A July Furtle

 July has been a busy month, with some sewing and knitting mixed with a bit of cross stitch.  And also the month David and I get to go away for a few days after weeks or shall we/shan’t we?  As I start typing this we are staying at a Premier Inn in Ripley in the Derbyshire Dales and have visited Ecclesbourne Calley Railway, a car museum called The Great British Car Journey and Bakewell.

In view of the hot weather earlier this month I made a sun hat.

I used some Lewis and Irene fabric that I had in my stash, with a grey cow parsley print for the lining.

I’d also finished two more hats, but knitted this time.  The patterns were from Jen Arnall-Culliford’s Year of Techniques book.  I posted about these earlier this month here.

Earlier this year my daughter in law wanted to know if she could knit a cardigan for her daughter, but she’s not had time to learn. One of the patterns she liked was this one from Hobbycraft.  I couldn’t get hold of it either in the store or as a pdf, until I saw it on a visit there earlier this month.

The skill level is intermediate and the needle size I didn’t have., using 3.5mm, which is an unusual size for double knitting.  I had trouble trying to find circular needles for the yoke, but one shop I visited did needle tips in that size which I could use with the Knit Pro cable that I already have.  So I’m glad that she hasn’t tackled this.  The body is knitted to the armholes, then the sleeves are knitted to that point too, then joined together for the yoke with the raglan decreases and bobbles. Below is one of the sleeves.

I’ve done some Amigurumi crochet, with a pattern by Ali of the Little Drops of Wonderful podcast, whose pattern is on Ravelry.  They looked sweet so I gave them a go.

I’m sure I’ll find a happy home for these two.  

I made a few blocks for this month’s Siblings Together Bee Mama, Kerry, who wanted some cross blocks. Unfortunately I have a problem with my main machine, so my little mechanical machine came to the rather noisy rescue with sewing these together.  I don’t think it’s been used since before the first lockdown, so a bit of oil helped it along and it did the job well.

Progress has been coming along on my cross stitch and the cannon looks less like a tractor now.  I’m working on the lower end of the shield.  Still chipping away.

As we’ve been able to out and about a bit David and I visited Bicton Garndens, at Budleigh Salterton, which I wrote about here, which was just delightful. We actually went away to stay in Derbyshire this last weekend and I will write about this in the next post in a day or two, so watch out for that.

Meanwhile during July I have been enjoying lots of sweet peas.  They are passing over now but it’s been lovely to see them in vases and to give some away. The packet of seeds were in the Mothers Day card from my daughter Sarah, as the day was during lockdown in March.

Just gorgeous and the smell was delightful. In the last pic I gathered some along with rhubarb and strawberries.  Even made a small batch of strawberry jam, which I’ve not tried making before.  It was lush!

So there’s been a bit of everything in July.  I’m going to link up with Mini Archie’s July Furtle Around the Blogosphere.  

I’ll be back soon with our trip away.