Sunday Sevens – 21st January

Joining in again this week with Sunday Sevens – started by Nathalie at Threads and Bobbins – sharing seven (or so) pictures of  the week beyond the blog.

It’s been another week when we’ve had every sort of weather – except a heatwave. Most of this weather has been the sort of stuff you want to hide indoors from. The exception was last Sunday when I made the most of the sunshine and finally did some gardening – cutting back the fuchsias and clearing this flowerbed.

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Although we had cleared up a lot of leaves in the autumn, we have so many trees, the wind has blown heaps of them back into the flowerbeds.

Despite the horrible weather I went for my first dog walk of the year. Trying to get these three all facing the camera at once is a near impossibility…

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The dark cold evenings gave me chance to try out some patterns for a new project. I grossly overestimated the number of stitches I needed on this one…

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I didn’t like it, so tried just one repeat of this pattern…

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I also finished the back of my Pineapple Cardigan.

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As you can see, I decided to have the pattern all the way to the top.

Lots of knitting time too at our knitting group on Thursday. If you’ve been following for a while, you may remember one of my group is knitting the Twelve Days of Christmas. This is the milkmaid she was knitting, who needs a glass of wine to help her stand up. Sounds like a fine excuse to me.

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And, as promised, I started my 15 minutes a day spinning…

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How’s your week been?

38 thoughts on “Sunday Sevens – 21st January”

  1. I must have missed something – where did you get those dogs from? Have you borrowed them? Adopted three dogs? What have you been up to while I wasn’t looking? Please tell me there are at least two other adults lurking behind the camera…….

    I love that colour of the first yarn shown and the pineapple cardigan and the spinning is most impressive – look at that uniformity! That is so good! You won’t be turning out poncho-mats that never wear out!!

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    1. No, no dogs adopted – just walking with a friend who they belong to. You have seen them before – I promise. Would love to adopt another dog or two, but hubby not so keen and anyway I might have to have a foot op, so certainly no adopting for now.

      Glad you like all the yarniness. I seem to have had a step improvement while I didn’t have a wheel as there were a lot of fluffy slugs in my spinning when I finished the course at the end October.

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      4. You’re right and I’m sure it will be just like when you get a second child, you find a whole heap of new love that takes nothing from what you have for the first – even if the first has moved on.

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      2. I brought 10kg of fleeces from a local farmer and had them carded at the mill. Most of it I’ve sold, but it seemed to make sense to try with my wool before I move on to more expensive beautifully dyed stuff. As you can see, it is pretty to easy to spin as I’m very new to this game.

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  3. We are having nasty weather in the South West of France at the moment – we even have mud, unheard of on our steep land. Soon the hoses will need to come out before the dogs are allowed in the house.
    Love the pineapple stitch and the colour is great – I’m glad you decided to go all the way up.
    I hope your friend in the knitting group isn’t having to knit eight maids a milking – no wonder she needs a glass of wine to fortify her. (Don’t mention wine – I can’t believe it’s still only the 21st).

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    1. Sorry to hear about the mud 😦 Ha ha! I read hoses as horses and thought, ‘of course’ there wouldn’t be room for both the horses and the dogs in the house’ 😉
      My friend has decided, in the interests of her sanity, that she’s only going to knit one of each person.
      Hang on in there, only ten days to go.

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    1. Thank you – I dyed the yarn myself.
      It was lovely except the white collie – a reasonably new addition, was ‘trained’ by her previous owners to be ball obsessed and spends a lot of time hassling to be thrown a ball/toy or smacking the back of your legs with a stick.

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      1. Haha I know dogs like that. And H is lethal when he carries sticks as helikes to carry whole trees and take you out with them. Thats very clever that you dyed the yarn yourself. X

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  5. You have done a lot of crafting this week! I agree about the pink, like the second pattern better. And the cardigan back looks promising! Glad you went with all pattern. It is pretty!

    But the spinning! That is really impressive! Your singles look very nice and even. Practice does wonders, doesn’t it?

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      2. It does – but I also think a not too long pause also seems to improve something we’re learning – I felt the same when i learned continental knitting. But maybe it’s because we relax a bit more and don’t try as hard, because we acknowledge we might have forgotten a bit?

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      3. I think you might be right – we let it settle in and our mind works on it though we are unaware of that. But I also think practicing helps with this one – the muscle memory has to be trained, then it becomes like riding a bike.

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      4. Oh yes, I would totally agree with that and why 15 mins a day practice seems to be a good plan – like when you’re studying for exams it’s better to do 15 minute chunks over two weeks than 4 hours in one day, because the small chunks embed themselves while you forget 95% of the 4 hours 🙂

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  7. I can understanding needing a glass of wine to stand up sometimes😂 I love the texture of that cardigan.
    Doggie borrowing is a great way to get plug the hole of missing furry friends isn’t it. I currently have two snoring Beagles curled up on the sofa next to me. I have been thinking that maybe it’s time to make a visit to the rehoming centre and it’s been lovely having these two for a couple of days, but it reminds me of how much of a commitment they are & I’m not sure I have enough time to give a dog the attention it deserves everyday at the moment.

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  8. The spinning looks good as is the decision on the jumper which looks good. Can’t beat a walk with dogs, it’s nice that you have a friend to go with. I love the maid a milking who is in urgent need of a milking stool from the look of her.

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  9. Ah, I think I remember these three. Sitting in the back of a car I think. 🙂 They seem to be enjoying the walk very much.
    Lovely crafty week, your spinning is coming along beautifully. 🙂
    Slow and quiet week here, with a lovely weekend too. Still hot, but we may see cooler weather this week. 🙂
    Take care and enjoy the crafting.

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      2. Good to hear you’ve had rain. I know how desperate you are over there for water. We keep hearing about Cape Town on our news, but not Joberg – presumably you’re better than them, but not great?

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      3. I need rain, but Cape Town has serious issues. The rain on the weekend was lovely, and we had more on Saturday and Sunday evening.
        This coming weekend we have a water collection drive to donate bottles of water to be taken to the animal shelters in Cape Town. We still keep our fingers crossed for good rain in the Cape soon.

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