Thursday, 1 September 2011

Yikes!

To my horror, I saw several blog updates popping up on my blogroll that had pictures of jars overflowing with orts and titles that said “August Tusal”. Surely, surely, a month has not passed by already? What, I wonder, have I been doing with my time, that I can’t recall what I did in the past month? I’ve been reading (and listening to) Harry Potter and I’ve been mothering [poor Pelle is having a rough time of it at his new school. Not as rough as I’d expected, but still, he demands a lot of attention and cuddles, which, of course, I am happy to provide :o)], and I’ve been entertaining my dear friend Harmien, and I’ve been knitting and hooking and stitching too. Well, time flies when you’re having fun, they say, and I suppose it’s true. On to the stitching and knitting, then.
 
First of all, I want to say that my love for Sarah Harris is growing every day. Her colours are so unexpected and amazing, bright and subdued at the same time. That sounds odd, doesn’t it? Well, have a look and judge for yourself. Screaming bright Pinks that I’d never even used before, next to the beautifullest, most subtle shades of pearly grays and pastels, with some browns thrown in:


Even though I have not left many comments in the past couple of weeks, I have been visiting blogs and your gorgeous work inspired me to pick up my own WIPs and UFOs. Such as Beatrix Potter. Bea hadn’t seen the light of day since... let me check... March 28th 2009, but whilst watching the delightful film Miss Potter the other day, I was inspired to pick up her books and enjoy the delightful stories with their pretty drawings in sweet colours, which in turn, made me pick up the sampler.

I’m using the entire collection of DMC linen threads for this sampler, one over two on white 32 count linen. Yum.

Hooking has occurred, especially on those evenings when I was too tired to pick up needle, thread, scissors, lap stand, chart, telephone, iPod and plant myself in my stitching chair. Amazing how fast crochet goes, compared with stitching. This blanket is now so large, that it covers my legs when I’m working on it. Yay!
Colour-wise, I suppose you could say I’m using Sarah Harris as my inspiration: just throw together all the colours you can find, basically. It doesn’t have to be a pretty blanket, as far as I’m concerned. Just very, very colourful.

Hooking is especially fast when you compare it with fair isle knitting. And yes, a little of that has been happening too in this house:

This was intended as a sock but, as usual, it is too tight to get past my ankles, so I’m turning it into an arm warmer. I’ve got quite a collection of those now :o)) (and yes, I know some people looking at these pictures will probably think that my garden is in serious need of some de-weeding, but my motto is: weeds are only weeds when they’re in the wrong place, and weeds are never in the wrong place in my garden. I love weeds. They’re incredibly versatile, useful, some of them are tasty, some of them make great skin-care products or cough medicine or any other medicine for that matter, and when you let them grow the way they are meant to, they can be incredibly beautiful. So there.)

Oh, before I forget!
Orts. A great many of them. Well, I’m impressed, anyway.

Yours inspiredly,
Annemarie.