Another Great Weekend Gardening

I thought I would have last weekend to garden, but poor Denis came down with the flu on Friday, and by Sunday both J and I had come down with it too. Saturday last weekend was a glorious day, or so I'm told, I spent the day with my wee one who was very poorly. But a week has passed and we are pretty much all better.

Today was another glorious day. All week the weather was threatening to be awful for the Victoria Day weekend, but it has been pretty nice so far. Yesterday was sweatshirt weather, but today was sunny and warm. Denis even got the sprinkler going.


I've almost dug out the first of the 4 raised beds I'm putting in the garden. Now to brave Home Depot to purchase the wood to make the raised beds.

I suddenly found myself cleaning out the shed this afternoon. It was not on my agenda, but it is something that was in desperate need to be done. I cannot remember the last time I cleaned out that thing. The plan this summer is take the shed down as it is decaying. It is also where I plan to put a deck.





I also purchased 2 columbine plants to go with the 2 bleeding hearts I bought last week. They are planted in the garden under the lilac bush. I'm really happy with how the garden is coming this spring.

I have been knitting too. Today, my brand new, favourite knitting store (The Knitting Loft) started a sock KAL. I started this vanilla sock pattern with an afterthought heel by Nurturing Fibers. The yarn is Biscotte Bis-Sock in Valentine's Day. Since it is a vanilla sock pattern, I thought it would be a great time to do 2 socks at a time. I've almost got the  toe finished.












This is my nearly finished Zippo in Persian Red Kelbourne Woolens Germantown. I'm loving the yarn and the very simple pattern. I think I only have 48 rows or so until I cast off.

Well, off to do some much needed laundry. I do love working in the garden, I just wish I had 'staff' to do all the inside chores I absolutely hate.

Cheerio

Spring 2019

The last time I really blogged was prior to my son coming home. Now isn't that a surprise. Well, he's 10 now and strangely enough I actually have more time to myself these days so time to blog again.

And now for something completely different: blogs about my garden. Not only do I have time to blog again, I'm finally finding time to work in the garden.

Spring has been slow it seems this year. We had a frost warning last night and the forsythia are still vibrantly in bloom.

Here's how my garden looked last Sunday.

 This poor rose at the back of the house was planted by my parents. It has been there my entire life. It is so overgrown and crowded. I will be moving the crocuses from in front of the rose. and I need to put a ring around the peony before it grows much larger.

 The rose bed is looking good, but the edges are grass-less. I bought 5 roses in Niagara-on-the-Lake this winter and the went in here. I've started taking down the old chain link fence on this side of the garden because there is now a 6 foot tall wooden fence 6 inches behind.

 This is how far I've got the old fencing down so far. It is very slow going as there are trees growing between the fences. My Dad put that fence up 50 years ago. It has certainly done it's work.

I really wish I had taken a before picture of this space behind the shed. It was a mess. Now it is all cleaned up. The shed was built by my father and sadly it is in a very rough shape, so I will be pulling it down this summer. I want to replace the patio with decking. It is a large area off the backroom, perfect for a seating and a dining area.

 Here's the rose bed with the new roses planted. It was getting into evening when I took this photo and the only sunlight was coming between the boards of the new fence. I trimmed the apple tree last fall to get as much shade off the rose bed so hopefully this year the roses do much better than last year.


Here are some of the new roses I planted. I'm going to have to go out into the garden one day and record where I planted each rose.

 This is Bull's Eye. It will be very different in the bed as I don't have any roses with the semi-double form. It is suppose to grow from 4 to 5 feet tall in height. That will be awesome.

The rose starts butter yellow and turns snow white with age with the fuchsia eye.






 

This rose is Agathe Incarnata. The blooms on this rose depend on the UV intensity and heat and can go from a pale pink to white. It is a historic Rose and goes by many other names. I believe it will only bloom once. This will be the only rose in the bed that is not a repeat bloomer. But it looks so pretty I decided to add it to the bed.






This beauty is called La Rose de Molinard. It is suppose to grow to between 5 to 6 feet. The colour described as antique pink with a lighter colour on the outer side of the petal.

 I think this is my favourite of all the new roses. It is called Garden Party. I hope it produces a lot of flowers. I'm really looking forward to seeing this one in bloom.

 And the last new rose is called Zaide. This rose is in the centre of the rose bed up near the old deep red roses. I hope they complement each other. It should be a real show stopped.

When I had finished planting the roses, I spent about an hour digging weeds out of the area around the rose bed. Then I put down 5 bags of top soil topped with grass seed. I put the grass seed right up to the edge of the rose bed. The lawn has become very bare at the edges of the beds.



Whew. That was a lot of work I got up to last weekend. Tomorrow I'll update the blog with a post about this weekend's work. Last week at school we had a concert for 'We Belong', Denis was sick from school for two days with J with him one day and me with him the second, and both Denis and I attended the Divisional Track Meet on Thursday. It was a super busy week. Only 7 weeks left in the school year, so the weeks won't be getting any quieter.

