... why do you always seem so much longer than July?!... How has your January been?... For my part, I've had a definite spell of yucky blue days during which I sought comfort in my family, my crafts and my garden at the lake...
As to the crafty bit, I did manage to finally finish the crocheted daisy throw above over the holidays (as you can imagine, a bit of a mad finishing endeavour involving about a zillion ends which needed weaving in!...) and sew up a patchwork or two more recently (one of which you can sneak a peek of above and which I will post more about soon...). I've also made time to peruse my many craft books, revisiting ideas I previously bookmarked in some of the books, like this lovely crochet book which I highly recommend,...
... and which includes this yummy patchwork project that has been on my mind for a while now...
... because, well, I'm a sucker for all things "patchwork" and, also, it encourages the use of scrap yarn which really gets me all excited; as you may have noticed by now, the use of scraps, whether yarn or fabric, in any project thrills me to bits, as combining colours, textures and patterns of woolly or cloth-y odds and ends has to be one of my absolute favourite pastimes... The wider the assortment of mish-mash I can choose from in a project, the more fun I have, and the more unexpected the results can be; I find, often enough, that the actual playing around with scraps leads to much more delicious combinations than I envisaged prior to starting, often to something quite different than the original idea... And, I have to confess, I'm amazed by how often this does happen...
So, inspired by the look of the sweet little patchwork project in the book and adapting its stitch pattern to make larger squares (about 20 cm or 8 inches), I dug into my stash of fingering weight yarn and started creating the look one square at a time... As I think this finished throw will end up at the lake, I drew my colour inspiration from one of my favourite paintings that I bought from a local artist that hangs in the living room there and depicts, I think, beautifully our surrounding landscape,...
... as well as these views from our property towards the lake and mountains...
... which delight me, oh so much, as Red Head Fountain Grass is a new addition to my garden as of last spring, showing itself, I think, to be way more impactful in the winter than in the summer...
Including grasses in my lake garden to try to create a wilder more natural-looking garden is something I've been thinking about for a while now; along with the fountain grass which I plunked in different spots in my garden, I have also seeded my borders in the autumn with a few other annual and perennial grasses which I will continue doing into the spring... I'm hoping for the look of a grassy web through which all sorts of pretty flowers will grow -- we'll see how that all works out in the next few months, something I'm definitely excited about,...
... as well as these new stony steps down the side of my hilly flower garden which I started working on this winter,...
... a total labour of love as it involves hunting down stones from our nearby surroundings, literally pushing them up the hill, finding the right rock for the right spot, all very painstakingly slow, but super rewarding as I make my way up the hill, one step at a time...
I do hope your January has been peaceful, restorative and not too blue... Thanks so much for popping by, and please pop by again soon as I have a bunch of new rosehippy goodies to share with you in the upcoming month... And, of course, please don't forget to check out Rose Hip on Instagram...
