Garden at the beginning of August 2016

Still getting caught up, but at least it is still August!

Lawn at the beginning of th month, with a baby for scale. LO really enjoys playing in the garden, although it's a bit more difficult now she's crawling as it's hard to get on with anything before she has to be removed from somewhere she's not meant to be!

Apples ripening on the standard tree. There are several on it this year, and they seem to be ripening slightly earlier than usual.

Lots of apples on the espalier tree. This one is further behind the standard, and produced a lot of apples, which I was a bit late thinning so they are all still rather small and green looking. I have hung CDs up already in the hope of protecting the crop from the squirrels this year...

Looking over the raised bed by the Golden rod and Physocarpus. These have grown really tall this year with all the wet weather earlier in the year.

A new plant! This is Salvia 'Joy', which was a Christening present for LO. I had fun deciding where to plant it for her. There was also a cardboard container shaped like a hand grenade which was a "wildflower bom", which we're going to have fun throwing into the border later in the year!

And the first lot of raspberries are ripe. Since then we've had another whole sieve full, as well as all the ones LO ate in the garden.

My patio containers. I'm pleased with them this year, especially as there's little I have really done to maintain them.

I held an open garden event and coffee morning two weeks ago, which was a little stressfull to organise with a baby around, but went really well. It was fun to show off the garden to the thirty people who came, and I raised £170 for charity!

Honey, I shrunk the kid's knitting

Remember that tank top I knitted for the baby last year? Well, she's worn it a few times, but then I put it in the washing machine on the wrong cycle and look what happened! It's now rather small and felted. I initially felt quite sad as it still had plenty of growing room for her left in it, plus it was the first thing I knitted for her when I was pregnant (I actually ordered the yarn in the first trimester but didn't dare start knitting until after that)

It turned out to be just the right size for her bear though, so now he's wearing it. Actually, this probably means it's achieved more longevity than would otherwise have been the case, as I'm not sure what I'd have done with it once she grew out of it?

My knitting productivity has increased recently as LO now goes to sleep earlier in the evening in her Moses basket, instead of on me in front of the TV. I finished the second one of this pair of socks. I cast on for the second one when I went into hospital to have her, and knitted about a third of the leg during labour and our subsequent few days in hospital. The rest followed more slowly as the only knitting I got done for a while was at knitting group whilst other people held LO! The pattern is Samwise Gamgee, knitted on 2.25mm needles using Katia Olé Socks Comfort yarn, which initially seemed a bit splitty until I got used to knitting with it. I used almost entirely two balls of the yarn as I made the legs quite long.

I've cast on another pair of socks. This time another pair of garter rib socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, as I wanted an interesting but basic pattern to keep me going for a while. The yarn is from stash and is Baby og Hosegarn by Løve Garn, a Danish brand I received in a swop. It's nice to knit with and I like the stripes, as I don't have the brain power to knit a complicated pattern at the moment.

So, how do you get on with crafting with a small person around? And how has that changed as your small person/people have grown up?