Colours of May

May has been a lovely month so far, if you can ignore the fact that the past couple of days have been cool, to the point of needing to stoke up the woodstove.  Yesterday, Mother's Day, was awfully grey, with cold rain, snow and sleet which came pouring down at various times during the day.  Despite that, the flower beds have been vigourously proclaiming that it's spring.

The Forsythia bloomed this year.  This shrub was planted many years ago by the former owners of this house.  It was planted in a very protected spot, almost overly so.  In January, when we get a few days of reprieve from the cold weather, the buds often swell one or two will often bloom.  Then the cold weather clamps down again and kills off all the flower buds, leaving us with a barren Forsythia in the spring.  This year however, it is dressed in all it's golden glory.

I don't have enough tulips planted!   They make a lovely spring display and seem to be impervious to the chickens scratching about.  They get frost bitten in the spring, but they still grow and bloom when it's miserable out.   This fall, I will have to plant many more as there is a definite break in colour from when the bulbs bloom to the next plants are ready to flower.



Under the very, very old maple tree are a few Periwinkle plants.  Usually, there aren't many flowers but this year, they are blooming away.  They are so pretty and delicate.   For a plant which has been stuck in a mound around a  maple tree which would take 3 of me, hand in hand, to reach around the circumference, and neglected, it's doing very well this year!




Currants!  This year the red currants are full of flowers.   Hopefully I'll get to them before the birds do.   I much prefer black currants to the red ones.   When finally, after scouring every plant centre and nursery around, I found a single black currant bush amongst the soft fruit stock selection, I grabbed it.  I didn't have a place to put it, so I stuck it at the corner of the garden, as a holding spot, thinking I'd move it in a week or so.  However, that didn't happen and it's been growing happily away in it's little corner.   I will definitely put some sort of bird netting over it so that I can hoard it's meager harvest.

Signs of Spring

I had just over half a bobbin of singles when I finished spinning up the orange/yellow superwash yarn.  There was only 50 grams to start with, so I knew I'd have to either make a short skein or ply it with something different.  I had both white and black superwash rovings on hand.  White seemed bright and washed out the colours a bit, so I spun up a bunch of black and plied it.  I filled my bobbin just as the black ran out.  I still need to spin up a bit more black to finish off the last of the orange bobbin.   This skein is 390 yards. 

We were doing a bit of cleanup outside the house when I yelled to my hubby to stop pulling down the overgrown vines.  These two little babes were sitting on the folded back awning.  They've not yet fledged, but the one sitting up brave and strong looks almost like it's ready to go.  They're Mourning Doves.   The silly birds seem to always build nests in the awning or sometimes even more inappropriate places.  Last year they were nesting near a leaky eavestrough and the year before on an open, unprotected ledge!

 It's amazing what a couple of mild, sunny days will do to the garden.  These pretty hyacinths literally popped overnight.  Once day they were little stubs in the ground and the next day they were tall buds.  It took 2 more days to be in full bloom.  I love walking by when the sun hits them and the perfume fills the air!   It's a lovely scent.  These purple blooms are forced bloom transplants from previous years.  It took them two years to develop normally, but they're beautiful.  The pink and lavender blooms were planted from a packet of department store bulbs.

Need some cheerful brightness?

 I really didn't feel like redoing the pink pirate sock right now.  It took quite a while and I was disappointed enough with my end product to want something quick and easy.  I started this rainbow coloured sock 2 days ago and I'm already at the heel flap.  It's just a plain 2/2 rib, so fast and easy.   I dyed the yarn last year and it's aged enough that I can finally use it.

I started spinning some of the fibre I dyed last week.  It's a bright blend of yellow and oranges.  It's superwash merino, so a tad slippery, but fairly easy to spin since it doesn't compact in the dyeing process.  It's a fairly fast spin because it's drafting so smoothly.  That easy drafting also makes it very enjoyable to spin.  No struggling with this one!

Yesterday it was sunny and warmish.  I hung out my laundry and when I looked around the yarn, I noticed that this clump of mini-daffodils was blooming.  It just happened overnight, since they weren't there the day before.   How bright and sunny they are!   The larger daffodils will be a few more days before they start to bloom.  I do enjoy these really early blooms, even though they are small and delicate. They do make a statement when planted en masse!

Taking the Good with the Rediculously Oversized!

