Mr Cockerel Comes Home To Roost

Hello my lovely friends - so nice to have you here again and I hope everything is going well for all of you! A special welcome to newcomers - it's so good to have you here too, and I hope you will find something of  interest here! A big thank you to everyone for your lovely uplifting messages, they really mean so much to me and brighten my days!

First off, I have been longing to show you Mr Cockerel now he is in his frame. I am delighted at the wonderful job Haese's of Albany (Western Australia) did on him, and for anyone  in my locale who is looking for a good framer then I highly recommend them. Some of the silk fabric on Mr C was a little wrinkled when I took him in to be framed, but they managed to stretch it all out and away. What do you think of him now?

Yes, I know, it looks a bit twisted - but that's just my photography!

I've had a bit of a bad week with a cardigan I began to knit and, although I'm showing it to you, (to prove I haven't been idle!) sadly I'm about to 'frog' it! Why, you ask? I have pushed myself to do all of this - the back and most of a front - knowing that it really wasn't 'doing it' for me! I had had this gorgeous soft yarn for ages and been looking for a pattern that I really liked, then one turned up but I knew the yarn really wasn't suitable at all. I worked out the tension and adjusted needles but the pattern was really calling for a more stable yarn all together. I finally came to the realisation that it had to go when I took a closer look at the front band, (which is worked along with the body), and saw that it was nothing like firm enough and that the thing would gape and drop and be a regular nuisance! I'm sure I'm not the first to go through something like this and it's been discussed before: if you're not happy with it it's better to frog and start all over again, so that was the difficult decision reached yesterday. It doesn't help that J keeps saying "But you've spent so much time on it and done so much work!" I will use this beautiful yarn for something else by and by; it's such a lovely light  cocoa colour with a slight dusty pink tinge to it, but difficult to replicate here. Anyway, watch this space!

I bought a new book last week from my local yarn supply shop (A Good Yarn) and it's full of great ideas for borders and edges, and even includes a few projects - scarf, hat, bag, shawl etc.. It's published by Interweave, so uses American crochet terms, but easy enough to translate into the UK terms which is what I use. Kristin Omdahl is the author and she has put out several other crochet and knitting books, besides this one.

That bright razzamatazz pink is my tryout of the Deco Scallops, which was the first of the patterns to grab my attention. Do yourself a favour, if you come across this book do have a look at it. Oh and by the way, I'm not being paid to advertise - I just think it's nice to share with like-minded folks such as yourselves!

The sky was looking a bit threatening on Sunday morning, but isn't it lovely to see a rainbow - especially a 'double' one! Those birds are pink and grey gallahs, not close enough to properly see their lovely colours, but gives you an idea anyway! Incidentally, the rain did come but not until later in the afternoon, and then it poured down!

We took a quick drive right up the top of the Mount Shadforth tourist route and I took a couple of quick pics of the view over to Mount Frankland. What a vast and beautiful land! And isn't that sky wonderful!

And yesterday morning the park was very quiet so I managed to get a few more pics to show you, now that the planting is coming along. You may remember me mentioning this park and the adventure playground that was under construction? Well, a lot more progress has been made and it's such a lovely place for families to spend time together.

Aren't the kangaroo paws quite stunning - these are young yet and will put on a lovely show as they mature.

These pics give a wider view of what's been taking place. The hand-painted tubes on wooden stands 

are what the children use to enable them to speak to each other across the park - for want of the correct word let's just call them 'intercoms' - and they are very popular too, as you can imagine! And some very clever person has been really busy etching and moulding our native species onto hunks of granite - there are quite a few of these scattered around the park.

This is the Chime Construction - I don't pretend to understand how it works but one day a while back we were having a chat with the architect of this wondrous thing and he said that it was to be tuned and balanced - these drops are all secured to the ground and I think the kids can wallop the little shapes against the more solid framework and play music! Well, it certainly looks fascinating to me! I'm sure it cost a small fortune to construct and hope it can stand up to energetic kids' play!

I am so looking forward to getting into some serious crocheting now that the cardigan is 'out of the way' - especially the hexes - I could have had a mountain of those made in the time spent on learning another lesson in life, which is: Listen more attentively to that little voice that tells me it's not quite the right thing!

Wishing you all a happy and satisfying crafty week!

❤Joy xxx