Red

What I think will be last new flower has emerged in the garden - I thought they were just going to produce leaves this year, but I've been pleasantly surprised by this: It's Crocosmia Lucifer. I love the way the individual flowers start at one end and progress towards the tip. And as red is my favourite colour I'm very happy with how red these are.

Talking of red - the first of our tomatoes are starting to ripen. I've been reading blogs about people having loads and loads of tomatoes and looking at our plants and thinking that we'd have lots of little green toms, but these ones have decided to ripen. These are on the couple of tomato plants (along with a couple of chili plants) that I brought indoors as it's starting to feel a bit autumnal here (there are still some outside along with some peppers). Unfortunately we don't have a south facing window to put them in - so they can either be constant temp but not so bright, or at the mercy of the weather but with more light.

These are tumbling toms.

And of course there's some knitting progress (sorry about the weird photos of my feet against the wall).

These are the vinnland socks I've been knitting two at once from the toe up using magic loop and one ball of wool (taken from each end). So far so good....

knitting and flowers

I've just spent a very enjoyable and satisfying morning seaming together my Jacob wool cardigan. I just need to get a zip and then finish off the collar and it can be done. It's about time this was finished as I started it in February 2008.

I've recently cast on two new projects: The first is the seascape stole from the summer issue of knitty. I'm knitting it using some of the mountain of yarn that Cecilie brought back from China.

And the second is Vinnland socks. I wasn't intending to start a second project until I'd finished the Jacob cardigan, but Cecilie wanted a toe up starting session - so I think I confused both her and Quinn in the ways of Judy's magic cast on . I think we may need another session, but I still believe this is one of the best ways to start toe up socks - I'm not so keen on the provisional cast on way. Anyway, again I'm using some Chinese yarn (this will be a theme for a little while!). As you can see I'm trying two at once using magic loop - the longest 2.5mm circular needle I have is 80cm, but I think I'm going to invest in a longer one as it's all a bit squashed.

We were away last weekend in the UK, we met up with friends and family, we also took a visit to the original Monkey House.... I must say it's looking decidedly like a rental property now, which is a shame. I was hoping to take a trip to get knitted but I was too busy catching up with friends and ran out of time. Never mind, it was not as if I needed any yarn anyway. I didn't take any knitting with me as we travelled with hand luggage only and it's not worth the risk of trying to take knitting needles through security in the UK.

When we got back our garden was properly blooming:

from top left, clockwise: Dahlia (Arabian Knight), Calendula, Bergamot, Lily (Samur)

Buds and flowers

Earlier in the week I meant to blog about the lilies I planted, but I got sidetracked by other things so didn't.

I planted the lilies a few months ago as sprouting bulbs bought at one of our local garden centres. They're the variety Samur.

They've been growing well since then and have had green buds for a few weeks, the buds of the lily that gets the most sun each day were showing signs of pink earlier this week.

And now the same lily has started to flower.

They're a really girly pink, but if you're going to have something as flouncy as lilies, why not? I have more of them spotted around the garden, so hopefully over the next few weeks we'll get splashes of pink around the place.

Our garden isn't the most colourful, but this is a start.

Jacob cardigan update

Felicity Anne and I have been having a bit of a try on of the Jacob wool cardigan I've been knitting. I've been having a real push at this since the beginning of July and have managed to finish the second cabled front section and one sleeve. I thought it was worth pinning it together and seeing what it looks like.

Felicity Anne and I both like it. It has a lot of texture to it, with the cabled panels on the front and the twisted rib covering the rest of it. It's not a loose sloppy cardigan, but nicely fitted and flattering. The red and yellow bulldog clips on the front holding it together are where there will be a double ended zip (hopefully if I can find one).

What's left to do: second sleeve (cast on this morning), collar, blocking, seaming and finding and sewing in the zip.

victorious

These four strawberries represent our victory against the fieldfares:

Attack of the killer strawberries

As I'm sure I've said before - I'm trying to grow some fruit and veg to help support the monkey house kitchen. I'm a great believer in fresh and seasonal food and would much prefer to eat some fresh veg grown in the garden than some super duper organic product that's been shipped half way around the world. I like to stand back and get a little perspective on these things, and not be blinded by the organic = best mantra. That said, I've used a bit of fertiliser, but no bug sprays, or anything. I believe if there are bugs, there's always a predator that will come along eventually and eat them (hopefully before they've devoured my crop!).
Talking of crop devouring I had to ask David to make the strawberries a cage - not because they're vicious and were attacking the other plants, but because the fieldfare were attacking them.

David made a less sturdy version at first, but after a couple of days of looking at it, consulting the blue prints and waiting for a couple of strawberries to ripen, the fieldfare carried out an organised attack, found their way in and ate them. And so this cage was built. So far it's kept them out. We've only got two plants, and I want to be able to eat at least a couple of strawberries from them.

more finished socks

I've finished the other pair of socks that I was working on... they are the embossed leaves from the interweaves book of favourite socks. I was so close to finishing the second sock when I ran out of yarn. Luckily the yarn shop had another skein in the same colour, and even the same dye lot, so it wasn't the end of the world - just a shame to be so close. I weighed the remains of the new ball after I'd finished - it was bought as a 100g skein, and according to my "not so precise" scales it still weighs 100g.

I think this is a really nice stitch pattern, not too girly but interesting. I'm tempted to make a pair for my Mum too.

So now I will spend a few days trying to make a dent in the Jacob cardigan I seem to have been knitting for ages - I think this has stalled as I don't seem to be able to do the cabling in company. I've cast on the first sleeve, so should be able to concentrate on the cabling at home and still be able to work on it in company.

Once that's a bit further on I'll allow myself to cast on some more socks - we met up with Cecilie yesterday and she brought me bounty that she'd bought in China - it's mostly sock weight yarn, although there are a couple of balls of even finer. She chose some very "Deborah" colours - greens, browns, blues and a bit of red - lots of mulling over and plotting are in order.