FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND incuding RUNNING REPAIRS

It's summer and the garden is in full colour.  It's green and lush with every day new lots flowers coming into bloom...such a joy, both to look at and have for cut flowers for the house.

Pink peonies - a bloom before the rain came on....

Alchemilla mollus or Lady's mantle, grows everywhere. 

Rose along side of the house.  Other roses are doing well but got rain bashed after only a couple of days' showy blooms (as we had a genuine (!) heat-wave a couple of weeks ago).

White sweet pea bush ... just starting to come out.  Genus and species?  Possibly Lathyrus latifolius White Pearl Everlasting Pea Perennial.  It has no perfume but grows vigorously every year producing fistfulls of flowers for every vase in the house.

 

Erygium (Sea Holly). I have several species which always do well.

Fennel plants which seeded themselves after I started planting them from my own seeds several years ago

Cotonus  'Royal Purple' Smoke Bush.  I have another one which is smaller with green leaves.  I saw them first in Vacouver in gardens out by UBC gates.

Crocosmia lucifer.  I gave everything liquid fertilizer this year and this, among others, is goisng to be a blaze of colour.

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Meanwhile I have been doing some chores.  With the help of YouTube I have learned how to use a power screwdriver.  About 5 years ago Iain and Ishbel made a trim for the garden shed using cedar shakes.  It has now had a few bashes and so I am replacing them as I found a bag of them in the garage.  

I use this shed a lot both for storing the spades etc but also as a 'table' where I can work, i.e. plant seeds and a 'repository' as I tend to mislay tools and garden gloves.

Once I learn what the tools are called I can then watch a video on how to use them.

The cedar shakes are now replaced so now they just need to be painted.

I manage fine with the power screwdriver.  When I use my sewing machine I find the hardest thing to sew is a straight line; the hardest part of getting the screw in the wood is to have it go in 'straight'!

I have just noticed... about a year ago I replaced that black catch on the left-hand shed door and it is still going strong!

JUNE ROUND-UP: SUNDAY MEAL IN THE GARDEN AND BIRTHDAY TIME

The rhododendrons are in full bloom and the gardens are looking lovely.  

Tannoch Loch Milngavie in May

Harriet's 13th birthday

Alastair aged 18 years

Ellie aged 11 years

Harriet 13 years

* * * * * * The Garden * * * * * *

Peonies from Anne

Clematis growing over the birdhouse (which I built several years ago). After many attempts the is the the first time clematis has flourished...not sure why.

2026 BIRTHDAY

Another year has passed; that's me 82 years old now.  Life rolls along much the same really.

A recent photograph:

(taken in the garden today when out at the washing line...)

I like to spend time in the garden... lovely at this time of year. I even make an effort to sit and read a book or the newspaper but I always find that somehow 2 hours passes and the book is left untouched!  Yes, I do spend many hours pottering about outside or possibly in the garage where I have things I can get on with if the weather is poor.

It is wonderful to be able to pay the occasional trip to Edinburgh to see Inger.  I am at that time of life when too many of my social events are attending funerals. A train trip for some much needed 'social stimulation' definitely offsets the 'duty' stuff!

Such a lovely city... walkable with lots to see looking up!  (Glasgow can be like that too but it is currently digging up roads to put in cycle lanes, fibre optic cables and the place is a mess!)

These 4 photos are on my route to my destination.  Picture postcard perfect!

And finally I still keep busy with desk-top publishing activities. My main project is producing the 20 pages brochure for Milngavie Music Cub.  Here it is, hot off the press.

I really enjoy this computer work and it keeps me in touch with both the technology which is always changing plus the people involved who work in the printing and advertising sectors. (I deal with artwork for various aspects relating to putting on these concerts.). It's a case of 'If you don't use it, you lose it.'   Sometimes I have to have to spend many hours 'trouble-shooting' when I can't get the software to work.  However I am getting better at it! And I have learned, like using the banks these days, the problem doesn't necessarily lie at my end!

* * * * * * * * 

The birthday cake which ended up being a pile of Nigella brownies stacked in a dish with masses of Mary Berry ganache slathered all over it... candles finished it off... a sort of mini-volcano.  As long as there is lots of chocolate the kids don't mind in what form it comes!  That's Harriet (L) nearly 13 years and Ellie (11).

  

KNITTING PATTERN FOR CHILDNREN'S FINGERLESS GLOVES WITH COLOURED WORK

These 'gloves'.. more like 'mittens'.... are knitted from a pattern taken from my mother-in-law's Paton's Woolcraft knitting book, 18th edition, [June 1967]. Cost 2/5 shillings.  Details below.

This is record of what I did as a test piece to teach myself how to do coloured yarn work (Shetland style knitting roughly speaking) where you carry the yarn(s) in the back.  It is not perfect but I would do it again!

Child’s Fingerless Mittens

Adapted from  Paton’s ‘Woodcraft’ book, page 79 called ‘Child’s Gloves’

William Morris DK pomegranate yarn, No 9 needles.

CO 40 st. 

K2 P 2 rib for 16 rows

Follow pattern (para 2) so you end up with 44 stitches.  

Do the 4 increases so that Row 4 ends up with 46 stitches with 7 between the P stitches; Row 8 has 48 stitches with 9 stitches between the 2 purl stitches; Row 12 has 50 with 11 between; Row 16 has  52 with 13 between the 2 P stitches  

Work 4 more rounds keeping the 2 P stitches in place.

Shape thumb gusset as per pattern ending with 13 gusset stitches placed on a piece of wool.  

CO 3 stitches for the wee extension.  Therefore it is  52 - 13 = 39 plus the cast on 3 = 42.  Should be 44 ..... I added 2.  (Should I have done another increase??? This is OK as fitted the hand OK.)

K 9 rounds.  

Start colour work using tail yarn as the ‘Start’ of the rows.  

Stitches are placed on 3 needles first.  I knitted one K row here.

The following colour work was done (as my test piece)  

Needle 1: 2,2,2,2 and 4 (3CO+1K from previous) = 12;     Or AA,BB,AA,BB,AA,BB,AA,BB, THEN AA,BB.

Needle 2: 2,2,2,2,2,2,2 = 14;     AND SO ON.

Needle 3: 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2 = 18. ENDING WITH BB TO START AGAIN.

Equals 44.  The colour work is tighter and thicker.  

Finish work off with a rib K2 P2 using much smaller needles, e.g. 13.  Then COff/bind off.

I managed to get the tension right. One way is to keep 'stretching' or adjusting the knitted stitches as you go along.