Around the House

There's limited knitting content to show off, though the Sea & Shells stole has grown - slowly - through the fifth repeat of the pattern. My best day's work was one full 12-row repeat. I stopped at that point, dubious about pushing my luck. It IS beautiful! For easy knitting, I'm working on a mistake-rib scarf in the same two shades of green as the "Binary" hat I finished a week or so ago.

Spring has definitely sprung here, and I'm feeling the joy in the new plant life. Our freesias have spread a bit, and they are among my favorite flowers, with their refreshing scent. Our New Zealand tea tree is bursting with deep pink flowers, and our first alstromeria blossoms emerged. So I have a couple of little bouquets to admire; the little one is from all the freesias with really short stems.


Our 'office' is in the old dining room, with a lovely bay window, where part of my collection of African violets thrive. I look out onto the street and the football field across the way, with the far view of the Verdugo Mountains. On the other side of the room is our arbor, of which you've seen some photos when it's fully in bloom. Right now, the wisteria is just starting to leaf out, and the very first blooms are hanging over the wall, so it's not much to look at. But we have an unexpected second blooming of our "Christmas" cactuses to add even more visual color.


I've become the blocking volunteer at my seniors' group. You saw the gorgeous alpaca shawl that one of the group knitted last year, in Shui Kuen's Sun Ray shawl pattern. Last week she knitted the Simple Yet Effective Shawl, and I blocked it for her. Another of the ladies made a lovely, soft wool cabled scarf (her first cables!) for her son's Christmas gift. I offered to block it for her, but sadly, she took it to the dry cleaners for blocking; she'd been told they did a good job. Hah! They *pressed* it! So I've promised to try to restore the spring in the cables. I just hope it hasn't been permanently squashed.


We've moved some things around in our family room, and my Knitting Bear (carries a little tote that says 'Knitting is my Bag' and came complete with reading glasses, lol!) has come to rest for a while in the wing chair, which Midnight thinks is her chair. First she sat for a while in her queenly 'Elegant Pawsitude' pose, glaring at me, then circled around to let her rear clearly express her intention to ignore the intruder.