Inside and Outside

We've been busy outside over the New Year 'holiday' in the wind, rain and snow. There have not been many opportunities for taking the camera outside. Due to circumstances and work commitments we decided winter would be a good time to start our field fencing.

The light is fading here in north west Scotland at around 4pm so time to retreat inside, get cleaned up and settle down to some knitting. Various projects are nearing completion and some about to start...Knitting wool arrived in the post last week from Jamieson's of Shetland for a new project.

Socks on the needles soon to be finished...

Logs for the fire...

Spending as much time as possible sat in front of this...

Time for tea and cake...

Cake made using this recipe I blogged about here, leaving out the lemon for this and adding dried cranberries and sultanas. It was an experiment which turned out well... Need to do more work outside in the wind and rain to burn off the calories!

Long Days of Light

Some sunny yellow flowers from the croft field.

Have been enjoying the very long hours of daylight and particularly good weather this summer here on the west coast of Scotland. The picture below was taken at 10pm on the evening of 20th June when the sun was still setting and casting light on the hillside opposite. Although it's still light at that time, now in early August, it's not enough to see for reading and knitting.

The long awaited 'Fleece and Fibre Source Book' by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarios has arrived by post. I'm still perusing this weighty publication and will share more about it soon, just to say it has been worth the wait.

There's at last been some produce from the garden - perpetual spinach has been prolific. It goes very well with bacon and mozzarella on homemade pizza.

The courgettes are also starting to develop, the cold start didn't help these at all.

Lots of left over ends of yarn about 9 metres in length in various colours were used up to make this circular crochet scarf. The rows are alternate single and double crochet.

And finally I'm going to spend some time learning to using a spinning wheel. This lovely piece of machinery has been very kindly loaned to me for as long as I want to use it. So when the evenings start drawing in this will help keep me occupied.