An Ending...and a Beginning?

The little baby jersey has been finished (the buttons bought and sewn on) parceled up and delivered to my sister's home ready to be given to the new baby boy. In the end I was really quite pleased with how it looked even though my seams are not really the best. I guess I am more happy to have it finished and given than have it sitting around not being used while I worried about perfect-looking seams. As if any little baby would worry! What do you think?

The shawl in the background is one my MIL knitted for one of our children 20+ years ago. Unfortunately there are a few holes in it presumably from moth-damage. Do moths eat acrylic yarn? I have tried to repair some of them but darning and repairing are not one of the things I do well (the older I get the more seriously I look at myself and realise that there aren't many things I do well! Is this normal, I wonder?). So the shawl sits in the cupboard as it is, a sweet reminder of times, and people, past.

With the NZ dollar still holding out strong, I recently decided to buy a few more knitting books from Amazon to add to my growing collection. I am not sorry I did! Yesterday morning the courier braved the cold, wet conditions to do his job once more and deliver my three new books to my doorstep. Maggie Righetti's Sweater Design in Plain English, Nicky Epstein's Knitting Beyond the Edge and Jane Sowerby's Victorian Lace Today now await my reading (and drooling) pleasure. I have been able to flick through VLT - very nice! The photography is lovely and the history is something I look forward to exploring further. Whether I eventually knit anything from this book remains to be seen, but there certainly is a lot of scope for dreaming. Knitting Beyond the Edge looks to be as good as her previous books but once I caught sight of VLT I was hooked. I will save KBtE for later.

On Sunday my friend K and I travelled to the "city" (it is officially a city but is rather small by world, and even NZ, standards) for the annual Market Day on the Bay. This was the culmination of the Rose Festival week celebrated here each year. We really enjoy going to this each year. There are many stalls selling all sorts of bib and bobs, some good quality and others not so. As it is a rose festival there are always several stalls devoted to all manner of plants including, of course, roses.

This year I bought two roses for the garden (I use this term loosely when talking of my particular garden. I have plans but this is as far as I have gone!) - one is a lovely white English rose Glamis Castle the other, another English rose, William Shakespeare. The latter is a beautiful deep red/burgundy with an amazingly lovely perfume. I used to have this at our previous home but it died when we tried to transplant it. I hope this specimen will have a longer, happier life! I was particularly drawn to this rose, not only because of its outstanding looks, but also because of its name. My grandmother's maiden name was Hathaway and family legend has it that we are, in fact, descendants (or more likely relatives of) Shakespeare's wife Anne. Nice thought, anyway.

Another smaller purchase which made its way home with me was this - a handmade shawl pin. To fasten those dream-shawls with? I rather like its slightly rustic look although the end of the pin may be a little sharp for comfort. Cute anyway.

It was a pity that our day at the Market was a little short-lived. Soon after lunch really dark clouds gathered and proclaimed in no uncertain terms that the already dubious weather was going to become worse. And soon! K and I went back to the gardening-stall area, collected my roses, and made a dash back to the car-park. And none too soon. Huge drops of rain began to fall as we were scurrying for shelter. Once we were in the car and on our way the rain began to fall in earnest sending the stall-holders rushing to cover their goods. We were very pleased that we had had the good sense to come away when we did remaining relatively dry and happy with our purchases. Maybe the weather will be better next year.