I have had customers ask me how long a knitted scarf should be when they are buying one for someone. It's also a valid question if you're making a scarf for yourself or for someone else. Usually the minimum length for a knitted scarf is 60 inches or 5 feet long. 6 feet/72 inches is me…
It is so nice to have flowers and leaves again. Winter here lasts what feels like forever. These are ruffle pansies. The secret to flowering pansies is to cut off the dead flowers to keep them flowering. These came as a flat of pansies and then were planted in a tub, which can be placed anywhe…
I didn't blog for a bit because I had snow twice, and my neighbour was building a snowman in May, which is never a good sign! So after a warm week it's raining. And I've spent the week taking photos of spring flowers. My favourite anemones are the red ones (it's more com…
These are snowdrops. I still don't have leaves on the trees though there are buds and the beginnings of leaves. I don't have green grass either! I made some felt pins. Choosing bead combinations is the best bit. I also have some hand stamped Eiffel tower gift tags.
The thing with knitting is that it takes a lot of time, so now I am not knitting so much, I've switched back to embroidery for a bit. This is a photo of a needle book while in progress. It takes several hours to finish a piece, partly because as I sew I am deciding on placement of the flower…
This is the coldest February here in 40 years. As a result, when it briefly warmed up to about -3 Celsius, some deer furtively visited the garden. They are actually quite big, about five feet tall or so, but they have very small feet. So sometimes they might breeze through and you don't noti…
I am freezing. After lots of mild weather the bitter stuff finally caught up with me. When I go outside with birdseed I create excitement. A chickadee threw itself at my feet. It was -25 Celsius with -33 windchill. At night it was -41 windchill. Today heatwave...it's -16 Celsius. It'…
Happy New Year! This one I had sitting there for a while as I figured out what I wanted to do with it. I was doing a lot of knitting over Christmas and the needle book was cut out but I couldn't figure out how I wanted it to look. Then it just clicked into place. The leaves are sewn o…
It's 20% wool and 80% acrylic. I really like the way it has some weight to it. It's a little odd though how the colour of the yarn looks in the store, compared to the color outside. In normal light it is much nicer!
This is my new wool blend teal cowl. It is a new stitch for me as well. Sometimes I find myself wondering why knitting stitches all seem to have two or three names! It is really confusing, especially when you're trying to track a pattern down. But it is amazing what you can do with what…
After several weeks of what felt like early winter, normal autumn has been resumed. This means instead of 3 degrees Celsius I am getting 15-20 degrees. That is a huge improvement! Typical of Canadian Prairie weather which can have extremes in temperature. I'm always amazed anything can grow…