I’ve had one of those super productive weekends, the sort that make you wonder what happened the week before. And unlike Stephen Covey I’m starting at the end, and with the new - or rather old - crochet project I picked up last night. I planned to settle in to catch up on some hooking last night when a nagging voice in my head said to measure my navy-yellow-green wrap. I was using the slightly unconventional measuring method of comparing to one of my favourite wraps, one that’s the right length and drapes well. Just as well I did my comparison measuring as my project was at least six inches longer than the wrap.
There still seems quite a bit of wool left - so perhaps I could have made my wrap a little wider, but I’m not going back now! I know there’s not that much left though as the cardboard I used to start the ball of is just starting to show. But after planning to do some crochet, while MOH cooked tea, my hands were at a bit of a loss. So I turned back to some squares, which I first picked up in March this year, and the project which came to Portugal and then Liverpool and remained untouched. But now I’m already a square down and making good progress on the next.
The pattern is much more brightly coloured and designed to replicate Portuguese tiles, and while mine will be variants of grey with the multi coloured yarn I’m using, I think that will mean I’ll focus on the stitch detail. I’m pretty sure though at some point I’ll be making a full on colour version too!
Most of Saturday and Sunday were spent in the garden, which is why the evening of crochet really appealed. In the greenhouse I made a tomato discovery, and the salad leaves just outside the door are doing well too. Less so my kale seedlings which were nibbled the very night before I planned to plant them out. Some may make it, but I think I’ll be sowing some more and hoping they survive and catch up with where there should be.
Our agapanthus are still cheery though, the flowers are mostly out and there’s a haze of white blooms just outside our conservatory. The second pot of agapanthus, which is in a more sheltered position has no flowers and it’s clear it’s not happy there so once I’ve bought some more to bolster its presence it’ll be moving into the pot next to these. That sort of makes me a little twitchy as we’ll lose the symmetry of planting, but if the plants aren’t happy there, then it’s all a bit half-hearted really. The plan is to fill the three pots by the window of the conservatory with ferns, which should be very happy with the shady, and damper conditions.
My project for the weekend was one of those that now you’ve started was much bigger than you first thought. This section of the garden is just along from where our new neighbour had some over enthusiastic pruning. That hasn’t been repeated so I shall be magnanimous and put it down to an enthusiastic error. The ivy which they’ve cut from their side has now died, and so this weekend I released it from the trellis from our side of the fence. It was quite something when with that final snip if fell away from the trellis, and relief from me that it was quite happy to fall on the other side of the fence.
I’d kept as much of the top growth that I could, so that I could work out if it was worth saving, or not. And with the trellis showing for the first time in many years we were keen to have something grow back there quite quickly. So my next job was to ‘encourage’ the plants to grow where I wanted them, I think there’s almost as much twine as plant in the end result.
It’s still a work in progress and these pictures are for those of you who are pleased to know my garden is a real garden and goes through scruffy looking moments too. The photo above is how I left it, as well the crocheting was calling and as I said earlier in this post MOH was cooking dinner. That means there’s a constant stream of questions asking where this is and where that is, in fact it’s hardly relaxing at all. It’s just as well the results are always tasty; yesterday he cooked duck legs in a tomato and date sauce, which tasted way nicer than I’ve just made it sound.
It wasn’t all gardening and crochet though. There was gin too. Our latest box of gin had arrived during the week and it only seemed right to try it out. I was a fan, but then again I much prefer botanical gins. MOH prefers dry gin, and while he was happy to drink this one he would choose something more to his palate. He thinks I was swayed by the name, as that’s one of the places I stayed when I popped over to Australia for a few weeks back in the millennium. It’s also a place I’d happily go back to too, especially now I know they have at least one distillery.
