Hello

Hi.

Back after a long break.

birthday

I had a birthday last week which unfortunately I had to spend at a meeting in Birmingham, so I had an official birthday the day before. I had saved a 2 for 1 voucher from Gardener's World magazine so went with my mum to Arundel Castle for the day. Its a pretty spectacular place - I dont know anything about the history because we were cheap-skates and only went into the gardens.

Beautiful wisteria.

And I think this is an apricot.

lacy crochet

I crocheted a small bag to keep my crochet hooks in so I dont lose them. I used some thickish black cotton thread and the pattern is adapted from the hook case in Lacy Crochet - Kyuuto Japanese Crafts. The result is a bit short and also the the hooks fall through the holes. So, not well thought out overall (totally my fault for not bothering to follow the pattern properly and nothing to do with the lovely book). Luckily its exactly the right size and shape to keep my ipod in to stop it getting scratched in my bag. The evenings are light enough now to go the allotment after work for an hour. Still a fair amount to dig over and weed but we have potatoes, onions, broad beans, carrots and parsnips in the ground. Tomorrow I will take some pictures. In the meantime here are some tiny cauliflowers... aren't they sweet!

welcome

My new niece is a week old. Welcome to the world Katerina :-)

Of course this means that the tiny blue cardigan will need some pink flowers attaching.

beans

Broad beans on my kitchen windowsill.

I baked a cake today, in my new breadmaker. Its a bad idea - dont try it!

Also, I have been doing some knitting. Its a pale blue/green baby jumber. I will post a picture when its finished. My stocking-stitch always ends up in stripes of uneven tension. So on the back I tried to even it up by knitting the purl rows more loosely. Then for some reason I tried to knit the knit rows more tightly on the front. Im not sure why I thought this was not going to have some kind of bad effect on the overall garment. Tension is a tricky isnt it? Sometimes I think I should relearn how to knit from scratch but it seems like a lot of effort.

day off

Lovely! Day off work today. I got a haircut and did some shopping. This morning I threw some bottles into my recycling bin in my front garden. My neighbour thought someone was smashing a window to break into my house so she called the police. She was just a bit jumpy after I got burgled a couple of months ago. I was pretty embarrassed when 2 police cars turned up a few minutes later. After all the excitement I cleaned my kitchen and dusted this shelf above the fireplace. I made the 2 crocheted jug covers ages ago. These are really handy, quick items to make for presents. My friend Nic gave me the tiny cup and saucer and the tile comes from my Great Aunt.

green

All sorts of things are springing up in my garden. This clematis is growing at an incredible rate. With a bit of luck it will have big purple flowers in the summer.

I went to a willow and hazel garden structures course with my mum on Saturday. It was fantastic fun. Really hard on our hands though, my thumb nails are suffering this week. We made tall plant supports. The hazel provides the uprights and the willow twigs are bent round them and woven to hold the whole thing together.

The willow twigs were soaked for a couple of days beforehand to make them easier to bend but it was quite warm in the room so after a few minutes work they started to dry out. Here is my mum weaving one of the circular ties. We had time to make one of these teepees each and a sort of basket type plant pot.

So the clematis now has a hand-made plant support to grow up.

I will take some pictures of the finished articles in my garden soon.