Monday 19 April 2010

Narcissus


For the past few weeks we've been enjoying our daffodil sea in the garden...


We planted a LOT of bulbs this year (two bags of bulbs!), and it turns out our neighbour did too! So now we have all kinds of daffodils of all shapes, colours and sizes, my favourite are the ones that have lots of flowers on each stalk but are teeny tiny...


The walls of our garden are very old and very worn (in some places you can see right through them!) so we've been waiting for a builder to come and fix them all year. We couldn't plant out any of our vegetables until they were fixed because we knew they would get trampled... We eventually decided that something had to be done, so we bravely planted out some sacrificial lettuce...

The lettuce is now thoroughly trampled, but at least the walls are getting done, and we have plenty more lettuce where THAT came from! 

It also meant that in order to save the daffodils from certain death, we got to bring some inside...


I'm so excited for when the walls are finished so we can get our vegetables outside! 
We have squash (butternut and regular!), spring onions, tomatoes, and of course the almighty, indestructible courgette! 


How cute is that butternut squash??

x

Saturday 17 April 2010

Ellie the Elephant packed her trunk...

Today Ellie the Elephant is finished and will be sent to her new home, in the flat above mine to live with my neighbours!


This gorgeous elephant was made using this pattern with a few alterations on the ears and the addition of an adorable tail. I managed to make the whole elephant out of one ball of debbie bliss cashmerino (just 125m) so I now have enough to make a friend for Ellie!


I'm really pleased with this, it's just so cute! I want to adapt this pattern to make a cat, a dog, a piglet, a sheep, a cow, a monkey, a tiger, a hippo........ A whole ZOO!!

I definitely recommend this pattern, sometimes picking up the stitched isn't the easiest, but it's more than do-able =) 

I love this elephant! I will miss him sorely, but I'm sure my neighbours will let me visit him!

x

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Work in progress...

I am two pages away from finishing my final portfolio for this year, which, due to a fortuitous twist of fate, is due for a day after I thought! Meaning I could spare a couple of hours this morning for knitting.

Here is my begonia scarf developing away nicely, it's going ok, but every now and then I realise I've made a colossal mistake and have to back track...



Here is my elephant which is coming along quite well, should be done by the end of this week if I can find a couple of hours to do the arms and ears. Then he'll be ready to move into his new home with my neighbours upstairs =)



I suppose I'd better go do those last two sheets so I can finally relax! At least until tomorrow when I start an essay, oh how I long for the summer holidays to begin...

x

Thursday 8 April 2010

The graduation scarf begins...

Of course, with my deadline for this semesters portfolio looming in less than a week, I not only have the infamous "fear" experienced by many university students around this time of year, but I also appear to be suffering from the apathy and procrastination that serves to strengthen the "fear's" vice like grip....

At least as a result of my procrastination, I have finally got the motivation to start making the graduation scarves that I've been planning!



I saw the pattern for this scarf several years ago and being such a geek knew I had to make one, but as a humanities student I didn't think it would be socially acceptable for me to wear one.... Fortunately I have some rather geeky plant science friends who would delight in helping me out there

So luckily for them, I am making two of these, both displaying parts of the sequence for a particular type of Begonia that was grown in the botanic gardens where they are both working!

I want to make backs for these as well so you don't see the mess on the back of the work, so I have a lot of knitting to do before June 26th when they graduate. I can't wait until May 21st when I hand in my last assignment and can be stuck to my needles until these are done!


Wish me luck!

x

**Update! I finished it, check it out here, or on ravelry**