Fabulous Flowers

I love flowers. I spent a lot of time in the garden as a child and have always dreamed of one day having a house with an enormous garden. Shortly after we moved in, our landlady announced she wanted to concrete over our garden and I was devastated! Luckily she soon changed her mind, and even if our grass is slightly lacking in fullness, we have some lovely fragrant flowers.

I also have a very good macro setting on my camera, and so love to take close ups of stunning flowers - especially one's that you can't quite believe are real! Here are some recent photos:

Ever Heard Of An Ankylosaurus?

Me neither. But he featured in my Knitted Dinosaurs book and looked pretty awesome.

Throughout my dinosaur and zoo animal making escapades, I have gradually been improving my knitting techniques and learning new skills, so they have been incredibly beneficial. I've learnt: Loopy Stitch, Picot Edging, and Bobbles, amongst others. The Ankylosaurus (meaning Fused Lizard) has bobbles all over his back, interspersed with a knitting and purling geometric pattern, so I thought he would be perfect for my next challenge.

For the bobbles, the pattern is as follows: 

Row 1. (k1, yf, k1, yf, k1) into next stitch

Row 2. P5

Row 3. Turn, K5

Row 4. Turn, P2tog, P1, P2tog

Row 5. Turn, Sl1, K2tog, Psso

 

And what do dinosaurs do in their spare time....play dinosaur dominoes of course!!

Beautiful Beach Huts

Last year, in addition to my usual sewing and knitting activities, I spent a lot of time playing about with card and making some houses and beach huts for the Baby Boden Spring & Summer shoots. Below are some of the images.

 

Oh, and I also made some paper windmills! So much fun!

Whipsnade Zoo

As my growing menagerie of knitted animals have been so well behaved recently, I treated them to an outing to Whipsnade Zoo. Having not been there for probably around 10 years, I was thrilled to find that it was just as exciting as the last time I'd been. I think Brian, Percival, Arnold and Trevor had fun too!