Clematis

one last post for today to get some colour into that grey, wet and cold December day.

Kitchen curtain

Finally a progress picture of the curtain that will go into the bottom part of the kitchen window. About half done. The pattern is a modified one from http://www.mytnc.de/crochet/index.html

Fall socks

Some progress here, second one is nearly done by now.

Time to continue

To restart with running as I fell off the wagon over the summer I ran for 21 minutes nonstop tonight, which came out as 3.36 km. Along the lit streets in our quarter as it was already dark. Without a dog to be able to concentrate on myself and listen into my body. Felt nice.

Fall socks

I really love this yarn looks knit up. Knitting with it is ok, it splits a bit so I have to be very carful to get the whole strand, but it is ok for TV-knitting.

BUT when I was at this point after the heel I didn't like the look of that sudden colour change after knitting in the round again. So I frogged. I really love the yarn for its gradual colour changes so no way of leaving it as it was. Getting picky or what?

Triskell curtain

view from the inside

More fall

not so sunny this time...

3 roses

In our front garden we have planted three different roses and each is special.

Fall

starts today with the autumn equinox and so I am starting to knit some fall socks for me in the warmest colours of the fall leaves.

Trees over here are still green, but you can definitely tell the green gets more yellowish from day to day.

Some trees aleady show fall colours, like the "vinegar tree" sitting in a pot in our garden:

Triskell curtain

This is the curtain I crocheted with Britanny in my mind. It is made in the style they do it there traditionally with bands of motifs and crochet chains inbetween. I made a band with triskells and one with the "hermine", two symbols common in Britanny. I like how it came out!

Tired?

Best thing to do on a cool and rainy day in July? There's only one answer:

Progress on the socks

This is how far I got on the socks for my Sweetheart. Seems like I am having a green period...

Harvest

This is what happened on Monday and Tuesday this week. The winter wheat is gone... It is seeded in fall and when we moved in in December it was little plants already soaking in all winter's rain water (and that of that one inch of snow we had for a few hours...) and growing on warm sunny days.

Progress on Laminaria

On Laminaria I am on pattern repeat three of the blossom chart. Lovin every stitch of it! This yarn is gorgeous!

Progress on Aberlady

I am on the first pattern repeat and having a lot of fun knitting this sweater! Slow progress but back and front done at once- in the round, 320 stitches... 2 mm needles.

Malabrigo yarn and Laminaria shawl

I ordered yarn online for the first time. Always hesitated because I thought I had to feel the yarn first. But then I couldn’t get any lace yarn locally, so I searched online and finally ordered malabrigo lace yarn. For the Laminaria shawl in a green called lettuce and then I couldn’t help but also get some i a colour called cognac.









This yarn is so incredably soft, I could touch it all the time… Even Sweetheart often touches my WIP just to say “ this is SO soft”.
and here it is: the beginning of the Laminaria shawl. Love to knit it so far.


click on this one to enlarge it and see it in all it's beauty - you can tell I am in love with this yarn and project...

Aberlady sweater

Finally I decided to use Regia silk sock yarn for this one. Soft, shiny, thin enough, not too expensive and I even found a colour I really like, a warm dark green.
320 stitches to cast on was not fun, but now I am on round three and the fun starts!
Pattern is from the book "The Celtic collection" from Alice Staremore.

Back again

With new works in progress… more later.
Thank you for your lovely comments on my Cromarty sweater. I really love it, loved to knit it though it took me so long but am very glad that I finally got to the end. I haven’t gotten around to take pictures of me wearing it and posting further details about it.

WIP, FO and decisions

Cromarty is done and blocked. I LOVE it! Pictures with me wearing it to follow!

And this is the curtain in progress, both bands are done, I am just crocheting the loops to hang it up.

And then there is the decision made what yarn I will use for the Aberlady sweater from The Celtic Collection: after swatching with about 4 more yarns I am voting for Regia Silk in a warm green:

I think I haven't upoaded teh picture and deleted it already from the memory card, argh!

Sock in progress

Made for Sweetheart in Regia African Color.

