A weekend of many seasons

The English weather is showing off its fabled contrariness this weekend.  The inlaws arrived on Thursday for a visit and that afternoon was so nice and warm that we were sitting drinking tea out on the sunny patio in late afternoon. But Friday it started to spit rain, and it wasn't looking good yesterday morning when we set off to drive north to visit a big garden.  Shortly after leaving home it started to sleet, and then to actually snow. We made an interim stop at Uppingham Yarns, a mecca for machine knitting yarns, Italian fancies, all kinds of unusual fibres plus a fair bit of hand knitting yarn. M-i-l bought some wool/acrylic blend for a cardi and I found a yarn winder that will wind cakes instead of cones.

By the time we came out, it was so cold that f-i-l was looking quite miserable (he won't wear a hat) and although the snow had stopped, it was decided to abandon the expedition and head back to more local sights.  We visited Sywell aviation museum where we saw a Spitfire revving its engines and a helicopter landing on the airfield, then had a lovely lunch at Beckworth Emporium before visiting a plant nursery. I then introduced m-i-l to the delights of the Coleman's Craft Warehouse that I have previously blogged about, while f-i-l fell asleep in the 'husband room' and DH chafed at being stuck there for 40 mins.  In their bargain bins I found some parachute cord in blue and white which will make good project bag cords.

And today it is gloriously sunny, not a cloud in the sky, but there was a heavy frost this morning when I had been thinking that spring had come and it would be safe to prune back the fuschias etc.    The garden still thinks it is spring though, our magnolia has a lot more blossom this year, the pear tree is starting to blossom, the tulips are coming out, the photinia has nice red growth, and the forsythia is bursting into yellow brightness.

So will all the hosting of guests, not a lot of crafts this week although I have been able to knit in the evenings.

I finally finished the Basket Check socks and they are on the blockers. These are in Regia Arne and Carlos yarn and the pattern is from the Little Box of Socks which I had forgotten Swooze had  kindly gifted me until I was looking at my 2010 blog posts and rediscovered that fact - thank you Swooze!

I also finished what I think/hope is the final square of my 20-square GAA Afghan.  Now the nightmare of trying to block 20 squares to the same size looms on the horizon. This is a modified version of a pictorial block with a church, tree, sun and birds.  I changed the church to a house with a chimney and omitted the sun. Once all the squares are joined, there are about 80 miles of border to knit.

I've also been sneaking downstairs away from the in-laws to cut up some more fabric scraps.  I've probably done five hours altogether since I started this and I haven't even reduced the pile to the level of the top of the box yet. But the bins are slowly filling up.

And I've also been sneaking off to the cellar to quickly paint dollshouse bits for my garden shed, which is coming on.  I'm currently working on the door wall, I've custom-made a non-opening door which is just propped up in this photo.  I was thinking last night about how I am going to build the verandah and I think I shouldn't have given the roof such an overhang. I may need to see if I can trim it back in situ without breaking anything. Hopefully.

I am working on the next block of my 25 block applique quilt and m-i-l wanted to see the other blocks. So I spread them out on the living room floor where they made a lively sight. This project is eleven years old now but at least it is slowly getting done. It's probably a race now between finishing the quilt and deteriorating eyesight making it challenging to do so, lol.

I also finished the baby item I was working on, and got it in the post, but I won't blog about it until I hear it has been received.

The only other item of note this week was that Monday, when DH was working at home, he fed the cat and let her out at 7am and then didn't see her the entire rest of the day. Normally she is in and out and always present for meals. By the time I got home from work at 6:30pm he had written her off for dead.  We searched the entire house twice, even getting silly about opening cupboards that she couldn't possibly be in without developing opposable thumbs, and DH searched the surrounding streets. It was also pouring rain and dark by then. My main thought was that DS has big exams coming up at uni in six weeks and that we couldn't tell him in case it distressed him, but that the in-laws would notice and never be able to keep their mouths shut about it, although of course I was worried about the cat.  Who showed up around 8pm, dripping wet and chirruping, with no apparent harm. If only they could talk and tell you where they have been.  We kept her in for a few days and she hasn't pulled a disappearing act again.  Yet.