Beyond Puerperium

I can finally post a picture of a project I finished a few weeks ago, but which was for my Goddaughter's birthday, and as her Mum reads this blog, I couldn't post any pictures earlier. It's another Beyond Puerperium, but in a larger size this time. I really enjoy knitting this pattern, it's very portable, there's enough going on to keep it interesting and there's virtually no sewing up to do! The pattern is very clearly written, and I love the way it's written for multiple sizes of babies as well as different yarn weights. The yarn is 4 x balls of Patons Australia Merino Deluxe DK, which is 100% merino wool and  lovely to knit with.

And I also realised I'd forgotten to post a picture of the blanket we made over the summer at knitting group. It was for a member of the group who was moving into a flat of her own.

Various members of the group made squares, I made four of them (the four in variegated yarn) and I knitted/crocheted it all together and did the border. It was surprisingly hard to organise, as for a while I didn't actually know how many squares there were going to be, and whether we'd be making a cushion rather than a blanket. It actually turned into a pretty big blanket - it covers the queen size bed we've got here. It was also quite entertaining sitting joining it all together and covered in blanket during the hottest month of the year! It was well worth doing though, as she was overjoyed to receive it!

Garden at the beginning of November 2012

I started my new job today (it was fantastic!) so I thought I wouldn't be able to take a garden at the beginning of the month photo as I wasn't at home in daylight. But the OH is on leave still and very kindly took some garden photos for me today.

A lot of stuff has died down already. The echinacea flowers are over so I cut them back last weekend, and the rudbeckia won't be long now either. I even remembered to go and get some grease bands at the garden centre to put around the apple tree and its support (no point doing it to the espalier apple tree as any insects could just crawl up the wall and trellis to get to it).

We also have the most perverse garden birds ever seen. Initially they loved the ground feeder and ignored the hanging feeder. Then we discovered that the local pet shop does bird food by weight, so you can buy small quantities to see what the birds like. We discovered that they love sunflower hearts, so much so that they now have a kind of stacking system for the hanging birdfeeder, like planes coming into land at Heathrow! And they're totally ignoring the ground feeder, which currently has robin and tit mix in the hanging feeder and fat balls too. Now the weather has turned a little bit colder (we're down to about 10°C now) the birds are around a lot more.

I have also been doing a lot of work constructing raised beds and filling them with compost, but I'll post pictures of that once I've finished. ;-)