New Projects - inside and out

I have finally gotten around to having a go with Wollmeise.

First I swatched (but not with the colour I was going to use):

To me it feels like cotton to knit with but it came out much softer after washing and blocking.

Deciding on a project was hardest, in the end Raiun won. My project or  Rav Link

Specs:
3.25mm needles
Wollmeise twin in Petit Poison Dark
gauge 6sts/ 8 rows per inch

Things I have learnt:

Provisional Cast On.  A simple figure 8 cast on. You can just see the wonky stitches where the marker is denoting the Cast on row. It took me an hour to get this right, I nearly gave up.Looks ok though, I will try to snug the stitches up later.

 M1P = Make one purl, yep I have never done this before either. Some are a little wonky until I got it right. I bit the bullet and looked it up rather than trying to work it out myself. I couldn't decide whether to pick up the bar from front to back or back to front.

There are a few mistakes right up near the beginning of the sleeve increases. A purl that should have been a knit etc.  This is where I second guessed the designer's plan and changed a knit to a purl because I thought the pattern ribbing would not be correct. So I have learnt to trust the designer in future and just go with the pattern. I will not try to fix it by dropping it down and picking back up because I know what will happen if I drop down 7 rows and can't get back up sounds easy but it's near another lifted increase and I just know i could stuff it up really well so I will live with it. Yes, I can do that, I can live with imperfection, just watch me.
It is actually bugging me a lot but it's such a tiny thing that no-one will see because my hair will be covering it up. So shhh, no-one will know it's there but me.

Outside of the house we have been developing our veggie garden this long weekend.
So far we have planted corn, tomatoes, coloured silverbeet, lettuce, leeks, capsicum, zucchini, carrots and basil.
We also have most of our dwarf fruit trees in. We have 2 apples, 2 nectarines, peach and an orange, we are still looking for a dwarf mandarin. Most trees are full of blossoms.

Here's the resident gardener planting out the ornamentals. The veggie patch is the part covered in pea straw at the back. This is where our big double shed used to be.

We also have the formal ornamental part complete with pot:

I reckon the pot will get blown over in a strong wind gust but we will see. It looks crooked but I keep telling myself that is part of the optical illusion of the pot's design.  Either its that or already on its way over.

Must include a pic of our water feature now that we have pots next to it:

Finally the obligatory kitteh pictures.
They are sneaky, I opened the craft room door to hang up some laundry indoors (didn't want pea straw on the freshly laundered clothes) Kitty snuck in, ignored my stern NO, jumped up on the sofa and immediately snuggled in as if she had been asleep for ages.  Andy soon followed her.

They had swapped places from where they first were, my guess is that Andy went to bite snuggle Kitty so she got up and moved away from him and he took her spot - this happens a lot.

The best part is no more uni until January next year, well one more assignment to submit but it is DONE, just hanging on to it because I always think of other things to add after submitting, yay. I'm taking Summer Semester off this year before I burn out. That leaves just 4 units to go then I will be finished. Two each year as two units are full on practicums, one music which should be easy and an Entreprenurial Professional something or other.

So the next few months will be focusing on making resources for my current class- still working as a School Services Officer in Special Ed, unpacking the many boxes still in the shed, putting my craft room in order (no pictures because it is too messy at the moment) and knitting -can't wait to try out my new garnrollenhalter that came today:

It spins so quietly and effortlessly releases your yarn as you knit. A combined bulk order with a Ravelry group. I had been using this:

from here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Rotating-Yarn-Holder/
This one is noisy as the lazy susan is very rattly. However it did work quite well and the noise was ok after a while. I simply Blu-Tacked a small lazy susan spinner onto the bottom of a CD spindle, nowhere near as complicated as the linked project. It needed the whole spindle to spin and not have the yarn rotating around the stick part causing friction.

So...I have Raiun to complete then on to a Featherweight Cardi in Wollmeise lace (Im Jahr Der Ratte), Ardelise in Bendy (Red Tweed) oh and I must make a Vanadium Bendy Classic 5 ply (Cranberry) and I must make Elfe too though not necessarily in that order. What's on your To Do list?