has done something strange. It is a much simpler bell shaped lily with paler colouring and distinctive markings. Both the same plant, honest! It must be the soil or that one gets less sun than the other? But it's really interesting how plants do this - fascinating.

Now I just have to wait for the mother plant to flower now to see which genes the children have inherited :))

Well, back to tidying and actually getting some work done. Quite a few things to show you on the needles at the moment too so back soon with something stripey.... :)

June is bursting out all over :)

June is here, the sun has been out, the garden has been going wild and the flowers are making everything  have a bright and cheery look all of a sudden. I've been away for quite a wee while recently but now I am back and raring to get going again. I have some finished projects to reveal, some ongoing larger projects on the go and a huge list of things I suddenly want to fit into my summer - weaving, dyeing, pattern designing, lots of knitting;) and oh, yes, lots more knitting!

I've been tidying out my shed/workshop in preparation for all the 'work' that I will be doing :) After I cleaned out all the clutter that had accumulated, I discovered my loom will need a little tlc before I can get any making done. But new linen for the rollers, clean up any rust and possibly a new wax or varnish will bring it back to looking brand new - she says hopefully! Then I can get onto rediscovering double weave. By the time I have made the repairs, I will have had time to read up all about it and refresh my memory - nothing like a new challenge:)

This will be my weaving view out of the shed window (I had to rehouse a few spiders and clean the window first :) Can't wait till all the orange lilies and crocosmia come out in the right bed, then it will be a riot of bright colour. Jungle garden:)) Ah, a good name for a new range of dyed yarns maybe? I was meant to convert this back to grass this summer but I don't have the heart to get rid of all the lovely plants and the garden has far too many plants already to relocate them. What a shame, it'll just have to stay as it is for just a little longer, wink:)

Some beautiful inspiring displays in nature at the moment too. This is the climbing hydranga just outside the shed window, to the left. It's in a lovely sheltered spot so it should flower well again this year. I'll have to go around and take lots more detailed shots while the weather is good. I missed a lot of beautiful detail on the irises a few weeks ago as I just forgot to grab my camera and take some close-ups. Hopefully if I'm blogging more again, I'll remember to think blog, camera, photos a little more often!

Hope you are all getting a little bit of sunshine wherever you are today:)

elaine x

Blue skies

Blue skies, sunshine and the wind has died down leaving a balmy early spring day. The sun actually feels warm on your face but it's still freezing in the shade. So we took advantage of the fresh spring feeling and decided to make the most of a wind free lunchtime and ate al fresco:) Albeit with a few warm layers on ! And, you may notice - salad! - organised in pretty patterns, just because I can :) And on the ryvita is some scrummy red pepper houmous - yum! Fruit juice in the lovely dinky cherry glasses. It has a juice jug to match and they are my favourites. Nice and jolly for warm days don't you think?

Aaahh! I feel like I've come out of a long hibernation - the fresh smells, the buds on the trees, the warm sun - they are all shouting it's nearly spring!! And all this sun is making me feel energised :) Energy, I have so missed you over the bleak grey winter months. It's all lovely and cosy bundled up warm by the fire knitting or crocheting but come March, I do love the cross into spring and it makes me impatient to be out and doing.

And doing is exactly what I have been up to the last few days. I've been looking around the garden now it's kind of warm enough to stand outside for more than a few minutes and a sad sight it is to behold - weeds everywhere, flowers needing deadheading - oops! - badly overgrown shrubs and trees, fallen leaves everywhere and weeds, weeds, weeds! A bit overwhelming but the sun is out and that heartens me for the lengthy task ahead. So, instead of crocheting my circles, I've been doing a little bit in the garden over the last few days. It feels like I've been doing a lot - and my back agrees! - but there are only a few tidy patches so far.

But amongst the tidying, digging and weeding, there are little gems appearing shyly in the sun...



Primroses....



 Forsythia......



Camellia.....



All bringing some welcome colour back into the garden. I'm looking forward to seeing all these buds flower on the camellia - it will be festooned in lovely pink :) Long may the sunshine last!!

Sunshiny garden

Hello, hello! Didn't mean to be away so long...... the sun came out and I started tackling the garden and, whoosh, time has disappeared - again! But things have been coming up in the garden, a little later than last year, but having a really sunny April has helped jumpstart a lot of the flowers - like these lovely tulips.