My Kiri shawl

Had this on my old blog yet but I am wearing it a lot right now and I do love it so much! It is made from sock yarn and so not too "girly" for me! Here is the pattern. Also available in French and German now.

Swatch for crochet curtain

It's going to have two parts connected with threads. First part is done, the second halfway.

EDIT: There will be two bands – one with triskelions, one with l’hermine (stout), both symbols of Britanny. 4 of them in a row. Then I will connect them to each other with probabely chain stitches. So one band will be at the top of the window, the other at the bottom, the “threads” inbetween to let more light inside. I got my idea from traditional curtains from Britanny, some are here and from Eibhlin’s curtain that can be seen here! Coucou Eibhlin, ca fait déjà presque une année qu’on c’est rencontrée, uncroyable que le temps passe!!! Oh and you see Cromarty (still to be blocked under the swatch).

The gang

I especially love Josy's coat colour in the warm evening sunlight!

EDIT to answer Leahs questions: I have no idea where the girls were looking, Josy seems to see something not too interesting in the distance, Flavie seems to have spied a bird not too far away and Dingo – daydreaming! Click on the picture to get it bigger.

In general all of them are agility dogs. I started with Dingo in 1997, when agility wasn’t very popular in our region (we had to drive for at least two hours for the nearest competition in the beginning). I found a dog club that was about to start with agility training soon. Was involved in building up the agility group and found myself being a trainer soon after… Dingo was fast but not waiting for my (always late, I know it was my fault never his!!!) directions and I never got him to do the a-frame properly into the contact, and when he nearly killed himself one day in a competition because he flew right over the top of the a-frame and hit into the ground on his breast bone I stopped competing. Had a nice time in practice after that but stopped years ago because I had other focuses and he got old enough to retire and he never got slow, he always gives 200 %, so I have to be the wise one and just stop it! We have fun now with other things that keep him going without braking his bones but still tiring him mentally. There should be some action pic of him on my old blog – see here. There are more dog pitcures over there, click on the dog category at the left and it will bring you there.

When we got Josy, Sweetheart soon started working with her, and they did great. She isn’t as crazy as Dingo is but they worked out to be a great team, she wasn’t as fast as the Border Collies are but a lot tighter in the corners and jumping higher and so often faster in the end and “clean”! One year they qualified for the national championship and did well there but you could clearly see that Josy didn’t like to be in that building, it was a common indoor sports arena, very narrow, very loud, carpet, and she only could go there for practice once before the competiton.*
Then Josy ruptured her cruciate ligament in her left knee which she had surgery on and is doing great but there is some arthrosis left and we chose to stop her agility career. There are also some post surgery pics.
And by the way, Dingo is getting 12 next month, Josy is at least as old as him, maybe even a year older. They are fit and healthy and there are lots of younger dogs that act older but we humans have to be the reasonable ones here!

Flavie will be an agility dog with my Sweetheart (who also is a trainer, still active unlike me) once we are less occupied with house and garden building! She already has started training and seems to have fun and is fast!

*Usually agility is done on lawn, some clubs practice in riding halls with dirt or sand as ground during winter season and some few competitions in the summer are in sand.
In Germany agility is run in three groups based on sizes, and 4 levels in each size.

What I forgot to mention in my posts last Sunday over all that excitement about the internet connection was that I had seen the first swallows of the year on that day! They are back and I do hope they find enough insects yet!
This spring weather really is driving me crazy this year. After nice and warm periods where everyone thinks “that’s it” it gets cold again and that icy wind from northern directions is back again… Yesterday evening it really hit me in the face as I somehow wasn’t prepared to it. On my walk in the afternoon the sun was shining, some clouds around, a cool breeze that made me close my coat when walking against it but ripping open my coat when it came from behind as the sun is quite strong yet.
The forecast is talking about 20°C for the weekend – that will throw me off my feet. Too warm too fast… But we’ll see! I don’t complain about the weather – as there is only bad clothing, never bad weather!!!

Yarn

The yarn I bought lately.

