Tatting

My joints have been sore recently so I have been doing more tatting - it is light in weight and easy. Here is a one shuttle (rings only) piece in progress.

I'm tired or the rain!

This is the view from my window. As usual it is raining. The lime trees started to come into leaf in the warm weather we had in March. Normally they go from a few leaves to full coverage in just a day or two, but it is so cold and wet this month that they have been stuck at this stage for weeks.



Rain!

We are enduring a very wet month or two here so I am unable to set foot in the garden. These primulas are outside my study window - at least they are enjoying the wet!

Shawl progress

This is the silk/camel yarn and it is gorgeous. The pattern is Hibiscus Rose.

Tigger

He decided my talking book player made a nice pillow.

Tatted mat - finished

The pattern for this came from the internet and I am not entirely happy with the last round - which is a little too full to block perfectly. But I remind myself that no one else is likely to know what bothers me about it!

I made a space

for something on the shelf above my desk. But somehow I don't think I am ever going to be able to use that space for what I intended as Sunny has decided she loves it!

Tatting in progress

I was getting bogged down in the tatted mat I am making - it will be lovely but is not very interesting to make - so I started a small mat.

Sunny

I'm not sure what is so comfy about this particular spot on the hall carpet but she always picks the same spot!

Tigger

Tigger, in a very typical pose.

You woke me up - just to take my picture?

Ginger!

Blanket

Here is the Ties that Bind pattern blanket. It looks a little loose right now because the yarn is a heavily oiled industrial one. When the oil is washed out the yarn will plump right up and look perfect.

Over the last year my health has not been very good and I have had to accept that the complex lace pieces I used to so enjoy have got too difficult. So I am delighted to find easy patterns like this one that I can still enjoy knitting!

Another Pebble cardigan

I had some nearly black yarn and have been having trouble finding a pattern I liked and could see well enough to knit in black. In the end I have opted for making another of Marie Dembrow's Pebble cardigan. It is a nice pattern to knit and easy to keep track of with plenty of stitch markers. The worse my eyesight gets the more stitch markers I use!

Kitty Pile!

I went in the bedroom in the evening and found this!

Happy Birthday Ginger!

Ginger is 8 years old today. Not bad for the kitten who came to me so malnourished and underweight that everyone at the vets' said he was completely unsavable!

Waiting!

Every night when I go to bed Sunny gets in under the duvet and has a quarter of an hour or so (until she gets too warm) curled up against me. Here she is waiting for me to get into bed and pull the duvet over us both.

Blanket

As soon as I saw The Ties That Bind blanket pattern I knew I had to make it. But I couldn't find an affordable yarn I liked enough. Then I decided to rummage the back of my stash cupboard (one side of my pedestal desk) and found a kilo of the perfect silver grey merino. I had no idea I had it.

Why?

Why is it that my cats always refuse to eat from more than one bowl at a time? This is Sunny and Tigger both determined to share the same small bowl!

Lovely yarn

I found some lovely yarn recently - Natural Dye Studio's Scherezade. It is silk and camel, amazingly soft but with that unmistakable silk sheen. The pattern is going to be Hibiscus Rose.

Scarf finished

I got the Fog Lifter Scarf finished surprisingly quickly and it is very pretty. Though it really is dark purple and not blue, despite the camera! My daughter will like it I think.



Birthday Girl

Sunny is a year old! She is most unwilling to let me take a photo of her face because I have been having to put drops in her eyes recently. She's all better now so I'm hoping she will forgive me soon!

Fan

There has been some discussion of crochet fans on ravelry. This is tatted, not crochet, and it is a good many years since I made it, but I still think it is pretty.

Yarn bowl

Yarn bowls look lovely, but always seem to be pottery. Cats, not to mention the clumsiness associated with my arthritis and partial sight, made that a bad idea for me. I looked for wood - but could not find anything in the UK. Then I realised that my melamine mixing bowls are perfect - stable and non-breakable.

Plum

The plum blossom has come into flower very early this year. Now, of course, the temperature has dropped sharply and we may have frost. I always long to tell the plum tree just to wait a little longer!

Fog Lifter

Someone kind on ravelry sent me a skein of hand-dyed yarn. Despite what the camera insists on thinking, it is a dark purple yarn - I tried everything I could think of but could not persuade the camera of this fact! I needed a nice easy pattern for when I am feeling ill and low spirited so I am using Fog Lifter by Susan Lawrence. The result will be a scarf that will delight my daughter.