Knitting a shawl

I wanted a project that would just be interesting knitting with no fitting issues to deal with. So I decided to make the Suncrest Shawl by Tanis.

I has one ball of silk/wool sock yarn, hand-dyed by a local artisan and it was lovely to work with. It was just too pricey to knit socks with it, so a shawl was just the right project for this yarn.

This image does not do justice to the colour; it is much more variegated and a prettier shade of green than this image shows. I had great difficulty keeping the counting straight and there are many errors. After unpicking long rows a couple of times, I thought that I would just get to the end of the row and either add or decrease stitches to get the right number at the end. It seemed to work. The lace pattern was not at all visible until I completely soaked it and spread it out to block. Now I can see the pattern and it is lovely. This will be a gift for my daughter Elena, as I am not a shawl person. However, I do enjoy knitting them and am looking at the Great British Baking Shawl as a future project. I particularly like knitting with double weight yarn, rather than worsted weight. It is just much more comfortable and it also weighs less as you knit.

Garden Overview late July

The gingko bed, full of perennials, and behind it is the tomato bed

What I call the "weigela bed", now with Annabelle hydrangea, bee balm, and soon-to-pop balloon flowers

Another shot of the "weigela bed" including the Strawberry Sunday hydrangea in the foreground

Two dahlia blossoms and red hollyhocks

Red echinacea, white phlox, fluffy pink filipendula and pale yellow hollyhocks

Another shot of the weigela bed with the coral geranium in front

The tomato bed, in which the plants are so stunted, I don't know why. Perhaps it was the early heat that was followed by cold that stunted their growth. They are producing fruit, but there are not many branches

A shot of the gingko bed, with Tekla's white butt on the left

A novelty annual grown from seed: amaranth, also known as "love lies bleeding"

A favourite of mine: purple coneflower in a bed with shasta daisies and black eye susans about to bloom

A crab apple tree with jackmanii clematis beginning to bloom as it climbs up the trunk

A shot of the sidewalk bed in front: perennial geranium blooming its heart out, two daylilies, alyssum, and bobo hydrangea which survived snowbanks and falling trees this winter

A gorgeous combination of colours in petunias grown from seed

What's blooming

A bouquet of blossoms from the garden. Including the first dahlia to bloom, shasta daisies, pink yarrow, monarda (bee balm), pink salvia, goose-neck loose strife. The Queen Anne's lace at the top was picked from the roadside. Everything else has come from the garden. Can't wait to see the rest of the dahlias come into bloom. This dahlia is a mix of colours; pale yellow at the top with pink in the centre and golden coral at the bottom. Interesting.

And another addition, on the right is amaranth, a flower I have been waiting for. It looks like fuchsia dread locks. It is also known as love-lies-bleeding. And on the left is Japanese bottle brush, the only flower here that has a smell.

Just after mowing

I love the garden just after it is mown. The flower beds stand out much clearer and I can see all the baby shrubs that are dotted around the yard whereas before they are hidden by the grass growing up around them. Even my neighbour offered to trim the raspberry bushes in the yard next door so that my flowers would show up more; how lovely is that?

Long view towards the weigela bed and taking in the gingko bed; poppies in full bloom now

View of the side front garden; almost complete shade here because of the lovely birch, maple and oak trees

View of the end of the front garden with four hydrangea shrubs slowly growing to maturity

The bobo bed, just enlarged to take in a new peony as of yesterday

Garden update - mid June

Bouquet with fragrant white peony in centre stage

The hosta garden

Honeysuckle climbing over the fence

Poppies coming into bloom

Close up of the poppies

St Francis presiding over the weigela bed

Purple veronica in the gingko bed

Nemophila in the cut flower bed; these were winter sown

Firelight hydrangea full of blossoms about to pop

Pink Flower Time

The driveway planter with pink and purple wave petunias, this will be a mass of flowers in a short time

A pink lily picked up at Home Hardware just a few days ago, three blooms have opened, five more to come

A gorgeous two-toned iris in the driveway bed

A peony in its third year with a mass of blooms

The dappled willow that was planted three years ago is thriving despite the dry weather

Garden Update - it's columbine season

Every year I have a large planter of pansies on the front porch, this year's planter is a real mix of colours

The front bed with snap dragons and stock, this needs watering almost every day

The prettiest flowers are often the surprise ones, this is a rogue johnny-jump-up transplanted from the front lawn into a flower bed

A gorgeous Boy Blue columbine in its second year in the front bed

Aliums in the bed along the side of the house, in the background is creeping phlox both purple and pink

Another rogue violet, this one is mainly pink, not the usual purple and yellow type

Another columbine in the front bed, this one is dark purple

And another columbine in the side shade bed of the front yard, deep blue this one