Morning sky

This one I took quite a few weeks ago, even before spring equinox but I love it so much that I have wanted to post it all the time and with the good time I am just having on the internet here it is:

Sunday morning

Today was a great morning and I was out with the dogs and the camera. Took a few nice pictures and try to upload them now.

Getting here already makes me think positiv for the posting of the pics...

I've been wanting to post photos of my daily walks for quite some time but there were always some strange difficulties I had with the internet connection. Now it seems to be ok! Good day, as I said!

I am listening to the playlist on Leanne's blog at http://somersetseasons.blogspot.com/ (who has also taken us with her on her walk around her beautiful surroundings in Somerset, UK this week). I love it and will try to get some new cds... Listened to Alan Stivell http://www.alan-stivell.com/ earlier today and am in a very good mood. I MUST listen more to my lovely cds than just the radio!!!

We had lots of rain during the last few days and this morning finally the sun was out and spring couldn' t hide away. The different shades of green are so amazing!

About ten minutes from our house there are several little lakes, and my usual daily walk takes me there.

There is a meadow along it where the dogs play. The view from

about the middle to one side (Note Josy's back end...):

And to the other side:

Greens...

More spring

These are taken on a little orchard just across the nearest field to our house. Will know later in the year what trees they are...

Kerbihan

Kerbihan, as we named our house, meaning "Little home" in Brezhoneg, the old language (with celtic roots) of Britanny. This is the view from craft room over the field to that orchard. It is nothing big, just a strip of meadow with a row of different fruit trees on it. Like cherries, pears, apples - more about those later in the year :-) , and definitely walnuts.

The man who listens to horses

(Click on the title to see his website)
Will go to see a demonstration of Monty Roberts at the end of the month. Having read his books years ago his way of connecting to horses has fascinated me ever since. Communicate with the horses in their native language (body-language), not in human language (blahblahblah and body signals you are not aware of and that are different from what you actually want to tell them). I’ve learned to work with dogs in a similar way.
Seeing him a few times on TV made me really want to see him in reality and feel the “magic” first hand. Now is the time.

Garou

(Click on the title to see his website)
Just found out that Garou’s new album is going to be in English and released in May. Saw him twice already on stage and that was so great, lots of energy and intensity running from him to his fans and back! He ROCKS! But I have that hope that maybe with an English cd he will also be promoted in Germany and I can hear his songs on the radio and maybe see him on TV – in addition to listening to his cds. We can’t watch any French TV channels right now what we could before we’ve moved and this is the only thing I am really missing. Will get a satellite thing but this is just not priority 1. Can still listen to web-radio IF the internet connection is ok.

These days,

when I drive to work I can see the effort the sun is making:
Four weeks ago I had to start working an hour later than usual. Same this week. Now I remarked that the sun peeks just over the mountains in the east when I cross the river on the autobahn-bridge at 7 am. Very beautiful. Now and then. ??? We have changed to “summertime” (light saving time) last Sunday so 7 am now means 8 am for the sun. And the four weeks means sunrise is 1 hour earlier. And with this time shift this means sunset is 2 hours later in the evening. Is ok right now for me but in summer it doesn’t really help me as I have to go to bed at a decent hour to get up at 4:20 am to be at least somewhat refreshed. And I don’t really mind if it is still light half or one or two hours after I sleep…

Run

Did another nearly 5k training run, same as last time and was faster! Kneecaps hurt again on that concrete passage though all the other lanes were dried out and hard – but still soil not concrete. Will have to watch that. Had Dingo with me this time who seemed to enjoy to get out with me alone but would have preferred an off leash walk to do his own things, like eating “I really don’t want to know what it was” now and then)…

March 08

14,95 km run
Not as much as I had wanted to but there was that period of strong cold wind which I just could not stand. But I went for many many dog walks (and we walk fast!) lasting over an hour.
I started tracking the kilometers I am running on 08/03/03, when I did that first 5k. The training (from zero) for this run started on 08/01/17 but no records from then…

And what about the knitting?

