Winging it

Butterflies! Nooooo not the Wendy Craig sitcom (btw - if you know it, I am as good a cook as Ria if ever you fancied popping round for tea. No? oh. shame that.)  - these pretty insects! (click to see it bigger like)

 

For fact fans: L-R starting with top left: Common Blue, Small Tortoiseshell, Painted Lady, Cabbage White, Peacock & Small Tortoiseshell, Common Blue, Small Copper, Red Admiral, Peacock.

I love butterflies. Can you tell? We have a massive, overgrown buddleia in the garden, and every time Mr Yaffle goes out with his pruning equipment I always run across the lawn flapping about and yelling out for him not to chop it. At all. It's covered in butterflies every year and I love it. I don't care if it's grown over the path, through the shed roof, over the allotments and into Council Complaint territory, the butterflies love it. I think they must get drunk on the nectar, as they stay still long enough for me to get really close with the camera. Unlike this creature which I snapped when I was out on the dog walk this morning:

 

A deer! You can make it out, can't you? I know I'm no Simon King but the zoom on my point-and-shoot seemed to capture it. Ish...I must've been 200 yards away (hey! that's nearly half a skein of yarn!).

Away from naturewatch and in yarny news, I've been busy crocheting (non-crochet fans look away now!).

 

It's for my pal Rosie (helloooo!!) who's expecting a mini hooman bean fairly soon. I've almost finished it, just a few more rows and all the ends to weave in. It's a ripple pattern from this book - I think it looks like a helter-skelter!

 

And here it is just before the dog came and lay on it. (only joking...it'll be free of Dylan hair, honest). Although keeping my dog off the best drapes, the newspaper, an open book, the naked sofa (get a cover on it! get a cover on it! it'll be covered in paw marks!!), new bedclothes, new jeans, new clothes, best suits, new doormats, fabric laid out for pattern cutting - well, keeping him off anything is an art in itself. With treats for bribery and a cunning plan known as 'putting my work back in the basket' I've managed to keep him off this blanket so far...paws crossed I can keep it up!

Bodice-ripping

I have unpicked, re-sewn, unpicked, gathered, sworn at, hacked at, and re-sewn the bodice of this so many times this weekend.  I couldn't get the gathers right at first, so had to undo it. And undo the wretched thing again when I found that, after gathering it, it still didn't fit my non-existent bust. (Summed up by my experience of first buying a bra in Littlewoods in Barnsley, at the age of 11. The shop assistant laughed: "You what, love? What size???! you might as well wear a piece of elastic!!" Oh how I miss Northern candour) After all this ripping, the poor bodice is beginning to look like the dog chewed it.

 

I also had to undo the interfacing I'd lovingly sewn at the top of the dress too, because it gave the neckline all the softness of an Elizabethan ruff. So as I'd figured out how to gather things, I added some more round the neckline.

 

Now I'm just sewing the sleeves - with more gathered bits! This dress has more puff than all the pastries at Betty's Tea Rooms put together!

 

That took most of my energy (cold still apparent) so the rest of the time I've been sitting on the sofa finishing off my crochet blanket. That's right - something has actually been finished in this house!

 

I had to take it outside to photograph so the dog wouldn't sit on it. He is rather fond of the blanket, possibly more keen on it than I am...(it's primarily a leftovers blanket, and like most leftovers, it tasted much better the night before.) Right - after that Herculean effort I think I shall slump onto the sofa with the heavy crocheted monster and not move for a few hours...!

Rippling yarns*

Thanks so much for all the votes and suggestions about the stripes! I had no
idea so many of you would like it. When you're working alone and only have the dog as a focus group (one woof for 'yes', two woofs for...oh, there goes a squirrel, forget it) it really helps to have some input from you all! I'll dye some stripey yarn up and stock it in the
Laughing Yaffle shop when it's up and running. Not long now, just a few
tweaks to the website, and some of yer actual yarn for the shop and it will be ready!

I've been working on the ubiquitous ripple blanket this week. I pick it up during the winter months as it's at least 30 degrees warmer underneath it, so it's impossible to work on even in the English summers...

It's one of the patterns from the Jan
Eaton Ripple Book and I'm using up yarn from my (shameful) stash. It's
mostly DK yarn leftovers from other projects, plus some really soft Sirdar Blur which
makes the blanket really comfy and fuzzy (and no itchy and scratchy in sight).

 Oh. And let's not forget the 1% dog hair content. Wouldn't be quite the same without it!

*PS if you haven't seen Ripping Yarns as part of your Great British Comedy education then you must. Them's the rules.