Some days don’t begin quite the way you’d want them to. I’d been looking at the netting on the currant bushes yesterday and thinking that the wind / local cats had dislodged some of it and I needed to sort it out.
Then this morning, what do I see? A dark brown bird had got inside and was struggling to work out how to leave. Cue me dashing down the garden in my nightie to help it out. It was a thrush and I’d not seen one for a while. Once it located a gap in the netting, it claimed its independence and was back up on the rooftops pretty quickly! From the kitchen I’d thought it might be a female blackbird, but you can’t mistake that mottled feathered breast up close!
While I was down the garden I decided to try to re-secure the netting to avoid a recurrence and I thought I’d check out the progress of the veg. I found a courgette just about ready to pick (so I did). Large teaspoon for scale.
But the broad beans look rather pathetic and more worryingly were covered in light grey feathers… I wondered if the sparrow hawk had been back, but if it had been I probably wouldn’t then have found most of the poor wood pigeon at the bottom of the path. I’ve tidied it up now, but it was not the most pleasant start to the day – for me, the thrush or the pigeon!
I’m quite impressed that after all that, I *still* managed to write my newsletter and get it sent before my 9.30am haircut.
On a more exciting note, I got my subscriber and contributor copies of The Knitter through the post yesterday – and my design is on the cover!
Meet Lichfield – it’s the spotlight pull-out so there’s no page number. Issue 191 will be in the shops on Thursday 6th July, or if you’re a subscriber too you may already have it!
Why Lichfield? Well, the border design reflects the stone niches carved on the front of Lichfield Cathedral.
It hardly seems possibly that only three days ago (on Saturday) I was recording a video on how to pick up stitches at the very edge of garter stitch, including picking up front and back in the same stitch. Any yet now I only have 16 rows left to do of the 50 rows in the border of my Marianne Half Hap Shawl!
At this rate I will have finished it before the end of the Summer KAL, which runs until the end of July. But that’s ok – there’s another of my designs that I want to knit a new sample for too so I can start that 😉.
Remember, if you are taking part in the Summer Knit-along by knitting any of my designs, you can share your progress on social media with the hashtag #KathAndrewsSummerKAL and/or sign up to come to the mid-KAL Knit and Knatter on Zoom next week. (Weds 12th July 7.30-9pm BST). Tickets are free (although you do have the option to pay £3 if you really want to.
One of the things I’m really trying to do this month is to not ‘waste’ time. I don’t mean I’m not going to relax or do things like read, or even sit and ponder the nature of the universe. What I’m trying to move away from is losing an hour or so scrolling random social media posts or playing online games – it’s quite shocking on occasion to look up at the clock and find it’s at least an hour later than you thought it was!
So, instead, my July plan is to:
1. Finish my Velvet Sixpence Polwarth fibre spinning – I’m really enjoying it and it’s coming along well.
2. Finish reading Melmoth by Sarah Perry. I started this book a while ago and it’s taken me ages to get halfway through it- so this month I will finish it!
3. Complete another 2 strips of my Mystical Lanterns crocheted blanket. I joined the first two strips together yesterday and I really like it so far.
4. Get back to my embroidery of Mum which has been sadly neglected. I’m going to take a slightly different approach and aim to complete two 10 x 10 squares of the chart rather than work on a single colour. I did this for the partial squares down the right hand side and it was really motivational to see a small area completed rather than little bits all over that don’t look as though much has been achieved.
I’m also intending to re-oil the bamboo kitchen worktops and keep a note of how far I walk each day with the aim of regularly walking further by the end of the month.
Those are my non-work-based plans! I’m trying to use SMART targets (that used to make me roll my eyes when I was in the classroom) as I’ve figured out that if I have a plan that isn’t ‘specific’, ‘measurable’, ‘achievable’, ‘relevant’ and ‘time-based’ – it’s far less likely to happen!
We’re also working away in the background to bring Yarn Gathering to you again this September – I’ll be able to tell you more about that in the next couple of weeks (yay!).
Do you have any plans for July?
Take care one and all, hold each other close and do stuff that makes you happy. K x
1. Mystical Lanterns looks awesome!
2. Why is it so easy to lose time by futzing even when you have other, more fun things you could be doing instead??
(And by ‘you’, I mean ‘I’)