There is some knitting related news, though.
Finished objects as well as new yarn. So without pics not worth mentioning? In short; the longtime WIP and UFO Cromarty is done! Waits to be wetted and blocked. It is short and wide but I LOVE it already!
Started a new pair of socks for Sweetheart in greens.
Started two swatches for Aberlady.
Did a swatch for a crochet curtain.
Wanted to get some different yarn for the curtain and see if I could find something nice for Aberlady and perhaps Laminaria, so I went into town last Saturday. Got the cotton crochet yarn I wanted. Didn’t see anything I liked for Aberlady or the shawl.
Found out that one of the downtown LYS had closed four days before (but it was from a “chain” so there is still one in the neighbour town and I even don’t think there were great bargains as they just transfer the yarn that is left to another shop).
Got some nice yarns at low prices and I already know what I want to make with everything. When I was grocery shopping that night I even bought more yarn in the supermarket at a great price.
Now got to find out what is wrong with uploading the pictures!!!

The Moon

Not actual but from just before the last new moon. But I like it and think it is worth posting!

Finally the wind has stopped

And it even didn’t rain or snow this afternoon so after a dog-walk with all of the dogs and doing some chores at home I took Flavie on a run. The round I did last time and I felt good. Needed about the same time. Flavie even managed to make it fun with little chasing games while she was in her gotta ruuuuuun mood. So I could put in some little sprints. She is so smart, running where she wants, sniffing here and there, when she is allowed but staying close when told to do so and even not pulling when on leash. We managed to pass a pheasant and too geese that weren’t too far away off leash, she didn’t take notice of two hares sitting and moving far in the field and ran very nicely on leash passing some rabbits. Very cool little girl. And except for a short time after those chasing games she breathed with her mouth closed. Was anyone afraid this running would be too much for her? Sweetheart asked if she has to gallop? No way, she is in a very comfortable trot.

Sewing

Something else got accomplished over the weekend: I cut and seamed the curtains for the bedroom windows. Am very pleased with my work, though it seemed to take me ages – not the actual sewing but the preparations. I’ve never been much of a sewing girl, have a machine but that’s it… Have used it once or twice, for not more than straight seams on ordinary cotton fabric and this must have been nearly 10 years ago…
Want to use it more from now on, try to knit clothing and have that dream of a quilted bedspread (with our house’s name in the middle)…

Sock repair

Finally finished repairing some old socks. They were one of the first pairs of socks I knit for Sweetheart years ago. They are still good but the cast on edge had wholes. So I picked up stitches below the ribbing, cut off the ribbing and reknit it, sewn bind off. Done with sock #2. No problem that the sock was knit cuff down first, it just looks perfect.
Also done with reknitting cuff of first sock of another pair, one of his favorite ones, tiger-like self patterning yarn in white-blue-brown, I think that one met the teeth of one very special doggie.

more running

I ran again about 5 km through the fields, with Dingo on and off leash and he behaved very well. I felt really good, happy that the wind was over. Walked with the girls after that for 25 minutes after having changed into my warm coat. I think that was better than falling on the couch or standing in the kitchen preparing dinner. Though my legs felt a bit heavy the morning after. Now I just need to get into the routine of running 3 or 4 times a week! With the km-counter as a motivator...???

Knitty

The new Knitty is out with more patterns I would love to knit! Like Laminaria shawl (passing slowly with that “under-water-view boat” through those Kelp forests in the Mer d’Iroise –between the Britanny coast and the islands Molene and Ouessant, just where the border between the Atlantic and the Channel is - was SO fascinating) or the two sweaters called Yosemite and Jaden or the Salto socks (with some of my new yarn?).
I think I could knit Laminaria with sock yarn as I did my Kiri, and thinking about that made me remember that in our local supermarket they have reduced the prices for some of their sock yarn this week. Checked for some nice greens that remind me of the Laminaria, but nothing at all. Drove to my new LYS today – have wanted to do this all the time since I found out about it, now I had a reason. Nothing. Great yarns, sure. But no kelpish sock yarn, no lace weight either. When I asked the owner she showed me some fine cotton crochet yarn… I left with three balls of nice sock yarn (one of which was immediately picked by Sweetheart). Then there is another LYS right in the city where I was once, looking a bit dark and chaotic but owned by a very friendly old lady – want to check tomorrow or Saturday. And I know I won’t come out of the shop with empty hands...

