and suddenly, summer

 The warm dry weather has continued, and it has even obligingly rained during a few nights so I've only had to water the garden a few times. The abrupt change from cold rainy autumnal weather to hot summer has necessitated much changing of gears: the quilts have had to come off the bed, I've had to excavate my summer clothes and sandals from deep storage, I've turned the heating off and got the fans out of the attic, we've had to start shutting windows during the hottest part of the day and opening them later, the garden pots have to be kept watered etc etc. The cat is in seventh heaven and spending most of her day literally rolling around and lolling on the sunbaked gravel against sun-warmed walls.

This is the best time of year for our garden, when things are growing and green and before all the summer diseases and dieback have commenced on our dry sandy soil.  The banks of irises that I moved from the front garden after all the flowers were stolen one year are just loving it in the back garden, and flowering profusely.

We've got a sort of woodland dell effect going on underneath the pear and magnolia trees.

Even the view from my sewing room window is looking quite nice - although I can only open the blind in the morning and evenings as it faces south.

I was in the sewing room for a tidy up and because I've started to cut out a new quilt from a pattern in Today's Quilter magazine.  It's a supposedly easier method for a star quilt, where you cut a lot of 60-degree polygons so you can piece in horizontal ribbons and avoid Y-seams.  It's going to be a pig to lay out, because you will basically have to lay out hundreds of small pieces to decide what colours are going where, before you can start seaming them altogether.  I may commandeer the living room. I'm using some layer cakes (pre-cut fabric) that I got on sale from Craftsy I think a few years ago, plus some deep stash of beige and cream fabric.

I've made a start on my Lenten Rose Socks. I'm a bit worried they will be too big, as normally I knit a 60-stitch sock and these are 72 stitches - but then the fair isle will pull them in somewhat.

Meanwhile I am running aground again on the Danish knitted doiley pattern, it literally does not make sense.  I think I need to google Danish knitting pattern conventions and see if I can find anything, or perhaps have a look on Ravelry to see if anyone else has knit from the book.  I rarely go on Ravelry any more - I used to be on there a lot about 8 years ago when I had a different job where I could get away with surfing the net during the day. I was also doing a lot more knitting then.

I will pop in a photo of this very cute vintage embroidered teacosy cover that I picked up at that boot sale we stumbled upon in Cambridge last weekend.  I've given it a wash and will probably make an 'inner' for it out of plain cotton and wadding. I like to re-use things that someone like me created many decades ago.

The torrent of new caravan purchases arriving at the door has slowed to a trickle now, just the odd rug or fire extinguisher showing up.  We went over to see the caravan this morning to install our second wheel clamp (a security device), and a tyre pressure monitoring system, and to do a few odd jobs on it.  There were a few other people at the storage yard puttering with their caravans, and occasionally someone departing or arriving towing a caravan or driving a motorhome.  It's like we've joined a whole new tribe.  Or as my m-i-l has put it: "how nice that you have a hobby you can both do together".  DH and I have synchronised our annual leave entitlements and I've made some advance bookings for some short trips here and there during the summer. We're also going to tow the van down to the in-laws for a night to show them our new purchase.  It's very handy having our adult DS living at home - he can both house-sit and look after the cat.

And look what I found at the caravan shop: it's the little things that make us happy.