They are from a mixed bulb pack so I don't know the variety but they are lovely and bright! Of course, I did forget to plant them early enough so they grew rather later than probably everyone elses tulips but, hey! Same goes for all my daffs. I found the bulbs in a bag in the shed, um, the end of january and had to plant them in a rush. But they're all still flowering nicely albeit a couple of weeks after everyone elses:-)

Another lovely flowering plant in the garden is my pink rhododendron which is coming along nicely. It's only been in the garden a year but it seems pretty established in its little space now and looks happy catching all the sun.

One thing I love about the garden is surprise plants that grow. I haven't planted them and suddenly they are there! These lovely pinky purple flowers are one of them. When the leaves grew I decided to wait and see if it was a weed or a new surprise - yay! A surprise! I still have to look it up to see what it's called so if anyone knows, I'd be grateful. I do have lots of flower seeds to sew as well but I keep forgetting. Must put that on my to-do list pronto or it will soon be too late!

ETA: after checking, it's a drumstick primula - shame there's only one.....:-)

At least we are getting some more colour in the garden now. I do miss that in the winter and even early spring as I haven't got many crocuses or snowdrops planted as yet either so the garden can look a bit bare and drab. But that is a job for me to organise for next spring - remembering to plant them in time of course!

Have a lovely little stripey top finished to show you tomorrow now its all blocked and the buttons are on. Then I'm thinking of catching up on some dyeing and shawl knitting..... Back soon!

Just me in my garden.

I do find spending time in the garden restful and a great source of colour inspiration. The Asiatic lilies have come out wonderfully this year and you can smell their fragrance wafting across the garden. I love the smell - but outside. I once had a huge vase of them in a small bedroom and woke up find my eyes had totally swollen up as a reaction to the pollen. So I plant them in the garden where I can still appreciate the beauty and smell without the side effects!

I know they are big and blowsy flowers but I think they are lovely and bold - and exotic. Looking about my garden, I find I have a bit of a mixture, cottage garden plants like lady's mantle and daisies - big and in your face daisies;-) but also blowsy Dalias in scarlet, magenta and orange and gladioli in purples, reds and lilacs. Still waiting on some to show.

I love big daisies. It reminds me of Meg Ryan in the film 'you've got mail'. She said that daisies were such a friendly flower. Yes, they look happy and open - and they are loving all the rain we are having for our British summer but the rain is beautiful too....

I love the tiny little beaded raindrops on the lady's mantle leaves - like raindrops on cobwebs.

We also have this tree that is in flower right now with the most gorgeous scent - nearly like Jasmine. I can't remember what it is called but its from New Zealand and the bees just love it! When you pass, there is a distinct noisy humming of industious bees. The small flowers eventually fall off and carpet the ground in white. It is so thick at the moment, it looks like snow!

Subtlty, delicacy and in your face Dahlias:-) This is a much stronger red in real life - deeper in tone with a rich, velvet quality. I'll try and capture it properly again before it goes.

So when the weather is reasonably fair, I can contemplate the colours with the relaxing drone of the bees and the joyous cries of the soaring hawks overhead. Just me in my garden.

Magenta Ishbel finished!

After a concentrated burst of knitting on the Magenta Ishbel, it is now finished! Once I got going the pattern was actually quite easy. I think all the stopping and starting I did actually made it more difficult to get into a flow and remember the pattern changes. In fact, I found this easier to get into than the beret. But then again I did do that in small bits too!

So after all that knitting, I had to wait to block it as I didn't have anything big enough to use. So lovely pink playmats to the rescue, home delivered from Argos in two days so I could get to block my lovely scarf.

These mats are great. They fit together like a jigsaw so I can make a square, or a long line if I'm knitting a long lacy scarf rather than a triangular one. I wasn't sure how big each mat was or how many were in a pack so I got two just in case. Turns out each mat is 60cm x60cm and you get 4 in a pack. So I probably didn't need two but you got the second half price so it was worth it. I was also thinking what if I did a really BIG shawl?! You never know!

