A little boy needs a warm sweater for a cold English winter.

I just finished knitting this chunky sweater for my nephew's baby son. It's been a while in the making but I'm pleased with the result. I love knitting cable patterns. It's a bit like magic how they turn out.
The pattern is from an old knitting book by Shepherd yarns and I used a machine washable wool.

Treasures from the library book sale

Our library has a book sale twice a year and there are indeed treasures to be found. With Xmas coming up, I was looking specifically for books with images I could use to make cards and gift tags.

The cards I made are quite small (11.5 cm x 7 cm) but I had some old tracing paper see-through envelopes that were the perfect size to match. Once I decided how I wanted the cards to look, they were quite easy to make - cut out picture, glue onto card, trim and round the corners.

• I recently bought a corner punch so the cards had to have rounded corners.

• I also used aerosol spray glue for the first time and it is the best thing ever.

I think I'll keep some of the cards for myself and gift some as notecard sets.


These pages are from 'Wild flowers of Britain' - also from the library book sale - but I can't bring myself to cut the pages. The photographs are just too fascinating and too beautiful.

Not that 'Looking after cage birds' isn't also a nice book ...

Happy Movember!

Sadly the drips are lingering in the developmental phase - forever. I still have a few design issues to sort out.
But, because it's November, and I love this guy's moustache, I'm going to share one of my experiments with you. Enjoy Movember.

Pink

Pink food,

pink champagne,

pink blossoms!

We had our own little hanami last weekend under our blossom trees. They are in full bloom - laden with pink blossoms - and looking beautiful and amazingly like a magic garden.

Things that lurk

Freesias

Kowhai

Cherry blossom

Although the weather is still a bit wintry, it feels as if spring is lurking. Blossoms and other spring flowers are out.

And we have (what I assume is) an escaped pet rabbit lurking in our street. He is so cute. Every now and then you see him hopping across the road or grazing in a neighbour's garden. Someone must've taken pity on him as I got a "rabbit found" notice complete with photo in my mail box. But he remains unclaimed. Or, at least, uncaptured. I think, in spite of any danger from cars or dogs, he's having the time of his life.

I'm afraid this photo is not of The Actual Rabbit.
But he looks a lot like this. Whenever I see him I never have my camera.

And I'm delighted to report that several of my slugs are now clinging to good fridges since a few blog lurkers made themselves know. It feels good to share my stuff. Thanks!

A little bit of goddess

A friend gave me a jar of her homemade marmalade recently and it was The-best-marmalade-I-have-ever-eaten. As you can't have too much of a good thing (and I have loads of grapefruit kindly given to me by a neighbour from his tree) I decided to make some of my own using her recipe. Turns out she uses Nigella Lawson's Pink Grapefruit Marmalade recipe from Nigella's book How to be a domestic goddess but replaces pink grapefruit with the regular yellow kind.

My marmalade turned out well and tastes good but its not in The-best-marmalade-I-have-ever-eaten category. Possibly, here's why... I made the toast from bread I'd hastily bought from a local deli. It hadn't been labeled in any way but it looked nice and I thought it was a sour dough. I made toast and coffee, ate and drank then back for seconds. As I cut the second slice of bread cloves of garlic fell out of the loaf onto the chopping board. I'd eaten my marmalade on garlic bread! It reminded me of this :

I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife.

There's a hole in my life ...

the size of a Nissa Figaro. Yes, after two years of deliberation, I've sold my car. As soon as it went up on the auction website a little anxious flutter started inside me. When the "For sale" sign was taped to its cute rear window I asked myself "What have I done?" But it was too late for regrets as we'd already bought its replacement - something zippy yet fuel efficient for the daily commute.
But I was a bit surprised, embarrassed even, by the depth of my attachment to my Figaro. I loved that car! So this has been a week of emotional weirdness.