Chrochet curtains in my mind

More projects in my head – want to make some curtains inspired by the traditional ones they have on the islands in Britanny. For the glass door. For the house door. For the kitchen maybe a small one. For the guest toilet to complete the Britanny decorations.

Ladder ribbon yarn

Not that I haven’t done anything: the knitted necklace is finished as well as the scarf made from the same yarn. Knitting with this yarn was ok though I didn’t like the feeling of it very much. I prefer softer yarns.
The necklace was knit flat then seemed up along the long side and the ends glued into the closure. The scarf was knit in the round with two circulars, in the second row working a yarn over after each stitch and in the row before the last every other stitch (that came from those yarn overs) was dropped. Bind of and PULL.

New goals

I plan on running a real official run in our city on June 21. They have 7.2 k or 9.6 k. Will move on in training and then see where to start. Looking for a 5 k before.
And I have set a long-time goal: 42 with 42. Meaning running a marathon (42.195 kms) when I am 42. This will be in 3 years. Will see how my body will work with me once I run longer distances, but I really have it as a goal not just a dream.
I feel different since I made this goal! Lighter somehow, hard to describe!

And I found out about programs online like mapmyrun or jogmap. They work with the google earth maps and you can set up your runs there. Fill in the times for every run etc. Lots of things to find out yet… Like having a counter on the blog with your run kms. I will check out how to do it. Need this! But only 5 so far – due to the wind in which I don’t want to run. Enough that I have to pull the dogs walk with the dogs through it at least 3 times a day.

Wind and rain

Ok it is not as bad as it has been in other regions during the last few days but this wind can be bothering. Really great when it blows the cold rain directly in your face. We had one bad storm over here end of February, where several roofs and satellite antennas on the neighboring houses were damaged but we were lucky.
But it is enough now! It makes me feel so - unwell. And the forecast talked about 18 °C for Saturday. That’s just too much for me right now…

5k

I did it: last night I ran my very first five kilometers non stop. (exept for one short short stop as I had to talk to an old lady passing by and encouraging me :-) )
Felt really good, had Flavie with me who seemed to enjoy it and let her little legs fly. Took us about 35 minutes which I think is not too bad considering how little I ran lately.
Now that I know that I can do it I can start varying speed and then go up in time/distance. But I think I will continue running in the fields where I don't know any distances but running between 30 and 45 minutes non stop will be ok. Then inbetween shorter but faster as well as runs with intervals of slow and fast running.

The moon

looks gorgeous right now! With this clear sky we have at the moment she seems to be so near. This morning when she was already quite low above the horizon she looked so soft because of the touch of orange. But when I saw her I knew why I had sleped so bad this night. And we have the shutters down, so it is definitely not the light that keeps my sleep so lightly. She will be full very soon, maybe even on my birthday, I haven’t looked yet.
It’s amazing how our move to the new house and new surroundings has changed my perception. (well not sure if it was the move or if I just have changed... anyhow...) On every single walk with the dogs I am out of the area where there are buildings. I can see them all the time, sure, even the big factory, but it is definitely so different to the area we lived before where I usually did the shorter dogwalks on mornings and nights inside the city limits.

Weekend knitting

All I managed to do knitting-wise over the weekend was to finish one of the socks I am repairing. One of the very first pairs I made for Sweetheart. The ribbing had holes at the very top, so I took up the stitches of the leg right under the ribbing, cut of the old ribbing and did a new 2x2 ribbing with sewn bind off. Now tackle the second of this pair and they will be as good as new!

The old lady

Josy, rescued crossbreed. We got her in March 1999 when she was estimated 3 to 4 years old. So she is 12 or 13 now. Is still fit, too, plays, likes to work and run. Did great in agility!

The old boy

Dingo, the rescue Australian Cattle Dog, also knwon as Blue Heeler. Got him when he was seven months, will be 12 years in may. Still fit and wants to work...

The cutie

Had that one already on the old blog but can't help but post it again... Flavie.