Saturday 20th April

Lots of things got done today!

Knitting

It continues... 

The 'Holy Hat' grows steadily at the rate of three rows a day. I call it a Holy Hat because I knit round and round while I listen to the day's chunk of David Suchet reading 'The Bible in One Year'. Once it is finished I'll put it into the bag of knitted hats waiting for some suitable charity collection like the Christmas shoeboxes.

I've finished the heel of the sock yarn baby sock, so it's now just a couple of inches of round and rounding until the toe. It will hopefully be complete by  onday at the lat3st, and then I can get on th8s the baby sock in double knitting. 

Poncho no 2; I might get a few rows done later this evening!

The Bog Coat

I took a charm square from a stack of 5" squares I have beside me and made a mock-up of the coat. I haven't measured it to scale; I just wanted something I could touch and handle.

I need to find some suitable fabric about 60" by 48", or piece together a selection of fabrics, to use for a lining. And clear the table to give me the space for cutting out.

More searching on the Internet for information on the 'Cut my Cote' book has lead me down all sorts of enjoyable rabbit holes. One site notes that the book is 'readily available for about $15'. That may have been true when that blog post was written over 10 years ago but that was before the interest in zero-waste pattern cutting grew!

Swaps;

Cross stitch collaboration; my stitching has come back to me, and Ang should have hers today or Monday so we can each stitch our own borders. 

I also do a Notebook Swap with a friend, and I thought it might be interesting to try sewing fabric to a page before I send it back on Monday. I chose this charm square, because it was handy, and because I love the beautiful handwriting of the domestic accounts. So consistent, oso even, with no crossings out... how did they do it? They must have written more slowly, in a more considered fashion than we do today.

Sewing it was quite a challenge. I was mindful that too many needle holes would perforate the paper. 

I also included some sketches of very young twins out for a stroll. They must have been barely a year old and just staggered unsteadily along the pavement,  across the verge, into a driveway, into the road (it's a very quiet road!). Their father was attempting to manage their progress, and was kept busy rescuing them from their carefree toddling here there and everywhere!

Gardening

Broad beans transplanted

with cloches as the temperature has been dropping sharply overnight, and seed potatoes in their potato sacks.

The muddy mark is where a sack of pukkamuck (mushroom compost) has been sitting for over a year, over 2 years? I can't remember. Long enough for the original coarse texture to have become something that looks like proper soil. I'm glad that the pukkamuck sack has been finished up and put away. The potato sacks look so much better.  

Himself came out just in time to save me from myself; I was about to set to work using a trowel, but he did it much faster using a proper spade.