It’s September and the gardening season is winding to a close, just as I’m thinking of doing some after a long, hot summer of avoiding garden work like the plague! Aside from a couple of good days of weeding and dead-heading, I have done very little. On the other hand, amazingly, the garden is still giving me a great deal of visual delight. I worry about invading plants/weeds that have come out of nowhere, but the plants that are the tried and true warriors are still there, blooming and beautiful. I feel a bit of déjà vu here but I can’t help it if it keeps on being true! The bee balm, the black-eyed Susans, the obedient plants, the phlox, the hostas… they are my true old friends.. the ones who don’t hold it against me when I ignore them for months. They always seem glad to see me when I do my regular stroll around the garden.
My faithful cardinal couple and a good view of my roses
I’m inserting a couple of photos from the 2018 Tranquil Garden, for the record, so to speak, to catch up you on the activities that have been going on behind my back. In the next two weeks I plan to fill in the blank spot I created earlier in the summer (see last post!) by heading to Jasmin and buying another hydrangea, since I had such luck with the one my sister and I planted in the front garden. I am hoping to get a different variety, but I may have to take whatever’s left at this point. In order to keep costs down, I’m planning to divide existing plants where possible to fill in around the hydrangea, which will be in the corner. My sister, Nora, has suggested I add a large rock to that area and also, that I might want to clean up another corner of the garden that has gone to seed a bit. That area has become my ad hoc compost pile, for garden waste that doesn’t go to the city’s compost. Unfortunately, Montreal only has garden waste pick-up for a month in the spring and a month in the fall. Annoying during the months in between!
So, next week, when the weather finally cools off, I will get some planting and tidying up done in the garden and I’ll feel as though I’ve given my patient, long-suffering garden a little boost before winter arrives. Believe it or not, this week was still too hot to tempt me to get in there until today!
Knitting news
While not in the garden I’ll be inside working on my newest sweater project, Birkin, by Caitlin Hunter. The knitting world seems to be on a Caitlin Hunter (aka Boyland Knit Works) craze lately, with some people determined to knit every pattern she puts out. However, I have not found myself attracted by most of her sweater patterns. This one and the Zweig are exceptions to the rule. She knits her sweater samples in colourways I wouldn’t normally pick or that I actively dislike. I’m aware one needs to get beyond that in order to evaluate a pattern, but I’m also very choosy about colourwork. Sometimes, her sweaters look like she cast on and just kept adding whatever took her fancy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it can be very therapeutic, but I like a yoke that has some visual logic and symmetry to it and I don’t often find it in her patterns. The Tecumseh sweater, which has the world by storm, is very logical and symmetrical but I dislike the little crosses all over it. Is it because I’m an atheist? I know the crosses are not necessarily religious symbols, but I still squirm at the thought of having them all over me.
Getting back to the Birkin, I love the yoke of this sweater, probably because it has flowers and (no duh) I love flowers! It has lovely strings of leaves above and below the lines of flowers, which seem to contain them, and I find the effect pleasing. I was going to knit the Branches and Buds sweater by Carrie Bostick Hoge, but having had it on my queue for probably two years, I’ve apparently gotten tired of it without even casting on. The two patterns are quite similar but the Birkin has more interesting colourwork so I’m opting for that. Luckily, I can use the yarn I bought for the Branches and Buds, so all is not lost and I can still knit (at least mostly) from stash. I may have to buy a couple of mini-skeins for the contrasting colours.
Dave modelling his Cathedral Grove Cardigan
In other knitting news, I’ve FINALLY cast off my husband’s cardigan! Yes, the Cathedral Grove is done and DONE! Unless I have to frog back the sleeves a bit, because they are actually a little long. Sigh… I was so afraid this sweater would be too tight for him that I knitted a couple of extra rows for the button band and was generous with the sleeves. Oh, well, I’m overall very happy with it. The cables look great and I really love this pattern. Thank you, Josée Paquin!!
I’m planning to record a podcast of The Guilty Knitter soon so that I can show off my FO’s and WIPs but in the meantime, this update will have to do. I’d really like to blog regularly, but I’ve said that in the past and somehow haven’t been able to make it a habit. We’ll see!
In completely unrelated news, my daughter, Erica Lee Martin, has just released a video to go with the new album/EP she has just released!! So exciting! Please find the link below to check out the video on Youtube!
I love to hear from you!