Longer days

Oh how lovely to have sunshine again! Okay, only one precious day, but it was actually sun that warmed, sun in a stunning blue sky, sun that lifted the spirits and pulled us outside and back to what's become a favourite haunt in all weathers- walking to Coniston's Torver Jetty. On such a clear day, the views across the water and up the fells were amazing.
Please note how a certain young man ended up without a coat or hat- he just refuses extra layers whenever he can! However, he did run back and forth so much on the path- setting a challenge for his poor little pal who has only just found her walking legs- that he didn't seem to get too chilly. All this at five in the afternoon and we still made it back to the car and home in daylight. That promise is getting more real...

No idle hands...

It might seem like I've not been up to much recently but truth is, I just haven't been taking photos! In rain and shine (oh very welcome sunshine!) we've been out on some local walks, trying out a newly acquired, second-hand double buggy in preparation for baby number two. Baby number two, by the way, is very wriggly and was fine when scanned the other day- it's all getting a bit real! As far as craft is concerned I'm working away on the quilt, patiently hand stitching. My current rate is about halfway across in an evening, so long as I'm not feeling too tired. It's going to take a while yet- there are two and a half short side lines to stitch and four long sides- but it will be so exciting when I get to rip out all the tacking and snip off all the ends.

Boys and their toys

I've written before about the way that genetics seem to prove their own existence when it comes to the relationship between my little boy and all things mechanical. Despite being surrounded on a daily basis by a lot of cookery and craft and spending a lot of time out walking among woods and hills, he is fascinated by everything involving wheels, moving parts, buttons, switches and generally how things work. Okay, so his Daddy spends a lot of time on his bike, but actually he doesn't get to see that very often- yet he is delighted by the sight of cyclists and bicycles. Whether it's nature or nurture, he also has very good fine motor skills and is unphased by small buttons, different fastenings and unfamiliar lids- it doesn't take him long to work them out so I have to be pretty vigilant!
This weekend held a treat for my mini-engineer (and his bigger engineer Daddy) when we went to the farm to see a bridge being pulled down...diggers and lorries and cranes oh my! For more information on why it was happening, see my MIL's blog Town Mouse to Country House, but suffice to say that a certain small boy loved running up and down a dual carriageway closed to traffic, pointing at all the big machines, watching the sparks as steelwork was cut down and waving at all the men in high-vis jackets.

Working weekend

Okay, so 'working' weekend is a bit of an exaggeration, as there was an awful lot of home-baked goodies (mmm, brownies), chatting over cups of tea and scrummy meals while catching up with friends and free grandparent-provided childcare. However, I did manage to complete the first of the Flip-top mittens without any more swearing. It is by no means perfect (but blame the knitter not the pattern) but it does the job, and I love the zing of the turquoise buttons I bought.
Between Mum and I the quilt now has binding and I've begun the long, but relaxingly dull job of hand quilting. As the patterns are quite busy I'm just doing a sort of grid, following a detail in the way the blocks are arranged. You can begin to see how the finished result will be, and its intended recipient has already shown his approval, rolling around all over it!

Warming reds

Red has always been a favourite colour of mine, and at the moment its warmth is particularly welcome:

Fresh tomatoes roasted in the oil of a few sundried tomatoes, with some herbs and a little of this for added warmth:

Later this was blitzed with some cream cheese to have over pasta. Simple but good. Simple is not the word that applies to my Snapdragon flip-top mittens- aargh! I've had to redo countless rows to get the cuff pattern correct, but they are looking lovely so far and the Artesano Alpaca is sooo soft.

And of course it's all fuelled with redbush tea! This is my current favourite mug, as it holds just a little bit more than the others...

A whisper of an idea of a promise...

Not even the most ardently optimistic could possibly see signs of Spring just yet, but nevertheless, it did feel like on our walk today there was a little whisper of an idea of a promise that the dark and cold will recede. For a start, even though you'd be hard pressed to see any buds emerging, there was so much colour when we stopped to notice: rocks and tree trunks wrapped in acid green blankets of moss, the dark, bare bones of trees garlanded with opportunistic evergreens like ivy, baby beech trees (I think) with rust red leaves still dangling from their branches, asking to be shaken until they dance by small fists. As we drove through the gently sloped valley to and from Grizedale, through Oxen Park and Satterthwaite, yes we were spattered with rain but the light seemed...softer somehow and there were even a few of those eternal Spring optimists, the first lambs, let out in the fields here and there.
Yes, definitely reminders that the days are getting longer and that warmth will return, but for now warmth needs to come from a less celestial source and I can happily report that my feet are a whole lot warmer, as I finally finished the other sock...

A million woven in ends later...

Okay, I know it's not the best picture, but when I began this Fairisle tank my burgeoning bump was, well, not burgeoning at all. And now that I've finally finished it's going to take a bit of careful selection from my (limited) wardrobe to stop any pictures of me wearing it looking like the side of a lumpy, woolly house!
But I am very proud of this, my first big Fairisle project. I found juggling the different colours tricky, but not as bad as I thought. I managed the tension pretty well I think. I loved seeing the pattern emerge. I hated having a million ends to weave in at the end- when will I ever learn a proper technique for working them in as I go? I've taken quite a few breaks for some straight up and down, look at something else while you do it projects while this has been on the needles, but even so I don't think I'll be doing anything as complex or large scale for a while. I feel the need for quicker and/or less brain-taxing projects for a while.