As seasons go - and man, do they go fast for those of us on the less popular side of 40 - spring has a lot to recommend it. The very best thing is that nature stops hiding its colourful light under a damp, grey, bushel, and comes out to frolic. Look at these beautiful snakeshead fritillaries! It's trickier than usual to be miserable when there's so much new life around, such as the bottle-fed lambs in the twinnage's friend's garden. Meet Alfie. Alfie is trouble. But Alfie Continue Reading
Winter Colours
There is knitting in this post I promise, but there's also lots of winter colour because if you're anything like me, you find the natural world and the landscape endlessly fascinating and inspiring. (And if you're not anything like me, then congratulations on being such a well-adjusted member of society.) Those eleventy hundred bulbs I planted in the autumn are beginning to reveal themselves and I can't resist showing you a few:- Judging by the green fronds poking up all over the Continue Reading
Outdoors Inspiration
I was browsing Facebook the other evening, when I came across this post by Koliber Anna Droździoł. Freeform crochet landscape dresses. How beautiful?! She's done a stupendously brilliant job. I love the exuberance, the colours, the technical skill, everything about this. (Also, I would so wear this.) It got me thinking, and now I'm wondering whether I should make a dress or a skirt based on the landscape around here in Oxfordshire. If you've been here for any longer than it takes the twinnage Continue Reading
Pondlife
May I show you something? It's not yarn-related, but I do plan to spend a lot of time beside it knitting and crocheting. You see, I'm making progress on the wildlife pond. It's nowhere near done, but I've finished digging, and it does at least now contain WATER. One day soon, the edges will be concealed, the lawn will be re-turfed, more rocks will be added, and most importantly, some coir mats will arrive (from these marvellous folk), pre-planted with native water-loving vegetation. Then, this Continue Reading
Alpaca Fluff
Warning: this post contains alpaca fleece of an exceptionally fluffsome, gorgeous, nature. In extreme cases, it may trigger the urge to abandon your responsibilities and run off to cuddle the nearest alpaca. Please proceed with caution. I know I've been quiet lately. This past week, my silence has been due to a family holiday in a cottage way down south west, in Cornwall. Actually it wasn't a cottage, it was one wing of a beautiful old manor house, with a garden - nay, grounds - that looked Continue Reading
Outdoors
Yikes, I did NOT intend to go quiet on you for so long, but there's scarcely even been time to knit/crochet! What with the twinnage, and redeveloping the garden, and lots of new patients to assess at work, and a stonking big yarn-related writing commission, and marathon training, and... and... and... I'm sure you get the gist. Talking of marathon prep, it turns out that there's more to the training than just eating all the pasta, so I've been upping my running... and eating all the pasta. If Continue Reading
Standing Up.
My father-in-law is not a man to idle away his retirement years alphabetising his sock drawer or polishing the cat. In fact, he spent the first part of his 'retirement' (I use the word loosely) teaching part-time at the roughest school in his area, where one's ability to teach was secondary to one's skill in crowd-control. As a result, he became master of the withering one-liner, for when those nine-foot-tall, hormonal, teens tried giving him jip. The meanest class bully soon learned not to push Continue Reading
Up Unhill Bottom. So To Speak.
(We have a giveaway winner to announce, at the end of this post.) This post is mostly an excuse to show you lots of outdoorsy pretties, whilst we sit and knit/hook/spin a'while. T'was a mild autumnal morning several weeks ago, and I was on a super-secret mission to photograph Oxfordshire landscapes. There is a yarn-related reason for this, and you will get to see it soon, and I'm so happy about the whole thing that I've taken to SQUEAKING excitedly. But it has to stay secret for now... so Continue Reading
Making Stuff
Yes, yes, the crochet version of the Hiking Reindeer Cowl is well on its way. I've done lots more since taking this photo yesterday:- Meanwhile, there's a standoff going on between me and the Stoic Spouse, concerning the garden. With an enthusiasm-to-wisdom ratio of approximately 500:1, I've been planning the redevelopment of our small plot. It's very, very, slowly on its way to being full of bulbs, and fruit trees, and sneaky interspersed vegetables, and ferns, and - I dearly hope - a pond. Continue Reading
Can You Frog A Patio?
One of the things that I love about knitting and crochet is that if it doesn't work, you can rip it all out and begin again, albeit whilst muttering some choice curses. Nothing is lost... other than fifteen hours of patient lacework, the chunk of hair that you pulled out in frustration, a smidgeon of your sanity, and most of a bottle of gin. But other than those little things, absolutely nothing is lost. Personally, that's one of the reasons why I crochet/knit rather than sew. (Since this post Continue Reading