Snapshots: June 2016

 All right, I know I'm late with June's update! To be honest I don't even know where the month disappeared to... July was here before I knew it. I'm not struggling with winter this year and I think the reason is that I feel so busy! I have multiple projects on the go including craft and garden plus all sorts of things I want to get started on, and the days just aren't long enough! Luckily most of my craft projects are good for working on at night. Let me show you what I've been up to...

 At the start of the month it was all about knitting! I finished the Linus shawl, my first ever knitted garment.  It certainly isn't perfect but by the end of it I felt quite comfortable holding the needles in the Continental style, and my stitches were a lot neater (and I wasn't dropping them nearly as much!) I'm still not keeping a very even tension, but hopefully that will improve a lot with practice. The lovely self striping yarn (King Cole Riot in Funky) does help detract from the mistakes, and I finished it off with a crochet picot edging. I'm very happy with the shawl, and it's been lovely to wrap around my neck when I'm gardening on a cold winter's day.

 I got some wonderful happy mail this month - a beautiful pair of hand knitted socks! These are from Sue in Wellington. How lucky am I - thank you so much Sue! When I come to try and knit socks myself, I'll be able to tell if I'm on the right track :)

Well, there were some days this month where warm woollen socks were a must, but other days were warm, as evidenced by the sweet peas and roses still flowering in the garden.

 Another of my projects is reclaiming my craft room, from the piles of junk and clutter that have overtaken it. Slowly, as the budget allows, I'm planning to put better storage in there. I started with some tall white bookshelves, since my books are overflowing the one bookcase in there already. After I moved some books, I also had room for the crochet blocking board and my wips  - so it's made a difference already! The next plan is for a chest of drawers to put my yarn stash in.

 When I visited Mum this month we (of course) hit the secondhand stores and I found some sweet little shabby chic treasures! I'm always adding to my vase collection and can't resist pretty salt and pepper shakers (which can also be vases with the tops removed). And I had some more happy mail with a yarn club box I subscribed to from Little Woollie. It contained four balls of lovely wool yarn as well as some other little goodies like buttons and special tea bags. I'm looking forward to finishing off some projects, so I can make something with this gorgeous wool!

 Here are my Jack and Lydia squares! As I mentioned last month, these will be sewn together into a cube to make a project bag. They have been such fun to make, just playing with pretty colours and different combinations of stitches.

 One thing I love about Instagram is the opportunity to put a group of pretty things together and take a photo. Here are a couple of my favourite pretty photos from this month. Camellias and hellebores make such good photo props... I hate to say it but I think they might be better than roses!

 There was a particular morning this month where the early sunlight was golden and it illuminated everything so vibrantly... trees, houses, birds flying overhead. Magical light like that makes me want to spend all day in the garden, but it's mostly too cold... 3-4 hours between 11-3 is usually enough! I am still working in the front garden (as you can see in the photo bottom right) getting the ground dug over and the bed shaped the way I want it. Then it will be weed matting and planting. I aim to have it all finished and tidy for spring!

Oh, and how's this for a winter harvest? Apples, lemons, leeks, silver beet, and even a couple of tomatoes and strawberries from the glasshouse! Also herbs, daisies and roses. 

July is rocketing by, and I'll be back before you know it with my next update! Hope you are all having a good winter/summer!

xx