Two More Wips bite the dust ...

 although only one resulted in a finished project. That was the Eye Cowl, a pattern from  my Fellowship of the Knits book. 

Sadly my grafted edge is not all I could wish, but then again, who is going to see it when I'm actually wearing the cowl? I did have a moment while knitting it,  thinking that I didn't know where I could wear this; it's not everywhere you can go with the Eye of Sauron round your neck! But then someone at knit group told me she'd never heard of Sauron but the cowl was gorgeous colours, so I expect I can take it anywhere really. 

After this I pulled out a thing called  Catkin. According to my Ravelry project page I started this in 2012, and I have no memory of why I gave up on it. I took some time to work out where i was in the pattern, which is largely made up of multifarious charts so it took some time, tried knitting one row while juggling the requisite 14 stitch markers, and went wrong multiple times before accepting that my vision is just not good enough to follow the charts anymore. They're too small. I daresay  I could have faffed about and done wonderful things with enlarging technology, but when I thought about it my enthusiasm for the pattern - well, I was going to say it had waned but the truth is it had evaporated altogether. No point in forcing yourself to slowly work your way through a pile of charts that are almost too small for you to make out if in the end you're going to end up with something you don't actually want. So I pulled it out ( or frogged as we say in the trade) and the yarn has gone back into stash where it will stay until next year when we reach the Year of Knitting up Random Stash Yarn as opposed to this year which is the Year of Finishing Wips and Kits.

That  said I am about to go and cast on something new but it''s very small and very special and in theory will take me at most two evenings to complete. Well, we'll see how that goes. 

Smaller Plot: More Plants

Not quite sure how that works, but we certainly seem to be keener on garden related things since moving from Orkney where we had an overwhelming 2.8 acres. We mostly ignored it, bar the OH's efforts to keep a huge expanse of grass under control, and now we have a small patch which is mainly patio and astroturf. Definitely ticked the box 'Small easily maintained garden'. 

Last autumn we bought spring bulbs and put them in a variety of pots; rather to my surprise they have grown and flowered. Here's one of them

Crocus and iris. We have a similar one which also has daffodils on the verge of blooming too. And another pot which has tulips in it but they aren't nearly as far on. Possibly they will be our failure as far as pots go. Or maybe it's just too early for them to be out. 

At the weekend we went to the local garden centre and splashed out on some primroses to add  a bit more spring cheer

and I also treated myself to a hellebore. It's a bit late for this year, although there are still plenty of flowers on it to enjoy,. Normally you see them in the run up to Christmas and there's too much else to think about/spend money on at that time of year so I've never bought one, even though I've wanted one for years. But now was the time! The variety is Ivory Prince and the colour tinge is a sort of dusky pinkish brown - it's beautiful. 

And a couple of weeks ago the OH brought home a camellia. When we moved to Orkney we left behind the most beautiful camellia. We'd bought it as a small plant and nurtured it for years, but there was no point in taking it to Orkney as that would have been a death sentence for it. One of the things I was looking forward to when we moved was getting a new one, but at the time there were none in the garden centres. Obviously we had missed the boat for that year. They  are appearing now though. 

Here's the plant; it has masses of buds

and here's one of its open flowers

So beautiful. The plant was a bit tall and spindly but we've repotted it and hopefully it will bush out as it grows. And who knows what else we may buy for the garden as time goes on.

2026 Finished Project No 6, and wool stats for February.

 I literally can't remember how old this project is. I know the wool came from Rowan as part of being a Rowan Member and I was only one of those for two years and it was a long long time ago. The pattern came from a small booklet included with Knit Now magazine, and it has been kicking around as an unfinished project for many years. 

I don't know why we knitters ( or possibly crafters in general) do this sort of thing to ourselves because, when I looked this out to finish it off, all it needed was for the hat to be seamed up and the cord to be made and inserted, and for the jumper to get six buttons and two press studs. For that it had been taking  up space for years? Part of not finishing it was not liking the hat very much and part of it was not having anyone to give it to, but this being the year of Finishing Things, and given that this didn't need much doing to it, it was a high priority. I even have someone I can send it to so it's a win/win. 

Stats are looking very good this month, thanks largely to finishing the Debbie Abrahams blanket and selling quite a large amount of sock yarn leftovers. 

Wool in was Nil ( hooray!) and wool out was 2297g and the cumulative total for the year to date is therefore 2413g. Not every month will be this good I know, but it's still a pleasing start. 

Well, that was a week!

 

My feet have hardly touched the ground. quick recap - 

Monday: to West Yorkshire and back for the funeral of our friend Christine. Memorable for the stress induced by the Satnav taking us through the traffic light hell that is  central Harrogate  for no discernible reason,  which had me giving vent to the memorable phrase 'I did not get up at half past s*dding five this morning to be late for a midday funeral'. Also for my Dorothy Dunnet reading friends  all agreeing that I looked much happier since the move back to the mainland,  and one telling me it had taken fifteen years off me. 

Tuesday: to a small village the other side of Stirling for a talk at their Heritage Society ( a friend helps run it) on Scottish Arts and Crafts Silver by someone who is a silver expert on the Antiques Road Show. The OH and I both went and it was  very good. Afterwards there were refreshments - 

there aren't any of the delicious homebakes in the photo but the tables all had these pretty teapots with lovely silk flower arrangements in them. 

Wednesday: a friend came for lunch and she brought the beautiful spring flowers in the picture at the top of the post. A very enjoyable occasion, with much laughter.

