Ginx Woolly Linx Party June

 

Welcome to the June Ginx Woolly Linx Party. I hope you are all enjoying a bit of nice weather, in your part of the world. Here in the UK we have a bit of relaxation of the covid rules, but stiil trying to keep safe.

I love this preemie out fit from Linda's Crafty Corner. The stitch is called mosaic crochet, but to me it looks like a waffle.

Eye Love Knots has reviewed the pattern for this Cross-Pollination Bag. So pretty, I would really like a bag like this.

Flickensalat has made this beautiful wavey long jacket for summer. Isn't it beautiful?

and finally I really enjoyed seeing this crochet light shade from Howling at the Moon. It is nice to see home decor projects.

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

Quiet Moments Cardigan

You may have noticed a lack of knitting posts, which is because I have been making myself a cardigan. Made from Quiet Moments Jacket from Drops Design, and I used Drops Flora wool (colour 04). I have used this wool before, and it is a mix of alpaca and wool. It was bought from Woolwarehouse, and was very reasonable.

I am a slow knitter, so this has really taken me a while. It is knitted from the top down, and I had three starts on the yoke. I nearly gave up, but then my husband spurred me on, by saying how can you not be able to knit something when you design your own pattern. So I gave it another go, and although I know there are one or two faults if you look closely, the leafs around the top is my favourite part of the pattern.

I didn't completely follow the pattern when it came to the cuffs, and ribbing.  The pattern has a tapered wider cuff, but I thought these would be a bit annoying. Once I started the cuffs I realised I had to make them quite deep for the arms to be long enough, so then decided to make the ribbing around the bottom the same depth. So the cardigan is much longer than on the pattern, but I like a bottom warmer. 

The only thing that I didn't like on this pattern was that for some of the increases and decreases, it just says increase x amount of stitches evenly across your row.  I can see this is simpler for the pattern writer when you have different sizes, but I didn't like having to do the sums, and then decide what to do if it didn't work out exactly. Too much maths!

 

I still only used 6 x 50g balls of wool, which is 50g less than the pattern recommends, despite it being so much longer. Can't work out why, but perhaps a leafy hat is in order for my 2 leftover balls of wool.

Still lots of time to join in Ginx Woolly Linx Party for May.

 

Garden Diary May (and Archaeology)

My garden diary this month is all based on news and photos from my husband, as I am in London. I just thought I would start off with this lovely photo of the apple trees in blossom. It all looks so green and lush.

These are some of the seedlings that I planted at Easter. Tomatoes, sunflowers, cucumber and peas. They all seem to be coming along okay.

Also the broadbeans seeds that I planted direct into the garden are doing well, and the strawberry plants. I can't wait to get there at half term to do a bit of weeding.

Also here is the tayberry, but mainly for the assistant gardener.

And a view of the tree tubes, which now seem to be getting enough rain.

Our other exciting news is that the archaeologist, who visited last year, has returned. Some more surveying was done. The map shows a structure, mainly northeast of the road, which is not our field but the next farm. But they decided to dig where the dark spot is, thinking it might be a large metal object or a fire pit. The biggest find in the test pit was this section of a quern stone, but the archaeologists have been returning each week, and dug further. They have found pottery and charcoal, which has gone off to Truro to be analysised. It is thought it might be late Iron Age. I also like the photo with the archaeologists, with the now assistant archaeologist. She probably is hoping they will find bones.

Still lots of time to join in Ginx Woolly Linx Party for May.

 

 

A Basket of Bees

I really enjoy seeing what people have made from my project. On ravelry I always have a look at the finished projects before I use someone else's pattern, as you can learn a lot that way.

So I was really delighted to see Lucy's basket of bees, made from my Bumblebee Pattern, in the reviews on Etsy. I emailed her to ask if I could share the photograph, and in her reply she told me that she made twelve bees, one for each of the people who attended her father-in-law Al's funeral. His grandchildren especially remember him teaching them to catch bees in jam jars, without harming the bees. And on the day after he passed away, a little bee flew past his family- cementing the ‘bee’ a symbol to remember him by.

I think this is such a good way to remember him, and was really pleased that my pattern played a part. It also reminded me how my mother would tell me how her father would always go out to tell the bees if their was a death in the family. I thought this was just something peculiar to my family, but have found this website about the tradition of Telling the Bees. Check out the poem and Big Big Train on Youtube singing "Telling the Bees".

Still lots of time to join in Ginx Woolly Linx Party for May.