Meanwhile, I've enjoyed watching the first parts of Alys Fowler's The edible garden and Carol Klein's Life in a cottage garden. Both are on BBC HD and the Klein one is on BBC 2 at the moment as well as being available to watch on the website. I think I like the edible garden best, mainly because she's gardening in a relatively small space, more like my garden - although her garden is quite large for in a city! And I already enjoy reading her weekly column in the Guardian Weekend magazine.
The amaryllis progressing slowly. It has grown a microscopic amount and turned green. Maybe I should stop staring at it and it'll do things a bit quicker?
Tina, whose blog I've been reading for several years, posted about how she was going to take a picture of her garden from the back door on the first of the month every month this year to show how the garden develops. I really like this idea so have decided to have a go too, although obviously a bit late for this month. And until it gets lighter in the evenings the pictures are going to have to be taken at the nearest weekend as I don't see the garden in daylight on week days at this time of year! It also might spur me into action as last year I mainly concentrated on the front garden (i.e. people see it!) due to all the other stuff going on, and the back garden was a bit abandoned. Hmm. It does look rather bleak though! Especially with the washing line across the front of the picture - maybe I should have hung some washing on it to hide the garden?!
So, after my spectacular failure at Iron Knitter, I have, of course, signed up for something else. But this is just a mystery blanket (I refuse to call them afghans, they're blankets or throws to me) knit-along with one square a month. Surely I can fit that in?! There's a group on Ravelry for it here. Of course, all I've done so far is join the Ravelry group, not thought about yarn, knitted a swatch or actually done something productive about it.
Someone has asked me to knit a tea cosy for them. I'm going to use the terrific tea cosy pattern by Martin Storey, which needs 2 x 100g balls of DK but I'm struggling to find some suitable DK in a terracotta colourway (she wants cream & terracotta) so if anyone has any ideas for cheapish DK yarn please let me know!).
And I received my final Christmas present. The Amazon delivery chaos caused by the snow in December meant my present from my brother's family hadn't arrived with them before they set off to see us before Christmas, so it arrived in the post this week. It was actually quite nice getting a present this week when everything was dank, damp, miserable, grey and we went back to work (surely getting up when it's still dark should be illegal?). It's Gwen Bortner's Entrée to entrelac, which I had read a few reviews of and been wanting to read it for a while. It looks really good, with plenty of detail and diagrams about how to do entrelac, as well as some lovely patterns.
9 comments:
I like the idea of a blanket knitalong. I went to Texere Yarns in Bradford months ago and got a whole load of cotton to turn into blanket(s) - I think it was a kilo or more, all in blues.
This might be a good project, you know, for all that free time I have.
I'm still working on the last 2 rounds of Iron Knitter and will be doing one of the Cookie A KALs later in the year when I have finished the IK socks.
Happy Gardening. We just have a yard here so I am spared any attempts other than a bit of mild pruning.
Your garden will be interesting to see month by month. I wonder what those brave little seeds are?
Linda
x (aka leafgreen/loopfrogs!)
We have shoots in our front garden too. I am sure they are daffodils and have been growing during all of the snow. I wonder if they will survive until Spring!
The photo a month sounds like a great idea. I am with you; I put my attention on the front garden that people can see and the greenhouses and veggie patch and ignore the garden in the back.
Good luck with the teacozy. I am going to make another one of those noro ones that I made because it was speedy...just need to find some yarn too ;)
I think we'll have a lot of fun seeing our gardens through the seasons! Sure they look bare at this time of the year but there will be added some colour soon!
Am wondering what your shoots come out as...
I haven't thought of coming home from work in the dark... will see how soon daylight stays long enough!
Tina
Those look like grape hyacinth or crocus shoots to me... did you clear around that patch, maybe? Sometimes they need a bit of clear soil to start sprouting, but they can stay in the soil for years and the bulbs aren't very big... Really needed to get out into the garden to clear away last autumn's debris, but had a bit of emergency knitting to finish!
Those shoots do look a lot like grape hyacinths, as Liz said, or maybe crocuses (crocii?). It's always fun to watch new growth in the garden, and most gardens do look rather bare this time of year.
The tea cozy should be a fun knit (I really like that pattern).
What a lovely idea to photograph your garden every month, look forward to seeing it as it changes.
The shoots do look like some kind of bulb coming through - will be exciting to see them develop :)
It does look like some grass seed is poking up... maybe just checking on the weather? Sort of like Groundhog Day?
The amaryllis looks like the paperwhite bulbs I grew... they were tiny green stems for the longest time! And then next thing I knew, they were growing up a storm!
I think you've got crocus showing through. Something to look forward to!
MelindaJ
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