Welcome back and a special welcome to some new followers. It's been a bit of a hectic week. Problems with broadband and problems with drains. All sorted now, thankfully.
I forgot to show you my second dishcloth that I made recently (pattern here). Here it is with our new, very miniature, rose. More about roses later.
Our neighbour does a bit of farming and for the past few weeks the field beside us has become the 'maternity field'. This was the first calf to be born. The picture was taken the day after it was born.
Mummy cow kept a close watch on her new baby.
In another field close by is the boy I would be pretty sure is the daddy!
Anyway, back to the garden now. The husband made this willow construction months ago (see here) for growing sweet pea. We've had such awful weather this summer with so much wind and rain. In fact, it is now official that we've had the coldest July in twenty years. The result is a slightly skewed willow frame and sweet peas that haven't quite reached their full potential. But they're not bad!
This is inside the frame where there are poppies growing as well.
This rose was planted last year and isn't doing too badly. A lot of the roses in the garden haven't done well at all this year.
This rose seems to do very well every year.
The first of the tomatoes this year. There is going to be a really big crop but that's because they're in the greenhouse. They are very slow to ripen so I pick them as soon as they show signs of starting to ripen and bring them into the house. For some reason they then ripen almost overnight.
Some of the blackcurrants that have been picked. I have washed and frozen over twenty two pounds so far and there's more to come! Later in the year I'll make blackcurrant cordial and probably some jelly too.
The strawberries weren't as good as we'd hoped because of the bad weather. We managed to get plenty to eat with ice-cream but not enough to freeze any.
I've finished crocheting the king sized blanket and have started sewing in the ends. It's therapeutic!
Did any of you spot my deliberate mistake in my last post about the sea glass shawl? I said the shawl is made up of three rows of motifs but it is actually constructed using four rows. The first has ten motifs, then nine, eight and finally seven, making a total of thirty four motifs. Also, I mentioned in the comments that I am using a 3.5 mm hook. Well, yes, I am. When I checked the pattern again (after having made fourteen motifs) I discovered that I should have been using a 3.25 mm hook. To be honest, I think the 3.5 mm hook is perfect so I'm glad I made that mistake! I've now finished the first two rows and am really loving it. Thanks for your lovely comments about the shawl, by the way.
Well, that's it for now. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. I have some news about giveaways that I've won but that will wait for another time.
Hello again. This is just a very quick post to let you see some of the little things I've been making. Of course making little things means that the big things take even longer to make. That's because I can only crochet or knit one thing at a time. Unfortunately!
This is a lap blanket that I knit while travelling as a passenger in the car. The strips are knit separately; 25 stitches and 300 rows of garter stitch. When all the strips were finished I crocheted them together and then crocheted a bit of a border round the outside.
I made another one the same except that it had an eighth stripe that was striped in the other direction with each of the seven colours. I didn't get a picture of it before I gave them both away. The two lap blankets went to keep residents of my local nursing home nice and warm. They were really pleased to receive them.
As a lot of you already know, Taci is planning to take hats to Brazil in July. So I thought I'd make some for her to take along.
Here they are. These are very small size.
These are probably big enough for a toddler. Very girly!
And these would suit a boy.
One of the girls in my crochet class also made some hats that I'll send along with mine.
I treated myself to some roses at the weekend. Aren't they lovely?
Thank you for your comments on the socks. Quite a few of you have put your name in one of the three hats to win a pair of socks. If you still haven't done so, then maybe you'd like to go back to my giveaway post and see what you think.
Bye for now. Next post will be to announce the socks winners.
Before going any further I want to thank you all for your kind and very thoughtful comments about my experience with the car. I am truly thankful. Just as I am truly thankful that the situation didn't end up being much worse. Thanks, too, for the comments on my hedgehogs. They were fun to make and I can't wait to get at least one owl made. I'm being put off making an owl by the fact that I now only have green tinsel yarn and I just can't imagine a green owl. Maybe I need to pay a visit to the yarn shop and buy some more of the tinsel yarn; white or silver would be nice, methinks.
