Phoenix Trail sunny cycling

Yippeeee THIS is just about my MOST favourite colour and shade and tone of BLUE!
Makes my heart go skippety skip, whoopee! Time to dance, to sing, to frolick in the fresh air.

Cup of tea in the sun in the garden and my logbooks and journal/diaries and some heavenly daydreaming as it's 2 weeks to my BIG/HUGE/ENORMOUS birthday ! The hugely eventful one, a real landmark this one. Pff I've been alternatelyy dreading it, making plans, dreaming and then again panicking over it . But hey NO, i'M GOING TO BE EXCITED, I'M really happy to have lived so many decades 14 days from now, there's sooooo much I've learned and experienced and so much that doesn't worry me or bother me anymore that life will be more free and more fun and more ''connected'' and more, well just MORE of EVERYTHING good.

Lovely snake-head frittillaries in a pot.

Purple everywhere in the garden just now.

re-worked the SARDINIA stitch sample in Patons DK cotton and a 4mm hook. In purple of course!

Weirdly, in sunshine the sample matched the flower on the right exactly but on the photo it does not.

Miss Y and I went cycling today, on the Phoenix Trail. Miss E cou;d not/ would not come as '' she had nothing to wear''.( stated whilst sitting in a ''carpet'' of clothes ankle deep)
AAAh the angst of an almost teenager......

So off we went on this idyllic sunny day. Miss Y is way ahead, can you see her?

Here she comes.

Whizzing on by.

Time for a wee rest break. Lovely sculptures on posts, we've always called them the 3 rabbits but we then discussed what else they could really be? That BLUE, though, THAT blue is divine!

Bikes at rest too. Much further on: a field of rapeseed not yet in flower.

We went further and faster than Miss Y had ever been, all the way to Horsenden tennis club in fact, approximately 7.5 miles we estimate. One way. There were also these AMAZING fields of a green, soooo GREEN that they almost glowed with the verdant new growth greeness of it all. EMERALD.

We saw many birds and heard them too and there were many butterflies: Red Admiral and little yellow ones and even a ''crows village'' in that there were 12 or more crows nests all grouped together.

Come on mum!

BRAVO little one YOU have cycled about 15 miles today: WELL DONE and CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from a very very verrryyyy PROUD mum.

Here it is again: that GREEN. Glowing glorious green.

Home again and the yarn from Inside Crochet arrived at long last, only almost a month late and of course AFTER I have cancelled the project? Why is that? Nice though! Might be tempted to try to do it after all?

This was the original design. A little summer ''smock'' top for either of the girls.

I have now had 2 days away from my EBC cupcake project in that I have continued to crochet bases and tops but have not done any embroidery and it is this which takes me so very long.

Had a lovely time on Ravelry on the rainy Wednesday : tracing Katia Bombay- it's in 190 projects, and also Sardinia has already been made by 2 ladies, one in black. Corsica too has already been made by a lady who made it in red. And 13 or more people have made ''Rona'' from the July 2009 Rowan #46 , which I'm thinking of making from my stash or Rowan wool and tweeds in reds and purples. That stash dates for the early 1980's when I bought for over £100- which was a huge amount in those days- enough Rowan wool to knit a cardigan in fairisle and intarsia involving large floral motifs and a border in wools,tweed,kidsilk mohair and chenilles.

My tension was too tight and the yarns got knotted and muddled and I only managed about 20 cm from the hem up.

So yesterday I also tried out a NEW STITCH not just a stitch pattern but actually a whole NEW STITCH. This is SHALLOW Double Crochet. It's in Inside Crochet and on a website: www.melissah.com . It's a very short stitch, shorter than a dc and makes a very firm fabric.

In the orange sample above I have tried a 4mm , a 5mm and a 5,5 mm hook with a DK cotton.

Only the 5.5mm was getting towards a drape- quality fabric.

I found some other stitches to try while on YOUTUBE but more of that another day.

Front and back are almost identical with this stitch.

See you soon and HAPPY HOOKING!