Keep on walkin'

I know it's been a long long time but I thought I'd say a little hello just in case anyone still checks this blog!

Not much new to report on the vege garden, just the usual winter crop of spinach and silverbeet, and the herbs are all doing well - parsley, thyme, oregano all thriving, and little basil seedlings still poking through where we pulled out last year's plants.

Strawberries are taking over where we planted just one seedling last year, but I don't mind! Hopefully we'll get more fruit this spring.

We also put in a passionfruit vine which is happily twining up the chicken-wire, and some tomatoes of course.

Front garden is coming along too now, we've made another bed with pinks and reds, and a few roses I bought for a bargain $2.oo each! They were just twigs with roots, and half-dead I think, but this morning I saw that one has sprouted little shoots.

And I planted two Albany Woollybushes in the backyard. They're natives that I've seen around here, very pretty with soft pine-like needles, like a little fir tree.

Albert's growing up, he fills up the whole photo frame now!

A rose by any other name

If only we had smell-a-vision.

I wasn't going to plant roses because they're so conventional, but one rainy day I found myself in the rose section of the nursery, and I caved.

I walked around sniffing every rose before choosing this one. It's a Hybrid Tea Bush Rose - Mr Lincoln.

It was only a bud when I bought it, but the other day it opened and I wasn't disappointed. It has the best fragrance!

It's doing really well in the sand, I can see why people fill their gardens with roses here.

Fairy surprise

Look who arrived in the mail today!

Thank-you to whoever sent her, she is lovely! Here she is prettying up my new desk - just the girly touch it needs to make it mine.

And my other news is that I've got a new job, starting Monday, so it's back to full-time work again for me! Who knows, maybe I'll blog more often now that I won't have as much time to, that's the way it seems to work with me. Got to have that pressure otherwise I'll find a million other things to do with my time.

I'll be the new children's librarian, so will do storytime sessions (Albert's giving me lots of practice throwing my voice) and craft activities (Mum and K, I'm sure you have lots of ideas there), plus selecting books for kids and young adults, yay!

I'll also be the one people come running to when there's a problem with the online library system, so G I might be needing to avail myself of your technical expertise there. And Papa and Liz you can keep me up to date with all the latest internet technologies and new gadgets.

Aren't families wonderful? Thanks for all doing such diverse and useful things, they really come in handy to a bit of a bookworm like me.

Unbeknownst to me Craig has been checking the papers since we got back from Brisbane, and yesterday he said to me, 'Do you want a puppy?'. And he showed me an ad for pure bred beagle puppies for sale a couple of suburbs away.

Now the subject of getting a dog had come up in conversation occasionally over the past few months, but I hadn't really thought about it too much. And although we agreed that any dog with the right kind of personality would be great, it was a beagle that we both secretly wanted. Of course we had to have a look.

So we drove down to Spearwood yesterday afternoon and asked to see the male, who happened to be the only one from a litter of six. And here he is, the newest member of the family! He's a pure bred beagle, with Dumbo ears and the saddest eyes, and we're going to call him Albert. Or Bertie the beagle for short.

Happy Halloween!

I haven't seen any trick-or-treaters yet tonight but I've put these lanterns up and I have supplies of chocolate ready just in case. I know you're supposed to use pumpkins but I just love these pigs - thanks b! Pigs, pumpkins, they are both p words anyway.

I miss you all out there. Hope you're having a fun halloween, and drop by flickr sometime for some photos from the proper side of the country.

Chocolate cabled beanie

I was so pleased with the green beanie that I bought some more merino/silk blend yarn and a smaller round needle and started on this one. The cables look complicated but really they are easy, you only have to do them every third row and just alternate between front cables and back ones.

So the cable pattern is just:

1st row: p2, k12, p2

2nd row: p2, k12, p2

3rd row: p2, "cable 6 front (k3 and 3)"- which means slip the next 3 stitches onto a cable needle (or safety pin or skewer or whatever is handy) and hold at front of work, k3 from the left hand needle, then knit the 3 stitches from the cable needle. Easy! Then cable 6 front (k3 and 3) again, then p2.

4th row: p2, k12, p2

5th row: p2, k12, p2

6th row: p2, k12, p2

7th row: p2, k3, "cable 6 back (k3 and 3)" - which means slip the next 3 stitches onto a cable needle and hold at back of work, k3 from left hand needle, then knit the 3 stitches from the cable needle. Then k3, p2.

8th row: p2, k12, p2.

That's it! Then you just go back to the first row and do it all again.

I did 5 sets of cables, with purled stitches in between, and decreased stitches in the purled sections to make it gradually taper in. Then I decreased each 3 stitch cable down to 2 stitches, and I think I'll knit a few more rows like this before bringing it right in at the top. Which I am not looking forward to because it's so fiddly but how hard can it be?

Green beanie

I knit a beanie!

It's got cables and ribbing and decreased stitches at the crown, and I knit it ín the round as well!

It was the first time I've used round needles and I had no idea it was so easy. Plus it's much easier to avoid dropped stitches and there's no chance of you losing one needle down the crack in the couch in the middle of your project (a definite bonus). And you can stop for a break anywhere you like, instead of waiting till you get to the end of a row. I love it.

When I reached the top I had to switch to double-pointed needles and as I had none yet but was desperate to finish it I improvised with bamboo skewers from the kitchen, which I broke into smaller and smaller lengths as I got closer to the crown. It worked, but I don't think I'll be doing that again - especially when they started to splinter and split the yarn... oops.

And though craig was asleep when I finished, he managed a sleepy thank-you and slept with it on (it's still freezing here). He even let me take this photo, AND has worn it in public, so I reckon I can call it a success.