Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

New project

Pattern: Brandywine Shawl
Yarn: Handmaiden Swiss Mountain Sea Sock in Nightshade


The Pi Shawl is blocked and finished, but I don't have its glam shots taken yet. I've also finished a long-term project - the Kayla Shrug - at long last, but don't have pictures of that yet either. I've been under the weather for the last few days so I've managed a bit of lace but no photo shoots.

I've knit the Brandywine once before, and loved it, but it wasn't for me. This one will be! It's a great pattern. I like that, unlike most triangles, it's knit from the bottom point up - fun for a change.
 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Flower installation

These are some mixed media flowers I made after taking Carla Sonheim's Flower Crazy online course. I decided to brighten up our front door with some of them.




Sunday, April 7, 2013

Saturday afternoon in the garden

We're trying some differently shaped garden beds this year - less linear.



The peony is coming up.


The kale overwintered well and is producing lots of fresh leaves for us.


And it's also trying desperately to go to seed. So far we are thwarting its plans.


The garlic is really taking off. It seems to have appreciated the fish fertilizer it got a few weeks ago.



 We're going to try to grow potatoes vertically this year. We assembled the beginnings of the potato tower that Dave designed. Apparently the trick to this is to use late harvest potatoes, and to keep mounding them up at just the right times.


Our alpine strawberries are starting to blossom already.



There were just a few hours of sun this weekend and we were lucky to be able to be in the garden for a couple of them.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

30,000 stitches

Dave just finished his latest pair of socks and wanted me to blog about them. :-) They're knit quite densely on 76 stitches, with a pattern that seems to require more rounds to make vertical progress, and so we figure there are about 30,000 stitches in the pair!



They are knit from Cascade sock yarn, and the patterning is based on Gentlemen's Half Hose from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Flowers

Bringing some spring colour indoors:


I've been following Carla Sonheim's Flower Crazy online class a second time through. Here is a mixed media painting I'm really pleased with.