Little Pumpkins

I've been knitting some Jack Be Little Pumpkins from a lovely pattern at The Sitting Tree. Very simple to knit. For the first one I followed the pattern exactly, and used some wool I bought specially. I didn't have a single piece of orange wool in my stash, so bought this rather nice Mist by Twilleys of Stanford. I thought it was a rather subtle orange, although I guess pumpkins can be brighter.

Then I was in Tiger (me and Frankie's new favourite shop). I don't know which countries it has got to, or even if it has branches far from London. I see it is a Danish company, and the shop is a little like the non-furniture part of Ikea. Everything has a Scandinavian sort of name. I won't say it is cheap, but just very good value. I bought these lovely coloured wools, at £1 a ball. They have quite a low percentage of wool, but I thought they would be ideal for my little creatures, or I might even knit some socks. They also had wooden knitting needles, bead sets, and lots of other things. Very tempting

So I decided to try a variegated mini pumpkins. I slightly increased the number of stitches. Family say it looks a bit more like a russet apple, but I still like it.

I have photographed them with my ornamental gourds, which I grew last year. They are now even past their best as ornaments, but I thought they might look interesting. My best friend laughed at me, as she had grown lots of lovely useful vegetables, and all I had to show for my gardening efforts were ornamental gourds.