One for the birds

Not only do I have a thing for trees at the moment... and anything red.... but also birds. Sometimes I like to combine all three. Right now I'm wearing a cord necklace with a red metal bird on a gate motif - found last week at the National Portrait Gallery shop (the BEST shop for gifts in Canberra, surely?). Made by Elk. Their jewellery is delicious. I could easily take it all home.
























Something else I've found - Indiefixx Feed Your Soul, a great art site with free downloadable pictures you can print out to your heart's content. Luckily for me there is an abundance of birds on board. Here are a couple of my favourites.


















And finally, a peek at the Helleborus-in-progress. Going well so far - I'd say I'm nearly at the halfway point, and it hasn't been too painful (despite Terhi's warning of death-by-boredom-scarf).

Getting my knitting groove back

I am on a bit of a roll with knitting at the moment, having finally completed a little cardigan for little miss E a week or so ago (OK so I still haven't sewn on the buttons, but she's been wearing it, and it really doesn't need the buttons..........). Pleased with that accomplishment (yes, it had been on the go, on and off, since before she was born - 10 months ago) I decided to pop out a quick hat for the biggest little boy. It is a paper-bag style hat, knitted in a rectangle, very cute!

Sorry about the sideways shot - still getting the hang of this! I really love this wool, which is lucky, because there is still a lot of it left. More on that some other time.

Then I decided I would knit a scarf for my sister. Weird that I have been knitting for years and years but never actually knitted a scarf. Isn't that just what everyone starts to knit when they learn how to knit, before getting completely bored and moving onto more interesting garments? Anyway, a scarf it will be, but in between times I unfortunately had to abandon the first attempt due to the dreaded stockinette curl syndrome. A pity, because the chevron lacy pattern was going really well and it would make a fantastic scarf, but sorry, that was way too curly. It had to go.

Luckily I found the perfect replacement designed by the very clever Terhi here - the picture below shows her original, mine will not be as wide, and given that it is in a darker wool, the pattern will not show up as well as this, but after having done about ten rows, and seeing the pattern start to emerge, I am really loving it. Thanks Terhi.

More tomorrow on another exciting knit-fest!