When you've written a blog for a few years or more a pattern tends to emerge and you find yourself writing annually about the same kind of things at the same times of year. It's probably because a year has a rhythm, especially for those of us who live with four distinct seasons. Most of us are creatures of habit and whilst we enjoy change and variation many of the things we do are similar year in year out – or maybe that's just my family! Anyway, the start of this years school summer break has been very much like the one we had last year…

Amy has dyed her hair blue again (with a little help from me) though this year her hair is substantially shorter than it was last year. She decided to say goodbye to long hair a few months back and loves it (I kept her 12 inch pony tail, as I couldn't bear to see it thrown away).

 

 

Toby has been enjoying the garden and helping me tend our tiny patch – he's become very good at watering the plants though I do have to remind him to point the hose in the right direction and I have been sprayed a few times when his concentration has wavered.

 

 

 

Sadly there will be very few beans and peas to harvest this year – I've resolved to start them off inside next year and invest in a beer trap or similar non-chemical slug eradicator, pesky things have ruined my bean and pea plants. The squash are doing well again though, as are the courgettes, kale and broccoli.

 

 

 

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The new raspberries that I planted back in winter from bare root canes are yet to ripen but they're coming on and the herbs have gone a bit wild and overgrown with some going to seed. Which is fine by me, as the bees really like the flowering thyme, hyssop, coriander and marjoram.

 

 

 

 

 

The hydrangeas are doing well too – I really love those big frothy white balls of flowers.

Well, that's it from us for this week. It's a cool day with heavy rain here today so we're pottering inside and I'm hoping to get some time for knitting (I'm working on a shawl – Pebble Beach by Helen Stewart in beautiful delicate merino from Walk Collection.)

Hopefully summer will return next week!

 

 

 

 

Thanks so much for all of the sweet and kind comments about the new patterns. Since writing them up I've found myself a little feline-fixated and have been knitting cats in all kinds of yarns. With all of the work involved in pattern compiling I miss being mostly a maker, so it's nice to be spending more of my time actually knitting rather than writing about it :) 

 

 

These kittens are made from mohair yarns (one strand of Rowan Kidsilk haze and one of Rowan kid classic). Mohair is a lovely fibre to work with if you want fluffiness, especially if you brush the knitted surface afterwards. Because the fibres are long and strong (it is often referred to as the diamond fibre and has a higher tensile strength than steel of the same diameter) they can be teased out from the knitted surface using an ordinary hairbrush to give a very fuzzy finish.

Mohair often comes in a very thin yarn, so for the purpose of knitting toys is best used in combination with a strand of another yarn in DK weight. These are the yarns I've used previously: Drops Kid-silk, Austerman Kid silk, Lana Grossa silkhair, Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Debbie Bliss Angel (all are thin mohair/silk mix yarns, so do need to be knitted with another strand of DK weight yarn for any of my patterns).

 

 

Anyway, I'm having fun making a little collection of cats that I hope to have for sale later in the year. In fact I've decided to give myself the summer off in terms of working on patterns and instead will be spending my Toby-free time knitting lots of different animals. I have a big basket of unfinished ones (mostly heads) so I've already made a start and I'll keep you posted when they are ready.

It's lovely to see photos appearing in the pattern project pages for the cats. I always enjoy seeing what people are making from the patterns, so if you give any of them a go please consider uploading a picture on the ravelry cat Knit-along for us to admire (we also have Knit-alongs for the other patterns too).

In other news from here we are back to having 3 eggs a day as Hattie has come out of her broodiness. The chickens are all doing well and are still a source of daily amusement with their struttings, scratchings and chicken-ish antics. Talking of the chickens, I better go and give them their second breakfast – they eat a lot and have probably already finished their mash from 7am!

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PS: With all of the extra emails I've been receiving about the new patterns I've fallen a bit behind with my plans for responding to comments on the blog (clearly my best attempts were not quite up to scratch!). I won't now reply to each comment on the previous post about the patterns but I will attempt to reply to comments here from now on. Thanks in advance if you take the time to leave one x