Sunday

Good morning to you!  It is yet another beautifully sunny, frosty morning.  Everything is looking so bright and cheerful but, unfortunately, it does show that my windows need a good clean < sigh >.  We need more mornings like this: they are cheering and raise the spirits so much, despite the cold.  It makes me realise that spring really is here, albeit a little bit later than expected.  Hopefully, we will see the trees leafing up soon and everything will look fresh, clean and newly washed.

Found on Google: http://www.cotswoldyear.com/2011/03/hawthorn.html

Yesterday I finished a baby blanket I've been working on over the last two weeks or so.  It's a mix of colours because I don't know if the expected arrival is blue or pink, and I rather like it.  I hope my friend does too.  I think the think about a blanket is that it can be used for so many things, not just as a bed cover, so I'm fairly confident that it will be used, one way or another.

There seem to be a lot of people expecting at the moment so as soon as I had finished the blanket I started another project - much smaller this time.  I'm knitting a little baby waistcoat (I know this one is a blue) and have adapted the pattern so that the main stitch is a basket weave stitch, which is one of my favourites.  When I was little I had a hand knitted jumper that was this stitch with a fold over collar and I loved it very much.  In fact, most of my clothes were hand made, the outer ones anyway.  I didn't appreciate them as much as I should have done at the time - they were beautiful, well made with love and represented a lot of hard work on my mum's part.  Sadly, it is now cheaper to buy clothes than to make them once you get out of the very tiny sizes.  Yarn and fabric both cost a small fortune and, with all the extras, it is not the frugal option any more.  I'm getting very old fashioned, aren't I, but I feel sad when I realise that you rarely, if ever, see a little girl in a pretty smocked dress any more.  Such a shame.  I used to love smocking: fortunately, I had a little girl so I could indulge myself.

Aaaaaaah - those were the days!

I don't have many plans for today.  A good, hot bath (yesterday's was lovely), a tidy up of the kitchen (much needed) and then I think I will sit with a DVD or a rubbish programme on and get on with my knitting.  I'm being spoiled today - Beth is making lunch, not me.  Lovely!