but every now and then in this dysmal summer we did get a few hours of sunshine - and the butterflies come out in droves as soon as this happens. their favourite feeding spot is this eupatorium - there are still some left, even though at least half of them fluttered away when I came closer.... this plant is great for them, we have several around the garden and all of them are covered in butterflies when in flower! I read that they are real thugs in the garden, but apart from their impressive size after a few years I had no problems; I wouldn't call 2 seedlings in about 10 years "thuggish":)) though they would probably be too big for a small garden - when in flower they grow taller than 2 m and need at least 1 m square!
we had a pretty bad year for fruit-bearing plants as well (again!)... barely any apples and pears, only about 2 kg of plums, not many strawberries and so on... but on the plus side are the rosehips again! never mind bad weather, constant rain or storm - those roses carry a lot of hips - which we transform into rosehip jam every year! admittedly it's a lot of work to scrape out the seeds and seed hairs, but the end result tastes so good that it's worth it!
I didn't just lounge around and pick a few hips - I unravelled my grey cardigan and started to knit it all again! I did like the pattern in the new twistcollective, so I set out to make my own (i.e. I usually change pretty much everything:)). this time I'll only use the main yarn to make the cardigan less heavy - though I am still thinking about putting a lining in... we'll see, I finished the first sleeve (I usually start with the sleeves, saves me from doing large samples), the second is halfway up. I started with the cable, put it together with kitchener and knitted an attached i-cord at the bottom. then I knitted the sleeve into the upper border - in the round. mindless knitting, but for fiddly I started the new hp socks for DS - I think I'll better embroidery Hedwig after doing the sock or it'll be far too complicated....
we're also painting several of the rooms - DS's is finished (can't remember it being so clean and well sorted for a long time:)), the bathroom is in the making, the living-room will follow last. the kitchen was done last year - and my room can wait until next year:)) this will be a major job - not the painting, but the dragging out of boxes and bags, filled to the rim with fibres and yarn:(( I'll better not think about this - it gives me a slightly panicky feeling (probably a sign to reduce stashes all over?)
oh yes, the dyepot is filled again as well! when I passed some goldenrod on the way to town, I had to cut and use it - but it's not finished yet, photo to follow. same for the tibetan madder (or not?) - which is still in the bucket for soaking.....
4 comments:
I like your willingness to re-do the sweater! So far it looks good.
Eupatorium is on my list of things to plant.
I never thought about making rose hip jam, good idea. We have tons of wild roses and hence tons of rose hips. I'll have to add that to my list of local goodies. :)
The first sleeve to your reknit cardigan looks great! Love that cuff. Plus it's a beautiful color of gray.
Delighted Hands: I don't have a choice really - other than putting a too large cardie into the "never wear" corner... the yarn was definitely too nice for that!
Leigh - I used to use all rosehips I could find - but now I only use the large ones, which not only have more "flesh", but also a softer skin, which makes de-seeding easier. and I use the round black (but small:(() hips of a wild rose, r. pimpinellifolia. it gives the jam a lovely dark red colour:))
Ja, der Herbst kommt immer näher. Dabei wartet man ja eigentlich irgendwie immer noch auf den Sommer. Die Zeit rennt einfach so davon, ist das bei Dir auch so?
Liebe Grüße
Kristin
Post a Comment