I finished sock number one.  (well, except for grafting the toe).  It took me 3 tries to get the skull and crossbones motif error free.  I know that the sock pattern is only 4 stitches larger than I normally make for myself, so I'd hoped that it would compensate for the possible draw-in and lack of stretchiness of the stranded colourwork.  I also used  2.75 mm needles, which is also a size that I've been waffling about as I've had great results with size. 2.25 mm.  But often it's suggested that you do colourwork with a size larger than you usually use for stretch compensation.   I tried it on yesterday.  The sock is massive.  It would fit someone with a leg and a foot which is either much wider or longer (or both) than mine.  It kind of looks like it was made for a Sasquatch!  I wondered about the size early on, but just kept knitting, knowing that my math should have made it all fit!  Right....  I really like the look of this sock, fun, bright and very pink.   However it will be destined for the frog pond because it's useless to me the way it is right now.  I can't even think of anyone with feet that size who I might want to give a special gift!


Yesterday was a guild Dye Day.  One of our members sets up an acid dye station, tables draped with plastic and all the necessary supplies needed.  We show up, pay a nominal fee for the dyes and play.  Most people brought silk warps to play with, but I brought a skein of sock yarn and some superwash roving.  The dyes need to be steamed and while it could be done there, I have enough equipment to do it at home.   I steamed the packets last night and let them cool overnight.  This morning, I opened up the packets, rinsed them out and have spread them out to dry.  All the dye set perfectly.    There are several shades of the basic primary dyes so we get to mix and experiment to find the colours we want.   Last time my sock yarn was a bit darker than I wanted.   This time I went for bright!

The sock yarn has the pink and blue in 5 yard repeats, with 2 yards of purple in between each colour.  Both th e purple yarn and turquoisy green in the roving came out better steamed than they did with the dye colour.   I consider this a very successful dye experiment.

Mother Nature has not forsaken us

 I've no idea what these tiny but pretty, very blue flowers are.  Some years there have been many of them popping up in one patch in the garden.  This year there doesn't seem to be as many.  There is only this one in bloom, the rest are either still in bud or haven't put out any flower stems yet at all.  There are less than half of the little leaf sets than in other years.  They are a lovely blue though, which I don't see very often in flowers.

 Yesterday I found these by accident, under a shrub near the front door.   They are such a pretty shade of purple.  There are only the three little blooms and slightly misshaped at that, but they were such a wonderful sight.







These are growing where there weren't crocuses before.  However then I remembered that I'd planted some last fall, in that particular flower bed.   The beds were littered with leaves and pine needles from the winter, but the heavy rains, the ice storm and lots of winds have made it worse. Once they dry out it will take a bit of raking to clean them up.

These ones are where I hadn't expected them, in a little patch that the chooks like to scratch and peck at.   What a glorious burst of sunshine colours which on once again, another grey day, makes the heart sing.  While it has been a slow and dreary progression to spring, it seems to be coming, whether the winter wants to give up or not.  Thank goodness for that!  While the crocuses that were established have disappeared, it's wonderful that they are growing elsewhere in the garden.   I shall have to plant more this fall and forget about them too, as the surprise of finding them is lovely.

Finishing things up

I used up the last of the indigo vat by tossing in some silk hankies and a bit of leftover North Country Cheviot roving.  It's really a bit too coarse for my liking as a spinning fibre, but there are times when it's useful to have.    The blues are gorgeous though.

 The 2 long scarves are off the loom.  I still need to twist the fringes and wet finish them before I call them done.    I left the warp on the loom and tied it in front of the reed in case I want to do the white scarves next, so I can just tie them on.  If I decide to put on the tea towels, it will only take a few seconds to clear the old warp off.

The Louet Northern Lights is plied and skeined.  It's a lovely, subtle colour, with the pinks, blues and greens still showing through.  I was a bit worried that they'd blend into a grey mass, but it's very pretty.  There are 249 yards so enough for something useful.  It might have to age a bit before it tells me what it wants to be.

A couple of quick of projects

 I picked up this packet of Louet Northern Lights dyed fibre on a whim.  It's thin, like pencil roving and dyed with short runs of colour of varying lengths, from about an inch to 4 or 5 inches, with what seems to be a regular repeat to the patterning.    The colourway is called Cactus Flower and it's a a pretty blend of fuschia, dark blue and green.  It is easy to spin and the colours are soft and lovely.   They blend nicely when drafting but not totally, so the colours are still visible. I'm really happy with this, considering it was a purchase way out on a limb for me.   I can no longer find this colourway listed anywhere, so I've cancelled my notion of needing another packet of this.

The idea of pink socks drew me in.  Then I realized that they might need a bit of contrast to perk them up and make them interesting.  I noticed a colourwork mistake on the photo so I might have to do a bit of ripping and re-knitting.   They are a fun project, both to knit and to look at.  I love the idea of bright pink pirate socks hiding under my jeans! 

On a day like today, when the skies are dark and the rain is pouring down, a project like these socks makes me happy.