Having admitted to myself (the first step to recovery is to admit there’s a problem, right?) that when I’m not in the garden it’s because I’m knitting, and when I’m not knitting it’s because I’m in the garden, I’ve decided to include knitting in the blog (so much for the concept of recovery). For those whose interest is exclusively the gardening, I will continue to post photos of my garden throughout the seasons. But for those who share my alternative passion (knitting, that is) my projects both on the needles and off will now get air-play as well. Such as these tipless gloves I made last fall out of Koigu KPPPM from Sandi Rosner’s little book Not Just Socks.
I try really, really hard to stick to one project at a time. I like to think I’m disciplined when it comes to knitting, although anyone who has seen my yarn stash is falling on the floor laughing by now. But the actual knitting, come on. Seldom will you see me with two or more projects in progress simultaneously. Although below is one project that languished in oblivion – I mean in progress – for the better part of three years while I attended to other urgent matters such as my husband’s birthday sweater which he received mere days after his actual birthday and weeks before Christmas so there.
Shadow the Queen of All Cats loves this beaded shawl, made out of Schaefer Helena from a pattern by Lily Chin. I figured out where to place the beads (not part of the actual pattern) using the “Hoisted Atop Stitches” method in Chin’s book
Knit and Crochet with Beads
. I had only the one skein, so the shawl is more of a shoulder wrap, but cozy nonetheless.
Thus, we reach my present conundrum. No sooner did I start a new cardigan for myself out of the soft Classic Elite Princess (40% merino, 28% viscose, 10% cashmere, 15% nylon, 7% angora):
than a friend and I decided to share the work of making a baby sweater for another friend’s daughter, who is due with her first baby in mid-June. She’s making the sleeves (read: has already completed the sleeves), and I am to make the body and hood. Well, this morning I finally cast on… because I’d really like to finish my cardigan first but let’s face it, Little Miss Alacrity is making me look bad.
The good news is, the hooded baby sweater is a quick and easy Noro pattern: simple six-stitch cables down the front and around the edge of the hood, on size 9 needles (we’re using Muench “Tessin,” a machine-washable wool blend that gets softer with each laundering).
Spent a solid hour dead-heading the roses yesterday, and realized that the first flush of bloom is nearly over. Time to fertilize the plants and do the Full Moon Dance to the Gods of Rebloom. There are still buds on several of the rosebushes, and if memory serves (god only knows who memory serves lately – certainly not me.) some of them are late season bloomers anyway. This Crown Princess Margareta from J & P has loads of new buds on it and new growth appears virtually overnight just below the latest dead-heading cut.
Below is the first bloom of a new “Arctic Queen” clematis from Chalk Hill Clematis, which I planted early in the spring by the back gate. It has only two forlorn and skinny shoots at this point, and they are so wobbly I had to prop them up with plant supports. The flower, however, is gorgeous. I look forward to the day a couple of years from now when these blossoms smother their section of fencing:
Well, now all the other garden bloggers will have to fess up to their alternate passions, too!