So I pinned it two nights ago when I was tired, quite late and I didn't realise I'd done it wrong - I pinned the wrong bit of pattern as a point and wondered why it didn't work. Lesson learned - look at the picture before you start and don't do it late at night when you're tired!! Yesterday, I wet it again and pinned it correctly this time and it is fine. The points aren't as pointy as some finished Ishbels I've seen but either I didn't stretch it enough (but I did pull until the pins wanted to pop at the top), or the acrylic yarn I used only stretches so far.

But it's my first lace shawl and I like it. I can get plenty more practice blocking for my next few shawls lined up - the woodlands shawl and the forest canopy shawl. Both good patterns for beginner lace knitters that can be knitted small - same size as this - or full size that would totally wrap around you. Lovely! But a lot of knitting and a lot of yarn! I think I will work on the smaller sizes for now until I find my lace knitting feet and then I have some yarn all ready for larger projects.

But for now, I'm going to start the Forest Canopy shawl in my new fushia yarn from Needlefood as the pattern only needs one skein and it will be lovely and soft being merino. No more Acrylic for me:-)

The knitting has been quite slow this weekend as the garden has been claiming a lot of my time. It started with the bench that arrived with my playmats from Argos. We had to clear a space - imagine a BIG heap of earth, weeds and grass tufts - then pave it so the bench had something solid to sit on, and then actually assemble the bench. Sounds simple but my poor hands are complaining at all the landscaping, carrying and fitting bricks. But it was worth it. Now that's done, the surrounding bits are looking neglected and the earth path needs finishing......

But the bench looks lovely - I love the rose pattern on the backrest - and it didn't take someone long to find a new perch to sit and watch us at our toils!! Now my hands just need to recover so I can get some knitting done:-)

Cheery Rhododendron

Not much in the way of knitting has been going on today due to this one new purchase - my lovely pink Rhododendron. It's officially called 'Cheers' I think, but it's now stuck in my head as Cheery - as it is bright and cheery! I had only gone into the garden centre to get some cat friendly slug pellets and this was calling to me. None of the rest were in flower and this was bursting with colour. And a glorious pink! I love how the unopened buds are a deep magenta but the flowers themselves are a delicate lighter pink with those lovely deep pink spots inside.

And just why has this lovely plant stopped me from knitting, you ask? Because I have to clear a space to put it! It grows to 1.8m x 1.8m and needs to be in a more protected space. It was originally going to be a lovely evergreen windbreak to stop all my other plants dying on one side of my garden but the label says it won't like that at all. But now, I have to bring my garden excavation plans forward a little:-)

This year, we've decided that we will still grow vegetables and tomatoes but not in the designated vegetable patch. The slugs were getting fat and the soil wasn't that good for growing, so this year we are having a vegetable and herb pot garden!! This leaves the old veggie patch empty and we have dithered between paving it, planting it with a few plants but we don't really have enough to fill it straight away, or maybe even making a zen garden for me to relax in. I thought that would be the cheapest option - gravel, rake and a few stones - ummm!

But now I've impulsively bought my cheery rhododendron, it needs a home so back to being a raised flower bed it is. Mind you, it will take pride of place:-) and I can 'borrow' some plants to pad it out a bit from elsewhere in the garden - she says optimistically.

So we are now knackered from clearing the surface, digging out all the accumulated weeds and laying out the bed with bricks. But too tired for any planting. So, after a day of hard graft and no knitting, cheery is still in it's pot but a lot closer to a new home.

Pea pods

At last we are getting some produce from the garden - lettuce, radishes, more lettuce, red leaf lettuce, cos lettuce, mixed lettuce... The tomatoes are growing, the courgette and beans are flowering but now we have - PEAS!


Six green peapods sitting in a row... artistically, of course.


I had forgotten just how yummy raw peas are - not too many and give yourself belly-ache though! To be honest once you've shelled six pea pods, there aren't that many to go around!

But there are more on the way. I'll just have to get more room to grow lots more if I want to actually get enough for a meal!

Lavender's blue dilly dilly

Lavender’s blue dilly, dilly, Lavender’s green;

When I am king, dilly, dilly, You shall be Queen.

Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?

'Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so

Call up your men dilly, dilly, Set them to work,

Some with a rake, dilly, dilly, some with a fork.

Some to make hay, dilly, dilly, Some to thresh corn,

Whilst you and I, dilly, dilly, Keep ourselves warm.

The garden is in full bloom!