Summer Flowers

For the last week or so I have been crocheting the Tess Dawson Summer Floral Shrug. I bought the pattern last year and just decided to start it when I discovered some Artesano Alpaca in the yarn cupboard as I was clearing out. I've got to confess that *ahem* I quite like crochet at the moment. I am enjoying developing new skills, and it is quite a sense of achievement when I manage to follow a crochet pattern.
This one is in Artesano Alpaca in Damson or is it Plum? Anyway, it's a lovely deep purple colour which is in fact quite difficult to see in lamplight - that caused some distress at the start - but which looks very nice in daylight.
The design is quite simple, really, it is a rectangle of flower trellis fabric which gets rolled up at each end to make the sleeves. I had a bit of trouble working out how to do the flowers at first and had to make a test strip in a paler colour so I could see what I was doing, but I've got the hang of it now, and it's quite soothing watching rows of little flowers appear.
When I have finished this I want to knit the Ilga Leija Queen of the Waves shawl. That pattern is soooo gorgeous!

On the elderflower front, here is the wine all demjohnned up and starting to ferment. We used white wine yeast and it was amazing, about five minutes after putting it in the demijohn it began fizzing and then glooping and now there are about 30 gloops a minute from each one.

We made two batches, one with raisins and lemon and one with only lemon, and this weekend we picked more elderflowers and will make two more batches tomorrow, one with lemon again and one with lemon and ginger. We've noted all the different combinations so we can reproduce the ones we like best.