Making the Most of It

This Summer has hardly been the best. The weather around here has been particularly awful. There have hardly been any rain-free days, which has saved me a lot of time watering but has meant I haven't done much sitting out or barbecuing. For once bank holiday weekend has turned out well. The weather has been gorgeous, particularly yesterday. After cycling to the next village for lunch we sat out all afternoon. I worked on the wall hanging I've been making for the bedroom and finished up with a barbecue tea, with tasty burgers made by my lovely husband (our anniversary was last weekend).

I was inspired by the felted table runners on this Etsy shop and spent quite a bit of time experimenting with techniques. I eventually ended up with something quite different but it is growing on me. The idea of making a large needle felted item had never occurred to me before. So here is my effort mid-progress. I am now contemplating whether to fill the whole thing with circles or to only go half way up. What do you think?

We've had quite a lot of vegetables. Most of the potatoes are gone now and we're working our way through the onions and garlic. In place of the potatoes I planted some winter vegetables. We've also had corgettes, brocoli, carrots, parsnips, french beans and leeks.

The greenhouse is producing a steady stream of tomatoes. I had a problem with rot on the peppers and aubergines. The aubergines have produced nothing at all. Each time a fruit starts to grow they go rotten and drop off. I've evicted the aubergine's from the greenhouse and the peppers seem to have recovered. I think it's been too damp in there but there's not much I can do when it rains constantly. Not bad for the first year.

As far as knitting goes I've been working on a jumper for Graeme. I have now reached the sleeves, which I see as the danger time for running out of steam. It's a mark of how poor the weather has been that I haven't been too hot while knitting this. I had to put it down on Saturday though.

I also knitted this cute toilet roll cover in a moment of boredom a couple of weeks ago. The words 'toilet roll cover' do tend to fill me with dread but they are a quick way of using up odd balls (of which I have many).