Happy 2015 the Year of Organization

It has been nearly 3 years since I posted on this blog. They have been very, very busy years with child wrangling, student wrangling,  camping, curriculum writing, car dieing and buying, and lots of knitting. But I have not a lot of finished products. My knitting, house, finances, and life are totally disorganized. I've read on Facebook where people choose a word instead of making a list of New Year's Resolutions, so my word for 2015 is Organization.

To begin organizing my knitting, I'm going to start by sorting and listing all my WIP. I've also said, uhmm, that this will be the year of completing WIP instead of starting.

So let's begin:

Number 1

On my needles at the moment I am making this gray scarf for M4A This scarf will be a part of a package given to a 16 year old who is 'graduating' out of the orphanage system. At the two children's homes M4A supports, the graduates will receive a hand knit sweater, scarf, hat, mittens, and 2 pairs of socks (thin for wearing in shoes, and thick for wearing around their house). They also receive store bought blankets, alarm clocks and other products that the organizer Nanci purchases during her trip.

Number 2

 This is the Lane Splitter skirt. I am about 4 inches from the decreases. I love the pattern and the yarn I bought at Mary's store in Unionville (I miss Mary's)

Number 3

This is the KnitPicks Chroma in Worsted weight that I had bought to make the Lane Splitter skirt. But I decided the yarn wasn't up to the wear of a skirt, so I decided to knit a hat. I'm thinking the hat may be too small, I'll have to see when I make it back to it.

 Number 4
This is Still Light. I had started it in an alpaca yarn I have, but I found it too scratchy. I have started this yoke 4 times. I keep messing up at the wrap and turn on the purl side and leave a hole. I have a new technique to learn, purl wrap and turn.

Number 5
Socks for M4A. I started these in the summer or early fall. I have one sock done. I meant to send them with the fall shipment of socks to Kazakhstan.

Number 6
This is a cowl in Alla's pattern. I bought this orange Eco Plus at Romni Wools in the spring on a trip with Denis. Denis found the wool and said he really wanted it. I love EcoPlus so I bought it, but orange isn't my colour.





Now to enter all these projects onto Ravelry. Let's see how many projects I find tomorrow.

Till then stay warm and knit.

To Shrug Or Not to Shrug

In January, when I was in my cast on crazy days, I decided to make the Comfy Shoulder Shrug by JoAnne Turcotte. It calls for worsted weight yarn, so I went through my stash to see if I had some worsted.

Instead I found Northern Chunky by S. R. Ketzer in the house and though it was bulky, I thought it could do the job. Nope, the knitting was stiff. The shrug would have been like airplane wings.

So, I looked around the house again and came up with Sandnes Mini Alpakka. This stuff is fingering weight yarn, so again not what I needed, but I tried it doubled and I was able to get gage.

Only now I'm not liking the material. I think I screwed up the cast on because look how it curls.
And in this row I've done something screwy.
I was planning to go back to this when I finished the M4A sweater, now I'm not to sure. Instead I think I'll go and finish Denis vest for school in the fall.

M4A Sweater

 

Today I joined the sleeves to the body of the sweater and tomorrow I will be beginning the yoke. As the sweater HAS to be in the mail to the organizers a month today, I'm on track for finishing in good time.

I'm still loving this pattern. It is neat and easy to follow.

Crochet Instead

I needed a break from the sweater I'm knitting, so I looked on Ravelry and found this pattern. It is called Angel Wing Newborn Pinafore.

It looked cute, easy and the real change I needed from the 3 x 2 ribbed sleeves.

Anyway, I tried the sweater with some cotton I had around the house, but the colours weren't right for a newborn (just too strong). So during March Break I went to Romni and found some Rowan Purelife in the basement. I bought 3 balls but only needed 2. Guess there is another trip to Romni in my future.

So the facts:

Pattern: Angel Wing Newborn Pinafore by Maxine Gonser
Yarn: 2 balls of Rowan Purelife Organic Cotton DK in Cholorophyll
Hook: H / 5.00mm
Started: March 13th, 2012

Finished: March 27th, 2o12

I actually finished crocheting the pinafore about a day or two after starting, but it took me until yesterday to weave in all my ends and sew on the buttons.

I've already gifted the pinafore to my secretary who has a new granddaughter. One day I hope to have a photo of the little one wearing it.

I just love the buttons. I picked them up at Mary's Yarns. I love any excuse to go up there and enjoy an hour or so with all that lovely yarn.

Brown Blues

Who knew trying to buy brown wool would be so difficult!

I went to my favourite yarn store to buy Cascade 220 Superwash for the sweater for the M4A Grad. I need about 5 balls at least, 6 by to be on the safe side. Unfortunately, LYS only had 4 balls.

I called another store I've never been too, but was willing to drive up to it. They had the right colour, but only 3 balls. I recorded the dye lot to see if it was the same as my favourite LYS. No such luck.

I talked about the difficulty during knit night and learned about Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool. So today after work I picked up 3 balls of Brown Heather. Looks really nice and feels wonderful.

I'm working on the gauge. But wouldn't you know it, I can't find a 4.5 mm needle. I'm sure I've multiples of that size around but I can't put my hand on them. Okay, I tell a fib, I actually have a 16 inch, but I need a bigger one to knit the sleeves in the round.