Snow!

It's not much, about 15cm, but I really love snow so woohoo!
The garden looks mysterious, cold and serene under its coating of snow. There are unexplained animal footprints hinting at an unknown night world which we normally see no traces of.

Indoors my candy colours scarf is quite a lot longer, but the ball of yarn still has plenty to go! So I've started a new project, a modular shawl.

It's so addictive. Just one more block! I'm trying not to neglect the candy colours scarf, though, as I would like to get it finished this month. I have a few too many WIPs at the moment...

Candy Colours

I'm knitting this simple lace scarf out of handspun which I have had in my stash for a good four years.   I am mainly knitting it in lamplight because of the time of year, which means that I can see it is pink but not any subtle variances in the colours. Today I looked at it in daylight and was amazed to see all the shades which were emerging. I think it's going to be lovely.

A New Book

Today when I got home this lovely book had arrived. It has lots of beautiful, richly coloured and textured  crochet afghans in it, and also introduces some new crochet techniques to me - cables, entrelac and tunisian crochet. I am enjoying reading it for now, but I look forward to trying some of the projects in due course. More great winter things to do!

Things To Do in January

January always seems to me to be the longest, darkest month of the year. Wait - that's right, it is! So I like to have plenty of creative challenges.

I always need socks in winter, and these Everyday Socks are bright and cheerful as well as warm:

I spun this lace weight yarn about three years ago and have never got around to using it, so now it is becoming a Strangling Vine Lace Scarf.

I also have a knitted lace doily on the needles and a warm winter sweater. And I wouldn't mind making some more socks, too.

A Spring Walk

This weekend Braveheart's sister, brother in law and one of his nephews came for a visit. We were delighted to welcome them, as they had not seen our house and garden before. We went for a walk together along the Wey Navigation, where I saw these lovely, cheerful pots of flowers on one of the houseboats.

I loved this spring blossom

and these brightly coloured barges

 and this graceful swan by the weir

I also completed a new project this weekend, this crochet lace doily. I am quite addicted to doily making at the moment.

The Path is Long, with Many a Winding Turn...

We've been spending some time in the garden, and here is our new garden path! It will run from the house all the way down to the vegetable bed, and I think it really pulls the garden layout together.

While I was outside, I took some photos of the garden emerging into Spring:

An apple tree, planted last Spring

Japanese Maple, planted last Autumn

Broccoli

Garlic

Shallots

First Shoots

Guided by the plan I posted in January, I started sowing seeds indoors in February. Here are tomatoes on the left and peppers and chillies on the right, a few days ago:

Yesterday I potted up the tomatoes as they had all grown their first true leaves:

At the back are courgettes and spaghetti squashes, which grow so fast you can almost see them! At the front, Salvia Superba.

I've also sown Pumpkin and Butternut Squashes - the first pumpkin seedling was sighted before lunch today - and French Marigolds.

Outside we have started clearing up, and sowed onion and shallot sets in one of the raised beds and the first salad leaves under a mini polytunnel we got for Christmas. There is already a change to the plan, though, as the broccoli are clearly not going to be finished in time to plant the early potatoes, so after crisis discussions we have decided to try the earlies in big potato planters and see how that goes.

At the end of last year I cut all the lavender flowers from our lavender hedge and hung them in bunches in the shed to dry. This month I bought lots of organza bags from eBay and filled them with the dried flowers to make lavender bags. I've done 24 so far and still have three bunches to harvest, which will make another 12 or so bags. Here's some I prepared earlier:

What I'm reading: The Eyre Affair