Monogamous Knitting.

Gratuitous picture of foxgloves on our patch of land.

 I was wandering around in the blogosphere the other day and I came across the concept of the monogamous knitter. I can't remember where I was when I found it so I'm afraid I can't credit the person who has summed me up knitting wise. I really do like to have just one project on the needles at a time so I can focus on it and get motivated by my progress. There have been times when I have had several projects on the go at once but it is not such a satisfying experience for me. Currently I am knitting a simple gilet from a pattern in a Woman's Weekly Knitting and Crochet magazine. I am using my handspun yarn which is one ply black alpaca which I have prepared from raw fleece and one ply I have spun from commercially prepped and dyed merino.

 
It is growing steadily and I am just in the process of dividing for the armholes. I hope that I like it when I have finished though that is by no means certain!

Reading has returned to Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series - I just can't get enough of narrator Johanna Parker's beautiful voice and Sookie's quirky outlook. I have also been keeping up my study of Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom for study group. I'm not sure that I would have the staying power to get all the way through it if it wasn't for the support and motivation supplied by being part of a group. It is not that the book is not interesting, it is interesting but quite ponderously written which I suppose should be expected of a philosophical book.

Elsewhere we have exciting news to report. There are new additions to the Misty Cottage population. Last week there was a swarm of bees in the garden of the house that my husband was working in. He hot footed it home to get his bee suit (protective clothing, not a bee-like costume) and collected the swarm which was large and is proving to be very vigorous. So now we have three hives of bees and high hopes of being able to extract some honey this year though probably not from the new swarm. The bees are really enjoying the flowers on the purple sprouting broccoli. Despite having lots of things waiting to be planted out we have left the flowering broccoli as it is literally buzzing with bees all day long.

Also on Monday I went to pick up our turkeys. They are organic chicks which are just off lights and ready to grow on for Christmas and beyond. We are rearing 5 this year though I would love to do more. I enjoy turkey meat and find it very versatile so we have one for the Christmas dinner and the rest I joint and freeze for use throughout the year.

 

Last night we had a St John's fire in the garden and cooked our dinner out there, sang songs at the tops of our voices and then sat on a hedge up the lane to catch the sunset - good family times.

I'm joining in with Jinny's Yarn Along and Frontier Dreams' Craft On. There are lots of lovely bloggers to discover there.