Sunny Saturday

Oh, what a lovely day it is today!  The sun is shining, the sky is blue … I was out in the garden early this morning and it was just gorgeous to be pottering in the sunshine and hearing the birds before most people were out and about.

The garden has properly woken up now and there are buds and new leaves on all the plants and trees.  We have an oak tree which is usually the last to come into leaf – every year it looks like it might have forgotten to produce new leaves, but then one morning you open the curtains and it’s gone from bare branches to a green glow as the new leaves are unfurling.

Elsewhere in the garden, other plants and trees are in full bloom.  There’s blossom on the apple tree …

and the crab apple tree.  We get loads of crab apples every year and I always think that I should do something with them but I’ve never got round to it.  Maybe I need to rectify that this year!

The lilac has started flowering – we have a deep pink lilac and it looks so beautiful against the blue sky …

We’ve got lots of wildflowers, too.  Some are self-seeded and some have been in the garden for years but move themselves around so they pop up in a different place every year.  I’ve got more forget-me-nots than you can shake a stick at …

and ragged robin (I like the Latin name for this one: Silene flos-cuculi), which always make me think of picnics in the countryside for some reason …

and I sowed these cowslips from seed when we first moved here over 20 years ago.  This one isn’t supposed to be growing between the paving flags outside the front door but it seems that they grow where they like to grow and it really likes it here!  You can’t really see it as it’s out of focus, but behind the cowslip to the left is a Welsh poppy which also shouldn’t be growing through the paving flags.  Yes, yes, I know I can pull them up but I can’t bear to do that and miss out on the flowers so they will stay until the flowers are gone and then I’ll tidy the flags up 🙂

And joy of joys, the Camassia (I think this one is Camassia quamash) is out.  Oh, I adore these tall purpley-blue spikes and wanted them in my garden ever since seeing them at RHS Bridgewater a few years ago.

If you’re a long-time reader of the blog you’ll know that Clare of Red Squirrel & Dune created a colourway based on one of my photos of the Camassia flowers called Christine’s Camassia and I wear the socks I made from the yarn regularly …

I treated myself to a pair of Lanx Cheadle sneakers earlier this year (they had a sale on 🙂 ) and I love how well this pair of socks goes with the green shoes.

 

Ooh, did someone mention socks?  Actually, it doesn’t matter whether someone mentions socks or not as I am skilled at turning any conversation into one about socks, so let me tell you all about what’s on and off my needles at the moment.

It’s the last day of the Spring Sock Reset today and rather than write it all out again if you’ve missed it when there’s only hours to go, I’m going to link to the post about it here: Spring Sock Reset   It’s been about encouraging everybody (me included) to do a spring clean and audit of projects, stash, needles and accessories, and I’ve had a 15% discount on all my patterns for the duration of the reset.  You can still use that until midnight tonight – the code is SPRING.

I’d like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who’s told me what they were doing for their own Spring Sock Resets, bought patterns or bought me a brew over the last few weeks.  It’s been great to have you get involved and I really appreciate it xx

 

I wrote in other posts about the projects that I wanted to try to get finished during the reset weeks and I’ve got progress to show you today!

Off the needles … ta dah!

These are my husband’s new socks in Laughing Hens Super Sock yarn in the shade Cleves.  The link is an affiliate link and thank you if you’ve used it (I’ve posted it every time I’ve mentioned these socks 🙂 ).  My husband is very happy with his new socks and I love that over the years, we’ve gone from his socks only be black to now being quite bold in colour.  The stripe repeats are quite long in this yarn so I have cut it on the foot so that we got more of the purple (the yarn was dyed to give an extra navy blue stripe) but this sort of thing never bothers me as I always know there’s going to be yarn left over and I don’t really care where in the ball that is.

There’s a new pair of socks on the needles for my husband and despite me saying he likes bold colours now, we’re back to black for this pair.  This is the new Laughing Hens Cozy Sock 4ply that I told you about last week and I deliberately asked for a ball of black yarn to try out because I wanted to use one of the rainbow micro mini skeins that I bought from the TexStyle show.

I decided I would cast on with the CrasySnake DPNs that Laughing Hens sent me to try out – you can read more about them in last week’s post, and I took my own advice and worked 2 rows of rib before joining into the round.

I can’t tell you the last time I knitted a pair of socks on DPNs!

I experimented with using 5 needles and 4 needles, and I also switched between Continental and my usual English style of knitting, and the needles worked very well in every situation.  I found that it was slower to knit with these needles, although I couldn’t tell you whether that’s because of the wave stopping the stitches slide at a great rate of knots or because it’s been such a long time since I knitted with DPNs.  I found them very comfortable to use, although I did switch back to my short circular simply because of the speed.  I’m going to use them again when I get to the heel so I’ll let you know how I get on with them when I get to that point.

These are now known as the Dark Side of the Moon socks after the Pink Floyd album (click here to see the album cover) because my husband loves Pink Floyd – actually, we both do; some of the music is an acquired taste but I really enjoy the later albums and I think Pink Floyd is going to be the soundtrack to my afternoon!

It’s also very fitting that the space ship Artemis II has returned safely from its journey to the dark side of the moon.  I really enjoyed keeping up with the NASA videos on Instagram whilst the astronauts were out in space, and I loved that there was such a blend of science with real emotion: “If you can’t take love to the stars, then what are we doing?”

Yes, there are cat hairs on the yarn already.  I re-wound into a centre-pull ball to try to stop it rolling about and looking like a giant snowball, but I think there are just cat hairs in the air here and there is no way that anything escapes them in our house!  The yarn is very nice to knit with; it’s smooth and soft, and I think these are going to be a lovely pair of socks.

 

The last project that I wanted to try to finish as part of my Spring Sock Reset (although it’s not a sock, it’s a baby cardigan), is this one, the Newborn Vertebrae (Ravelry link) that I’m knitting for a friend.  I thought I had a couple of weeks as the baby wasn’t due until the middle of May, but it turns out that my friend was further along than everyone thought and baby is due any day now.  I had put this down because I was having a lovely time with the Dark Side of the Moon socks but I’ve had to pick it up again, quick!

It came for a day out on the train to Chester with me yesterday …

and I’ve managed to knit a whole sleeve and a half in a short space of time so there’s hope that the cardi is going to be ready before baby arrives!

I’ve got to finish the sleeve and knit a rib cuff around the body so there’s still a fair bit to do, but at least I’m further on than I was and it doesn’t really matter if it’s not finished for the moment the baby’s born – and babies do tend to do their own thing a bit (or mine did, anyway!) and he may not arrive when everyone thinks he will anyway!

 

It’s now considerably later on Saturday than it was when I started this blog post as not so small daughter and her friend have come back from university to go to a concert so I’ve driven them into Manchester.  Now, though, it’s time for me to make myself some dinner and sit in the sunshine in the garden for a while.  Oh and knit, of course – I’ve got a baby cardigan to finish!