Thursday: i.e. yesterday  I took myself off to Dundee and met up with my friend S. We went to see the Palestinian Embroidery exhibition at the V & A Dundee followed by a visit to Dundee's MacManus Art Gallery for their new exhibition 'Curtain Call' which features costumes from film, theatre and television, with an emphasis on those created by people with a Dundee connection. A more detailed blog post on this coming shortly. 

It should have been knit group this morning but I was too tired to even think about it; however after lunch we went off to a local garden centre. Treats were consumed 

(three cakes because Son No 2 has been with us this week) and plants were bought, but again more about the plants with photos when they've been potted up. 

We have no plans for next week, but I daresay it will fill up!

2026 Finished Projects No 5

 

But Anne, I hear you all say, that is not a finished project, it is a single sock. And you're right it is a single sock, but you're wrong because it is a finished project. This is because it is The Replacement Sock.

Many year ago I made the OH a pair of socks in this yearn; Noro silk sock for the curious. Noro was incredibly fashionable in the knitting world at the time, although it was a bit marmite. For some it was Too Rustic which meant they didn't like all the bits in it s that weren't excluded in the processing as they should have been. But others didn't mind that because of the amazing colours that it came in. Let me say immediately this is not a good representation of how wonderful the colour combinations could be and it was never  a favourite of mine. Let me also add that although at the time I was a big fan of Noro yarns this is no longer the case because I cannot cope with the wide variation of thickness you get in the skein. This silk sock varies from places where it is no thicker than embroidery thread to others where it is practically aran, which is disconcerting, especially the thin bits. 

Anyway I made the socks and the OH loved them and then one wore through on the ball of the foot.Quite soon in fact and big time. One day there was  complete foot on his sock and the next there was practically nothing between the toe and half way down the length of the foot. It was not darnable. However I had a lot of the yarn left and I said I would throw away the one with the big hole and knit him another one, but not straight away because I was a0)sick of the sight of the colours and b) quite disheartened. 

Now, with my determination to work through my wips and kits this year, this rose to the top of the pile, basically because I am obviously going first for the low hanging fruit. All I needed to do to count this as a finished wip was to knit a sock. How long would that take  before I had the satisfaction of marking somethign completed on my lovely spread sheet? The answer was 4 days and I was working on another wip at the same time, a rather more complex one that I occasionally needed a rest from. 

So there you go, No 5. 

And the excitement just kept coming ....

... because after our extremely busy Saturday we were out again on Sunday.

This was for a valentine themed afternoon tea at the Japanese garden at Cowden. I've posted about our visits there with lots of photographs before; we love it. They have a very nice tearoom, often  very busy specially in the spring and summer, but you can usually find a table and it's well worth the wait. 

Of course it snowed on Sunday. We had a phone call from the garden warning us about that, and telling us which approach road was the best to use.  We set off 10 minutes earlier than we normally would to allow for that, but what we couldn't have factored in was getting stuck in a long queue of traffic which had built up so far ahead of us that we couldn't see the reason for it. Stressville. I hate being late and after edging forward not very far in 15 minutes the satnav was showing that we certainly  would be. In the event we turned around and found an alternative route and I was able to call and say we would be about ten minutes late. So much for leaving extra time!

They were very understanding and said it wasn't a problem and it truly wasn't. We had a beautiful afternoon tea;

three different sorts of sandwiches, none of them fish which was a win for me, although generally the OH can be counted on to eat my fishy sandwich and let me have his ham or egg or cheese one, sausage rolls, lemon and blueberry scones with cream and jam, little buns with raspberry icing and on the top layer - a chocolate fondue, with shortbread biscuits, strawberries and marshmallows for dipping. I thought that made  a lovely change to a standard afternoon tea. 

We'd planned a walk around the garden afterwards but the weather was shocking and in any case I have a painful leg just now and I'm limping so we just drove home and cosied up to watch some Olympic action - probably some ice skating since that's all that really interests me when it comes to winter sports. 

Great end to the weekend though. 

A Very Busy Day

Due solely to my own insouciance several months ago ( to wit: yes I'll book the matinee in Edinburgh without checking the calendar because we haven't got anything else in it for February yet) we found ourselves with a play to see in Edinburgh and an opera to see in Glasgow both on the same day. Saturday just gone in fact. Since the play was a matinee and the opera in the evening it was doable but it meant a very busy day with an early start, a lot of train travelling and a late finish. 

The moral of the story is,  however sure you are that there is 'nothing in the calendar' always always check! 

The play was A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, and as son no 2 is a huge fan of the Goes Wrong shows and as it was designed as a mid-February treat and  cheer up we had bought a ticket for him too, so we met him in Edinburgh and had lunch together before the play. 

The play was of course a riot; the company is so good at both funny dialogue and physical comedy. Here's the opening set: 

the beautiful intermission curtain 

and the curtain call

I have never found a box of Maltesers quite so hysterical. Also Tiny Tim was 'played' by a demonic ventriloquist's doll which was hilarious and sinister at the same time. Highly recommended.

Once the play was over we hurried to the station and caught a train for Glasgow, after which Son no 2 went home and we went to the opera. After the opera we came home on a noisy train with some very badly behaved youths on it and no members of staff to be seen. Possibly cowering in the end carriage. 

Once home we discovered that Scotland  had thrashed England at Murrayfield, which ended the day on a very high note indeed.