The amaryllis is really gaining momentum now and this is clearly a flower bud – hooray! I was afraid that it might come up blind as I didn’t repot the bulb last year but it’s forgiven me and is going to flower anyway.
Author: Aisha
Rhythmic ripples
This work in progress is for a baby: a cot or pram blanket made from the Neat Ripple Pattern by Lucy at Attic24. The pattern is mainly treble crochet stitches and Lucy rhapsodises about the rhythm of working with long rows of trebles. I can see what she means! There is something very soothing about working only trebles even though I’ve made several mistakes that required ripping out a row or more. I really love the colours that are going into this blanket. The light isn’t great in this photo but the colours are a deep raspberry, teal and a sherberty yellow/green. The rhythm of the ripples makes the colours sing together (as Lucy says). I couldn’t describe them as harmonizing however; they are more like the interlocking melodies of the Pamela Verrall clarinet pieces played at the last Bradford Music Club session.
Preparing for competition
In a moment of extreme folly I responded to a call for help from Garforth Brass who needed an additional Eb Bass player for the Yorkshire Brass Band Championships. I’ve never before played in a brass band competition; in fact, this is the first time that I have ever held a band registration card. After several weeks of intense rehearsals (although I’ve had to miss many) the test piece is as good as it can be. In fact, tonight’s final rehearsal was fantastic! 4 Bars Rest reckons Garforth is the dark horse of the third section but I just hope that we play well (and that I am not the person who plays a dreadful wrong note). Wish us luck!
Amaryllis (almost) week 3
It’s not a week since the last photo but, my goodness, the amaryllis has shot up after the weekend! It was also just starting to lean towards the light so I have turned it round in the hope that it will grow straight.
Little leaves
I’m really pleased with myself because I’ve worked out how to make these little leaves to go with my little flowers. I looke
d at a couple of online patterns to get an idea of how they might go but in the end worked them out for myself. The leaves are made from a silky yarn called Sirdar Flirt which is 80% bamboo viscose and 20% wool; I found an odd ball in the remnant bin of a local shop. I’m liking this yarn not only because it feels smooth because the leaves lie flat whereas I suspect that the flowers will benefit from blocking.
Amaryllis week two
This is the amaryllis (or hippeastrum as my mother tells me) in its second week. It is making progress but slowly at the moment. This one lives in my office; I have another at home which seems to have decided not to flower this year. The home amaryllis has huge and floppy leaves but no sign of a flower bud.
Amaryllis: the beginning
This is a series of photographs that I have wanted to take for some time. The amaryllis is now in its fourth year and I am fascinated by the speed with which it grows from nothing to a magnificent, towering flower. Today, the first shoot is just peeking above the bulb.
Scissor keeper
Because the ‘first flower’ was made from scrap yarn it doesn’t fit with the rest of the project so I turned it into a scissor keeper to try and stop my scissors getting lost at the bottom of the bag. These scissors, by the way, are Tommy Tippee baby nail scissors which are ideal for air travel because the blades are blunt-ended and less than 6cm long. They also very cheap (£1.50 at ASDA) and widely available so it’s not a great loss if an over-zealous official confiscates them. I’ve flown several times with these scissors in my hand luggage and they have gone through security screening without any problems.
A face in the rain
Walking home in the rain I saw this little face looking up at me from the gutter. I’m intrigued by the way the pattern of water and road surface gives it ghostly shoulders.
The first flower
I have a project in mind that will require some crochet flowers (using up leftover yarn from the well-travelled blanket).In this month’s Simply Crochet magazine for a throw with five-petalled flowers inside squares so I worked the flower part of the pattern using some scrap yarn and it came out like this! I am so delighted! I like it so much that I have attached it to my scissors in the hope that it will stop them falling to the bottom of the yarn bin.To make the flower, I had to learn a new technique – the ‘magic ring‘. I love the way that the ring pulls closed completely so that there is no hole in the middle of the flower.