Sunday 31 July 2011

Today around noon

... I took the dogs for a walk. With around 17 °C I was uncomfortable at first in my sleeveless fleece cardi. Unbelievable for july 31.



The first pond behind an already harvested wheat field.






Then on to the second pond. There is a beach on the other side, no one there.










Our neighbourhood behind the corn, harvested wheat and potatoes.



I enjoyed this walk, and I was not alone:




Thanks for coming over!


Tina



P.S. Yes the pictures ARE from today and NOT from last fall ;-)

Saturday 30 July 2011

More clouds

Today's sky shows all shades of grey, no matter which side you look out: out of the the kitchen window
and out of the back door.
With 18°C at 3 pm. Off for a nice dog walk now. I like the weather as it is today: dry but cool enough to wear jeans and t-shirt, and to have happy doggies outside, especially old boy Dingo does great.
And though it is this cool I had a nice salad for lunch that I found at thisweekfordinner made with cucumber, tomatoes (both homegrown), watermelon, homegrown herbs (mint, chives, basil, melisse), apple vinegar, olive oil, a bit of salt and lots of ground black pepper. After tasting it I decided to add some feta cheese and it was great! Also pretty but when I thought I could have taken a picture it was already gone... I am not a big fan of watermelons but know of their benefits so buy one now and then in summer. This was a great use for it and I will definitely make this salad again. Next it will go into my smoothie.

Thanks for coming over!
Tina

A finished object!

Two in fact as a pair of socks consists of two socks, doesn't it? :-)
I am not too sure about how the colourway looks knit up, the orange seems to disturb more than complement the green and the blues, but to wear into boots they are great at least as they will keep my feet warm. I made my special toe, but this time "extremely" and they fit great. My feet are "straight" at the inside until about where the nail of the big toe starts, then a light curve. At the outside there is a light bend where the little toe starts, then a nearly straight line to the second toe, that is the same lenght than the big one (a barefoot picture would be great at this point but I hope you understand it anyways). That is why I stopped knitting round toes years ago. Instead I usually do decreases in a different rate, outside more than inside.
This times I started with two decreases every other row, then each row for the outside and only where the green begins at the inside - worked greatly! Looks a bit weird when not on the foot but it's just what my toes need!Yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit Fantasy in colourway 4770 - fyi if you need to have this colourway now you have seen it or (more likely) want to avoid it if you come across it :-)

Oh and if you have looked closely you might have noticed that the stripes match on the foot but not on the leg... Happens when on the first sock you use the other end of the ball to have the stripe sequence uniterrupted on the upper side, don't care to find the same spot on the yarn for the second sock, forget to do the second heel with the other end of the ball, and then serendipity comes into play and your stripes match for the foot. Voila!


Thanks for coming over!

Tina

Friday 29 July 2011

Clouds

Yesterday we had some weird weather: after it had rained all morning it stopped around noon and the sun came out. It got warm and humid. The sky in the afternoon looked really interesting with clouds of various colours, types and in different hights. These first three pictures are looking to the east, south-east.


And the next two to the west, right into the sun that was still up high and it wasn't as dark as the pictures show but I think they came out great. Later at night we had a thunderstorm, but not too close, with soft rain.






Thanks for coming over!

Tina

Thursday 28 July 2011

Myrtille and Bisou playing


Thanks for coming over!
Tina

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Friday 22 July 2011

Thursday 21 July 2011

Sunny Garden on a rainy day - part two: yellow

The sun isn't really back yet but I am ok with it. Try to go for dog walks during the drier periods and the garden is doing so fine with the rain... And the weeding is so much easier when the soil is wet! (Who cares that I need days of scrubbing repetedly to get my nails back clean...)










Thanks for coming over!

Tina

Sunday 17 July 2011

Sunny garden on a rainy day

Grey, cold and wet - but we were longing for some rain and I am glad about it - so what is better than sitting here with a cup of tea and browsing through my garden pictures. These are all taken early in July.










Thanks for coming over!

Tina

Terracotta Garden Granny Square Blanket

Some time ago (well a long time ago) I saw this blanket on Lucy's blog Attic24 and loved it. Knew immediately that I wanted to make one four our couch, but in our living room's colours, mainly terracottas, browns, with accent of cream. And as I had already worked with Catania, a nice cotton yarn that comes in lots of colourways, I knew I would use this one. Don't remember if I had these colours at home already or if I got them then. I hooked happily away a bit, took these two pictures (a try to use an opal plastic bucket as a light box *lol*)



and then I forgot about it because there were other projects that were more important to me...


Hooked a bit now and then but not much and not "seriously" until yesterday. Got all the circles and squares out that I have made so far, smiled and hooked! So lovely!!!



I think I will join four squares with the same fourth row, and then join these with a row of grey, inspirated by the living room tiles. Just not sure yet if I will join four squares that are the same or four that have just the center and outer row in common. But I have enough time to decide on that :-)


Here is what I had this morning:



Thanks for coming over!


Tina

Sunday 10 July 2011

July garden




We're ten days into the month and I haven't posted the "garden-at-the-beginning-of-the-month" pictures yet...

I love how everything is so green and abundant right now. Irrigation is obligatory to have it like this, especially for the vegetables.



Thanks for coming over!

Tina

Soft, warm, green, fun:

Got my Laminaria shawl out from its hibernating cave. Can't believe that I had forgotten how fun it is to knit this pattern from a 2008 Knitty and with that Malabrigo lace yarn. And the colour is just great.
Knitting it goes slowly but I take it out now and then and enjoy working on it for a row or so. Just started the first edging chart.

Here's all the great projects on ravely if you want to see more.

Thanks for coming over!
Tina

Thursday 7 July 2011

Two years

have gone by since our beautiful old lady had to go!


So glad we could rescue her and share ten years of her doggie life (doggie lives are ALWAYS too short). And though our pack grew to four as we got two more young, sweet, funny, smart dogs in the meantime this hole Josy left in my life and in my heart will always remain.



Thanks for coming over!

Tina

Sunday 3 July 2011

More green

Here's another of those "green" post that was waiting in the drafts...







Thanks for coming over!

Tina