Post 444 Gardens and Garments.

This morning, after my podiatrist appointment, I visited the Himeji Gardens. There were several gardeners working and few visitors. The forecast was for an overcast day, but the sun refused to accept that. It's a magic place. 

 

Today the sound of water was clear and the plants seemed to glow.  

A camellia bush is loaded with blooms which find their way into many places throughout the garden.  

      

The shadows play on rocks and the winter trees make webs against the sky.        

It's lovely to visit.          

The week began with our WES Group meeting focused on Sequins. Pat did an impressive presentation and we had a few examples of items decorated with silver coins and mirrors. It generated a lot of discussion and sharing.  Great session.

I skipped our Strata AGM Thursday evening and voted online. I don't feel comfortable in a meeting room where most people will not be wearing masks. Apparently I was right about that, and the meeting lasted over 90 minutes. 

I did go to Pilates on Thursday and we had a good time Sitting and Stitching on Friday. On Sunday afternoon I had a fabulous relaxed lunch at friends' place and dinner with a selection of family on Saturday night.  Yesterday I cooked duck legs and tried an experiment with capsicum, stuffing them with feta, ricotta, spinach, parsley and spring onions. Not bad for a change.

The two Alice Starmore books arrived and are proving interesting and helpful. Before Pilates I swung past The Yarn Trader to get a knitting needle I was missing. Of course, I came away with three more  Kate Davies' books.  

I'm not going to run out of things to knit in a while!

I've now finished three of this year's Shetland Wool Week hats, one in each of the three provided sizes. Having tried them on a variety of family heads, I think the small and medium would cover most heads. The large does fit a large head, but the medium stretches sufficiently.

This is the three on top of each other.  I've thoroughly enjoyed knitting these, but have set hats aside to work on the Arne and Carlos vest for Katherine. 

It took a while to assemble all the bits for this. It has the addition of DMC Diamont gold thread in the reddy colour lines and that was not in stock when the wool was despatched. I now have it and have started. It's not a complicated pattern - except for steeks, which I have not used before. One step at a time. I've got about 35 cm to knit before I have to worry about that.

My brother and I have decided to give the blue vest a go, so when I finish this one, my next is chosen. It might also prove to be a break if I find the steeks too challenging.  

Somewhere along the line I had better remember my income tax lodgement and my grandmother Nellie's story, which is still very much at the beginning. 

Onward!