My Boy Jack

Out of the five kittens Jackie is the one who hangs with me most of the time. He sleeps nearby or gets into whatever it is I am doing. And not to forget, he loves playing fetch with his little felt mousie and I am the one tossing it for him. Hard to believe that he was once the runt of the litter. I keep asking him if he has a license to carry such a cute face. ;-)

Blossoms and Blooms

This is what our azaleas looked like before the cold spell and the heavy rains wiped them out.

The first roses that opened also got hit by the weather but the ones that came afterwards are doing well and the snowballs are gone now too.

 

The small red azalea in the back yard was doing fine, the blossoms on the white one turned brown before they even opened, it seems to be very sensitive to colder temperatures.

My herb garden is the only thing growing in the garden this year. We can not afford the total makeover it needs, thanks to some rather expensive dental work that was needed, but we aim for next spring to do it. We will remove the beds because the wood is all rotten and switch to some form of container garden to keep the weeds out.

Knitting

Despite living in an allergy induced haze I was able to knit two new shawls. The first one is called "Walk for Shetland" and I would advise to use the charts rather then the written pattern if you want to knit it.

The other one is "Murcia", it is a very easy pattern and knits up quickly. They are both knit with the same yarn, I keep forgetting how much yarn is on these skeins and always buy too much.

Rainy Day

Yesterday was cold and rainy and after three days of heavy spring cleaning I decided to take the day off. I baked oatmeal cookies while the furry family members did what cats do best, snooze. I was in the middle of mixing the cookie dough when one of the beaters broke. Turns out my mixer is a British brand and if I want replacement beaters I have to pay almost as much for them as I would pay to get a new hand mixer here. I also got 'bitten' by the cheese grater and now have a cut on one of my 'knitting fingers', not good. I wanted to start a new project today. I guess I will just have to try and see. I hope the weekend weather will be better so we can get back to digging in the garden. I feel bad because I have nothing planted yet apart from peas but when it rained ice pellets yesterday I was kind of glad that nothing is growing yet. Crazy weather and the Winter just does not want to leave this year.

Knitting Again

After a little break from knitting I am getting back into it. I knitted new dishcloths for the Create-Along. I am going to add new colors to my kitchen this year and I think red and purple look great with yellow.

Adventure BOM 1 - 3

I am having a hard time getting decent pictures of these, either the color is all wrong or the texture of the background fabric shows too much. This is the best I could do with some help of my photo software. They are really fun to stitch.

Warm and Happy

2013 Create-Along "Home Sweet Home"

I finished the rest of the projects for the first quarter of the create-along, things for the living/dining room.

I made another sofa cushion and two sets of place mats. The hexi flowers are at least 20 years old and made from Austrian dirndl fabrics. They were one of my earliest projects and I never put them together into a big quilt as originally intended. The place mats with the hearts were planned for February but did not get finished in time.

I am looking forward to get started on the next quarter where we will be making things for the kitchen. I already have some projects lined up.