Anyway, to get back to the post in hand. This is about some little gifts I've made for Christmas. When I was on holiday recently on the Isle of Skye (you can read about it here, here, here and here) I bought some hand crafted soap from the Isle of Skye Soap Company in Portree. I thought it would be nice to make some washcloths to go with the soaps and use as Christmas gifts. The yarn I chose is King Cole Bamboo Cotton DK which is made from 100% natural fibres making it a good choice for delicate skin. For two of the cloths I used the Ice colour.
There are plenty of patterns about for washcloths but, not wanting to actually get off my seat and go to look for my pattern book, I just decided to make it up. I made a chain as wide as I thought was necessary and then worked one row split stitch and one row double crochet until it was long enough to make a square. Then I worked a row of double crochet right round the edge. The split stitch gives it a nice texture. Look, here they are again with one of the leaves I've been making.
Now I had some more of this bamboo cotton yarn in my stash; Green and Dusty Pink (at least, I think those are the colours - I've thrown out the ball bands). Not enough of either colour to do another washcloth so I used both colours and made this ...
The middle is about three quarters the width of the Ice washcloths. I worked until the piece was square and then did a row of double crochet right round. Next I did a row of split stitch and a row of double crochet in the Green, repeated that with the Dusty Pink and then did a final row of Green shells.
Don't forget I'm using UK crochet terminology so read single crochet instead of double crochet if you use US terminology.
Maybe I should write up the pattern for you in another post. What do you think?
That's enough for now, I think. I have some more gifts to show you another time. The snowflakes will have their own post and so will the other Christmas decorations. I'm really enjoying making them all! All the best for now and please feel free to leave me a comment.
Nearly forgot! Before I go, have a look at some of the roses in my garden. Some are starting to look a bit sad, what with all the rain we've been having.
Some are just perfect still!
This one was only planted in the summer.
There's just something special about a perfect rose, isn't there?
So, what's happening in the garden now we're at the very tail end of the summer? All the plums have been gathered in and the tomatoes are still ripening and being picked every other day. I'm still making pasta sauce as this is something we eat quite a lot of and is a good way of using up lots of tomatoes. You can read about the plums and tomatoes here and here.
Apples are now just about ready and started to be used too. I made two apple and blackberry crumbles with some windfalls and blackberries foraged from our local hedges.
Here are the crumbles before going into the Aga.
It's hard to tell what's in them so here's a side view.
Straight out of the oven, smelling delicious.
Look at that beautiful colour where the blackberries and apples have melded.
Better leave the culinary delights and get back to the garden.
The onions have been prised out of the ground and are drying. The garlic was lifted weeks ago.
These parsnips are doing well. We had some roasted and they were very tasty but they're better left until after the frost has sweetened them. Which reminds me - we had our first frost two weeks ago!! It was -1.9 C; I don't think I remember any other year when we had frost in August. The carrots are coming on well too but they're covered to keep the carrot flies off.
Leeks a-plenty for making soup, among other things. We love leek and Stilton soup; the next time I make some I'll share the recipe.
The strawberry runners have been planted in a new bed for next year.
Late summer flowers are doing their best to brighten up the garden for us.
There are still poppies flowering, though not very many.
Some things are now repeat flowering; like this buddleia and the wisteria.
Would you believe we even have some primroses flowering? Very strange for this time of year.
Just look at this bee that has gone right inside the flower.
As well as flowers there are nice architectural features at this time of year too. Some lovely seed heads especially.
To prove that we're about to embark on Autumn the Virginia creeper has changed to a beautiful deep red.
I love these new shoots on the Virginia creeper.
Well that's it for the (very) late summer garden; the very nearly autumn garden. It's really hard to believe that we're into September already. I keep thinking we're starting August - have started to type August several times - and then remember that it's September.
Hope you're enjoying the changing of the seasons wherever you are. Either summer to autumn or winter to spring. I'm glad so say that I love all the seasons as they each have so many good things to celebrate.