Gardening - the great tidy up starts

Yesterday afternoon was glorious, so I decided that I needed to get onto the garden.  The chickens have had free reign of it for a while and they have been throwing stuff all over the place.  They are actually quite good at kicking the leaves about but it was high time for a tidy.  Their area is now restricted as I'm finding lots of new shoots with pecked ends, hubby blames the deer but I'm not so sure!

Here are some of the lovelies I uncovered, I know I show you these every year but I just love hellebore and once all the leaves from last year are clipped back they really come into their own.

I have lots of clumps of snowdrops too

The frost is taking it toll on the brickwork to the patio wall - pretty moss though

The hat for the Sailors' Society is finished and in the post.  Can't say I enjoyed the pattern that much and it seemed like an awful lot of stitches, perhaps sailors have big heads!

I'm currently knitting a hooded poncho for Jess, no photos to share right now, but its this pattern 

It will be a busy weekend - collecting the boys tomorrow for the weekend and Jessica will be one on Sunday, can you believe a year has gone so quickly.

Knitting - its Wednesday again

I am always surprised when I find its Wednesday. I get to say have a good weekend to the boss, he's off on Thursdays and I don't work Friday, so my week seems to fly by. Wednesday is WIP day so I had best show you what I'm up to.

This is another cardigan for Jess, thank you for the nice comments about her brown number. The pattern is Sugar Plum Cardi from Sublime and I'm using Sirdar Country Style which was languishing in my stash leftover from another project.  I decided to make the yoke striped to give it a pop of colour.  I also made this with long sleeves rather than short.

Have you spotted the finger plaster in the second photo?  I'll tell you about that!

I call the photo below "The knife always wins".  Yesterday morning I was up early, too early for handling hefty knives.  I was giving it a wipe with a cloth but had the blade towards rather than away from me, so as you can imagine it cut me. Its a very sharp knife, hubby likes to keep a good edge on our knives!!  I ran my finger under the tap, grabbed some paper towel and then tried to get open a sticking plaster, why do they make those things so difficult?  Finally managed to wrap one round the finger only to have the blood pour out top and bottom, called for hubby who dealt with it swiftly - observing that the kitchen looked like someone had been massacred, blood in the sink, over the granite worktop, on the window sill???!! - binding it very tightly the bleeding stopped.  I've not looked at it yet, had a bath last night with my hand in a plastic bag!  Managed to wash my hair one handed this morning.  My main worry was that I wouldn't be able to knit.  No problem, I just cast on a hat for Woolly Hat Week, with my finger stuck out! Bit uncomfortable but doable.

I removed the outer dressing, lets face it you can't really hide that white covering.  I will change the plaster later and see how bad it looks.  It hurts to bend as I cut diagonally across the top joint, guess it could have been worse could have taken the whole top off.....

Knitting - All the nice girls love a sailor

This week is Woolly Hat Week, a fundraiser for Sailors Society.  You can make a donation or raid your stash and knit a hat, there's even free patterns to help you along.  I decided that a hat was the perfect thing to start knitting when I go to my Tuesday group this afternoon, especially as my current WIP is getting a bit unwieldy.  I'm making a yoke cardigan, and am at the point where I need to bring it all together and start the yoke. I don't have any photos as yet but will share when I am done.

Talking of done, here is my latest project off the needles. This is for Jess who starts nursery on Wednesday when her mummy goes back to work.  Can you believe she is nearly 1 year old.

Pattern - Lucy from Patons Nursery Days, I think this must be the 5th time I've used this pattern, its a classic with two neckline options

Yarn - Sirdar Denim Tweed DK - an acrylic and cotton mix

I have been doing other knitting, but as yet, I cannot share with you.