Endpaper

fter the success of Dan's mittens I immediatly cast on Eunny Jang's Endpaper mitts. These have been on my knitting 'want' list a good few years, but I'd never had the courage to take the plunge with the stranded colour knitting before. A bit too daunting. Glad to have a pair of these finally, though - I think they were my new favourite gloves before I'd even finished the first one. It's still pretty chilly round these parts so I'll still have plenty of opportunities to wear them.

Jackson Mittens and Endpapers on the way home on the bus after Wild Beasts at KOKO: Wild Beasts = Awesome

  frequently wear my Noro fingerless mitts, made eons ago, under my Norwegian mittens for extra warmth - I get very cold fingers - so I hatched a plan for a matching pair of mittens to slip over the top of these. I have stacks of this yarn left too - part of the Great Kentish Town PDSA Yarn Haul of 2009. I was a little nervous about the finish with this unknown wool/silk tweed, but it blocked really well for my endpapers, evening out the worst bumps at the seam edges just fine. However, it doesn't make great mittens. They're quite thin. I finished this first one very quickly, mainly because I was eager to see how my own chart would come out. They're wearable for spring or autumn, but they don't fit over my endpapers as I'd wanted - my own fault for doing them on the small chart instead of the large. Still I'm quite chuffed with the end result of my chart (and proud of my deer) so I think I'll rework it into the larger size and knit in something thicker for winter.

Prancing Deer Mittens (Rav link)

Closing note: The colours and pattern combined reminded Dan and I both strongly of Victorian floor tiles, so I'm sort of waiting for a trip to the V&A or other suitable venue for a proper photo shoot for the endpapers.

Spot the difference

February

March

The daffodils are coming...

work in progress

  started this rippled crochet afghan a little while ago, but these are the first photos I've bothered to take of it. It's only old stash yarn I'm trying to get rid of, but I'm hoping to make the colours snap non-the-less. I picked it up again this week after a period of hibernation under the coffee table, not sure why.

not helping my mood

very time I see his pathetic sad face I feel guilty. He can't get comfy or get out of the cat-flap and he just looks so miserable. Maybe if I knitted him a lions mane to fit over the inflatable collar he'd be more enamored with it.

Sunshine

esterday, for the first time in - what felt to me at least - several millennia, the sun shone down on London town. Quick! must photograph everything in actual real light, immediatly. So in a bid to cheer myself up a bit, current garden highlights in sunlight...

ast weeks pea sowing are this weeks peas sprouts. They emerge with the heads bowed and necks exposed, pale and slender. They rapidly fatten up and turn green and continue on their upwards trajectory. I had to move them outside into the cold frame today as the roots were escaping from the bottom, before the leaves have even opened.

the golden cups of our first croci in the lawn

our new witch hazel (Hamamelis intermedia, westerstede), purchased with Christmas garden tokens. A welcome addition in our bereft winter garden

Iris pixie. One of the winter flowering bulb Iris varities - one of the best £2 I've ever spent. I'd happily get another truck load. We happened upon some in Regents park the other weekend and I had to have some.

snowdrops, finally stretching their wings in the sun.

p.s. the reason for extreme close ups is to try and hide how barren the garden really is at this time of year - working on it though.

Garden action plan

  was going to take pictures of the barrow-full of new plants we've bought for the garden recently, but there's currently some variant of sleet or snow falling from the sky - it's neither sleet nor snow, but it is white - and I have a cold as it is. Just looking out the window at it makes my head ache a bit more. Instead I will be content with the garden inside the flat. I bought some Tete-a-tete and a forced hyacinth bulb to cheer us up a bit inside, and on Sunday I managed to sow some sweet peas (night and day mix) and eating peas (the very early variety, spring) in toilet rolls to get us on track for eating in 2010.

op tip for toilet roll sowing - tie them together in groups of three so they don't all fall over like skittles when the cat wonders past. The precarious position is a result of necessity, not desire: we have one window sill in our flat, one! And it's tiny! I dream of a kitchen with long, deep, tiled, window sills..... and every winter I would fill them with paper whites and hyacinth bulbs.

lso managed to sit down for an hour or two and plan the garden for next six months or so - as in what to sew when, depending on what we want to eat. Next jobs on that list:
- sew green manure on the front plot (get a green waste collection from the council first!)
- get a first line of carrots and parsnips in
- pot on a few lettuces I've got and sew some more under cover
- sew purple sprouting broccoli
- and broad beans
- and leeks
- AND aubergines when the seed arrives
(and some morning glories)
- transfer the strawberries to their new bed

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

've been in a bit of a funk lately. I blame writing my thesis and spilling wine on my laptop, amongst other things. Fortunately my laptop recovered (almost unbelievably) and even more fortunately I didn't loose any data (hurrah!) - so I'm gradually cheering up a bit. In the mean time it was Valentines Day, and now the event is over I can put up some pics of the Valentine I made for Dan. I was keen to make sure I equalled last years effort - which I was pretty chuffed with - and I think I managed it.

I

he Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea     In a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money,     Wrapped up in a five pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above,     And sang to a small guitar, 'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,       What a beautiful Pussy you are,           You are,           You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

II

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!     How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried:     But what shall we do for a ring?' They sailed away, for a year and a day,     To the land where the Bong-tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood     With a ring at the end of his nose,           His nose,           His nose, With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling     Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.' So they took it away, and were married next day     By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mince, and slices of quince,     Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,     They danced by the light of the moon,           The moon,           The moon, They danced by the light of the moon.

Edward Lear

I got a bit carried away with my flax before I realised the boat should be green, but never mind. I could see myself making a whole set of these - One for each verse.

the first garden exploits in 2010

The first snowdrop

Daffodils in the lawn

A confused, and no doubt chilly (blurry) bee on the winter flowering honeysuckle

Snow flakes on sedums

Bicycle love

  had a pretty successful weekend on the knit front - two more FOs to my name. My own anthro scarflet fell off the needles and the (much needed and long awaited) mittens I've been making for Dan for over a year (bad me) were finished off too. No photos for my scarf yet, and my model for the mittens was feeling shy I think because I was only allowed one quick snap on the way to the corner shop.

he colours of the mittens, though perhaps not to everyones taste, were specifically chosen from the vast range available at Jamiesons of Shetland to match Dan's much loved Bob Jackson bicycle frame. There were several reasons the mittens took so long:

1. they were my first real colour work project and I only got the knack of knitting with two colours at the same time when I picked up the second mitten about a week ago. Something clicked and I suddenly had the ability to hold both colours in my right hand at the same time, instead having to drop one or the other strand the whole time and get tangled and cross. At one point during the first mit I even tried knitting normal and continental at the same time (as was recommended in one of my books), but this was awful. Me and continental style knitting do not get on. I must have an inner Shetlander hidden away somewhere, cause I've no explanation as to why it suddenly started working.

2. Whilst having a break after the slog of the first mit, something terrible happened to Bob. Dan hit a london pot hole too hard on his way home and his seat tube cracked. The frame is repairable, but I feared the site of me knitting his gloves inspired by the frame would depress him further - so I held off until the new bike was up and running at least.

Bob (and my Nova) in happier days

he completion of the gloves marks, for me at least, the end of a long period of shame regarding Dan's gloves. The ones he had were grim, cold and definitely not handmade. And, honestly, nothing screams "My Girlfriends a Knitter!" quite like these bad boys...

P.S. Matching seat covers and handlebar bags over on etsy. *love*

new favourite hangout

olk Object