A cause worth fighting for...

Today I heard news of a person who has been disowned by his family because of his faith. Tomorrow he will fight for his right to stay in a place where he is loved and respected. He will not be fighting alone, he is surrounded by the loving friends who have helped him to build his new life, the friends who place their faith in God in protect him, whatever his fate may be.

I am not a particularly religious person, but I am loving.

If his God is out there, I hope my love and the love of others are proof enough that this man deserves to live out his days in a safe, loving environment where he can be respected and happy.

Spare a thought for him this week if you can

X

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so...

For the past few weeks I haven't had a minute to myself. Every spare moment has been filled with lesson planning, report writing, sorting out playground tiffs and trying (or rather failing) to keep the flat in an acceptable state. Despite having no time to do any cooking, or even to grab a sandwich for lunch most days, there are a lot of dishes around... 

...Worse still, in the most severe of times when all I can fit in is a cup of tea, I will invariably discover that all the mugs and teaspoons are gone...

The last week in particular I've felt more like a mother than a girlfriend. I wont dare to admit to how many loads of laundry I had to do the other day I could almost hear the polar bears crying out in despair...  

I've been so busy taking care of everyone else and the flat that yesterday, I managed to wash, dry and pack a 4 day rucksack for a certain someone else (who had more or less forgotten about their trip), before realising that I had no clean clothes for myself!

So now, with no formal lessons tomorrow to plan for, only myself to take care of, and a tremendous 5 day weekend on it's way (thank you Victoria Day!) I can finally relax...

What will you do with yourself?? I hear you say... Why, knit of course! I did a few more twists on my Begonia DNA scarf (only 11 more to go, and 6 weeks to do it in) before deciding to treat myself to some lovely yarn that looks like this:

from which I want to make a set of crocheted cushion covers. The picture is from the wonderfully cheap website that I bought it from so it isn't the best... But the yarn is Louisa Harding Kashmir DK in (clockwise from top left) Olive, Burgundy, Plum and Rosebud. I already have some cushions in these colours so it should fit in nicely on my sofa.

=)

Next Thursday I have my observed lesson which is fairly nail biting stuff, luckily I have those immortal words in large, friendly letters to keep me company.

X

Fantastical Botanical Exploration!

Oh the last few weeks have been so busy... Lot's of university deadlines, my first school placement (one week down, 3 to go!) and lots of preparation for summer jobs and maybe a visit home if I'm lucky! So I decided to skive for a few hours, and meet my best friend where he's working at the minute, the Botanic Gardens!

A few more daffodils first, they are so relentlessly cheery, I wish I could be that colourful...

...and some Fritillaries to match...

...a whole mini green house of colour, too bright for my poor little camera to cope with...

...we went to the Glass houses next, to look at some slightly more exotic plants...

...and found to our surprise and delight, that due to important maintenance work...

...it is free to visit the Glass Houses at the moment!...

...I am growing some of these Begonias from a cutting, but they'll take a long time to look this nice...

...I really like this metal frog, it looks so real...

...I think I'd like some of these epiphytes in my bathroom, so I could pretend I was under a jungle waterfall and not a shower head... Though I'm not sure my flatmates would agree...

Visiting the Botanics never gets boring, everything is different each time I go there and there is so much of it to see! I'm so lucky to have this on my doorstep.

x

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

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

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

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**