January favourites

 Are not many - work continues to be busy. How did it get to be February already? I won't get to the PC till tomorrow so I can't update my header photo till then, but I thought I might as well  get this posted. 

As I suspected, the header photo has to come from February 21, I have nothing from last year. I actually edited two photos from Farmleigh in Feb 21 - having done the squirrel header I thought I might have used it last year (no, it was snowdrops), so I also edited a tufted duck, which I'll add as a footer to this post.

Warm off the needles

 A couple of knitting projects.

I started out by making these elbow-length hand warmers for one of my nieces. She is into photography, and I know from personal experience that in colder weather, either fingerless mitts (or better yet, flip-top ones) are the way to go. She liked them.

So then I decided to knit a shorter pair for my aunt, with the remnants of some beautiful blue-faced Leicester wool, hence the blue-faced sheep on the tag.

And I'm currently knitting a pair for myself in a dark blue wool, not quite as nice a wool as either of these, but with the merit of being machine washable :D. Not that I have ever found mittens needed washing that often, it was purely that I was out of nicer remnants in the right weight.

But before I started mine, I used up some of the chunky pink from my recent jacket to knit a cowl for my sister. It's  a chunky (bulky) wool, 80% merino with 20% angora, and it's wonderfully soft and cosy. 

She gets a pink sheep on her tag. The main photos of the cowl, the colour of the wool is pretty true. I took the tag late in the evening, because I need to wrap this up and take it to work to post on the way home. In that case, the colours in the tag are pretty true, but definitely not the wool. 

Ever since I went back to work on the 3rd, I have been seeing tree-pruning going on all the way along the central avenue through the park. They start early, even though it's still dark. And often when I'm coming home, I see them all sitting around on chairs and whatever they have gathered at the back of one of the trucks enjoying a warm mug of tea. A workers' tail-gate party, as it were. Anyway, with the moon this morning and a very stormy cloudy sky, I stopped to take a photo. It was pretty windy, I would not have liked to be up in that cherry-picker. 

December Favourites

 Can legitimately include a couple of Christmas cards...

The sentiment behind the gate reads "Trust in your potential, enjoy the process, try something new, explore possibilities, but most of all believe", which I thought played well with the butterfly/caterpillar theme.

No very exciting photos from January 2022 - knitting, baking and marmalade. So the header comes from January 2021 when we obviously had a very cold snap. 

With wishes for good health, peace and contentment for 2023.

Christmas wishes...

...for a peaceful, happy and healthy Christmas and holiday season.

Hot off the needles

 I bought some of this wool in a wine colour to knit a sweater for C - I got half of it knit while he was over in Maine, but I have had to sneak it up to the attic to sew it up up here. He also had some cough/cold, and was allowed not to go into work at all for two weeks so I haven't had a day here without him. Anyway, it was a beautiful soft wool, 80% merino, 20% angora, so even though pink wouldn't have been my colour of choice I was happy to take pink rather than nothing. Being bulky it knit quickly, but I had the sleeves, fronts and back (without the flower petals) finished when I decided I would really prefer to take it up a size, and I'm glad I did because now it will fit over a light sweater.  The pattern is Sylvi from Ravelry, and I added the pockets because I think pockets are indispensable. 

I was hoping to get C to take some nice pictures yesterday when we were up at his dentist in the north of Ireland - but his appointment ran late and being the shortest day of the year, the sun had gone down behind the mountain across the bay by the time he got back to the car. The first photo of the oystercatcher has that odd colour because the setting sun was reflected in the sand and water. I enjoyed watching them and a couple of flocks of sandpipers till it became too cold and windy, when I returned to the car to wait there. So, instead of a lovely scenic backdrop, I just used my remote control out behind the house :D. 

November Favourites

 Thin on the ground, as I said. I'm including a couple of Christmas cards as we are now into December, but even on that front I didn't get much done in November. I still need cards for C, my sister and aunt and a couple of the ladies in work, so the pressure is on.

I have had the origami Christmas stamp for a good number of years now, and have at least twice in the past included a little origami helmet as an add-on, but this is the first time I put it on the little boy rather than just using it as an embellishment on the card front. 

I have had the origami Christmas stamp for a good number of years now, and have at least twice in the past included a little origami helmet as an add-on, but this is the first time I put it on the little boy rather than just using it as an embellishment on the card front. 

No photos from December 2021, so the header is a frosted borage head in the garden the previous December. 

Wild Lights (photo heavy)

I do have just a couple of cards to share later this week. November was NOT a productive month. I seemed to be busy with work, not doing much creating and sick both at the end of October and again now. We did go to Wild Lights in the Zoo this year, after having given the previous two events a miss, so here are some photos from that. The theme was biodiversity, and it was so well done. We both thoroughly enjoyed it and would almost go back again. 

This is a selection. If you want the full length show (well, not quite. I've culled it down from about 300 to 166 photos), there is an album HERE. In view of the fact that I still haven't had time to edit and upload any French photos, I decided to upload these unedited).