Secret Crochet Flowers

I haven't been posting many pictures, because I seem to have been mostly doing secret projects.



These flowers were for a swop on knittingforums. We were supposed to have knitted during May and sent them by the beginning of June.

I choose a pattern from Knitting Loves Crochet, for the Ice-blue Openwork scarf. The knitting was easy, but there were also a load of crochet flowers. Each flower took a lot longer to make then I was expecting. When it came to sewing them in place - each flower had 4 ends to finish, and was held in place by 5 sets of two or three stitches. There were over 100 bits of sewing to do, on a three colour scarf!

It finally got posted a month late and the package had arrived. However the woman I'd knitted for was away and hadn't seen it. So I didn't want to put pictures on my blog, jon the off-chance she saw them.

I thought the leek looked fresh

Today's tea was going to be pork and leek stir-fry.

Well, that was until I saw the caterpillar, which had been hiding in the leek:



I did what everyone does in the circumstances:

1. shrieked
2. called the children for an impronto natural history lesson
3. decided to add it to the pot for extra protein
4. got out the camera

OK, maybe everyone doesn't do all of those - darn thing tried to make its' escape:



(I took it to the compost heap, along with the rest of the leek.)

Meme

Penny tagged me from a meme ages ago, and although I've had it written up for a while, I haven't posted it.

So here goes:

The Rules: Each player answers the five questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What I was doing 10 years ago:
Ten years ago I was pregnant with my last child and feeling overwhelmed.

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

• Write a blog post


• Ring up about car insurance


• Do lots of washing


• Cast on for an adipose baby


• Write the Scout Group minutes

3. Snacks I enjoy:
Cherry tomatoes, marmite crisps, pineapple, coffee and walnut cake.

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire:
I posed this question to the family and Kiddo said she would write a will. After a little more reflection that she added that she would put the money in the bank. A child after my own heart, especially as I think she really would..

First I'd buy a big house, and install some staff to do the boring-but-necessary stuff - a cook/housekeeper, a gardener, some kind of tutor/governess/nanny/chauffeur, a secretary.

Then I would buy a building in the next village, the one with a main road running through it, and open a shop which sold yarns and fabric, to use as my own personal stash. There would be one or two managers (it makes sense for there to be one for the wool and one for the fabric). When new ranges came in, I'd put some aside for my own personal use, but if I changed my mind, they would go back into the shops main stock.

For my creative time, I would only make the things I wanted to, knowing that if they weren't of any use to my family or friends, I could put them into a rich person's charity raffle and the time taken to make them would not be undervalued.

Meanwhile I would buy as full a set of Robert Recorde's books as possible - he wrote the "Pathway to Knowledge", "Castle of Knowledge" etc. I would probably buy a copy of "Historia Piscium" (in English - "the History of Fishes"), which is a notorious book in the history of science. I'd really delve into some topic, researching and writing books about it. I'd follow Brian May's example and work on a PhD.

For charitable work, I would use some money to promote the study of science, right from primary school through to university level. It would probably be physics/astrophysics or chemistry which I concentrated on, but maths would be in there too.

Essay - all done

Well, I have at last finished my 2000 word essay on English Natural Philosophy 1660-1720. I hope my tutor doesn't mind that that I said there was "a confusing web" of ideas.

My creative impulse has been to make a XXXX for a swop, and until I know the swoppee has got it, I won't be posting about it.

I also gave a Greek geometry lesson to Kiddo's class during their Ancient Greek Day. That was fun, and they seemed impressed that you could draw an equalateral triangle using a ruler and compasses. I'm tempted by the idea of going into help with maths on a more regular basis...

It also gave me a chance to see what the other mums had done about costumes. Put it like this: Kiddo was the only Hoplite, but I saw a lot of bed-sheets.

I've started making water bottle carriers for our summer holiday. I ought to take some photos...