Knitting Traditions............

My mam was a brilliant knitter, there was nothing she liked better to do when relaxing than work her woolly magic.

She made all her grandchildren umpteen cardigans, jumpers, hats and blankets.... She made presents for people and she also made little hats to put into boxes for the ' Shoebox' appeal at Christmastime.

She couldn't understand why I preferred to knit small things like toys, she always thought they were 'too fiddly'.

One item that I really loved which she made was this little hooded cardigan modelled by baby Gabe. It always looked so warm and snuggly on and I've got them all wrapped away in a box upstairs.

My friend is due to have a baby in 10 days time and I thought it might be nice if I carried on the knitting tradition and made one of these cardigans for the new baby.

It's a bit out of my comfort zone and might take me a while but so far so good.

Watery ??

Gabe asked me if I would make him a blue elephant .......... so I did.

The pattern said that the finished size would be approximately 24cm in height . I think it turned out just slightly bigger.

Oh, and if you're wondering why this post is titled ' Watery' well that's because that is the name that the elephant has been given!!

Durham........

Last week we decided to have a trip to Durham. We being myself and the boys, Dad and my nephew Callum.

Dad had said that he wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens as he and mam used to like to go and see the daffodils in bloom.

 

Instead of going straight there up the main road we decided to go the long way around and have a walk along the river, which was much more picturesque.

It didn't take us long to get to the gardens and our first stop was the Hothouse where the cacti grow. I wouldn't like to fall on the spikes on this one .... OUCH !!

Gabe took a liking to the Millenium Bug and baby bug . They are only on loan to the gardens at the minute but hopefully they will become a permanent feature.

He didn't want to be in the 'boys' photo as he preferred  to hide in the bamboo with the Japanese Samurai warrior. He's a strange child sometimes that one!

Unfortunately the daffodils were nowhere near in flower probably due to all the bad weather we've had , but there were some lovely Hellebores.

It just means that in a couple of weeks we'll have to go back to see the daffodils .... it's not such a bad thing though as the boys and I have never been here before and it will be nice to explore a bit more.