Signs Of Spring

This glorious weather was an absolute treat this morning! It was mild and sunny until about early lunchtime when it clouded over and the wind chill got up, but before then.... beautiful! I actually managed to spend about an hour in the garden with some crochet, just listening to the seagulls and soaking up some much needed Vitamin D.

We have a fantastic Hazel tree at the bottom of the garden, which at this time of year absolutely drips golden catkins. It looks like a frozen shimmering waterfall, especially in the sunshine which highlights the yellow of the buds and contrasts beautifully with the blue of the sky.

It was whilst sitting out in the garden that I noticed lots of our Spring flowers have burst through and turned their smiling faces upwards. We have crocuses and snowdrops and primroses all adding their delicate colour to the garden and making the warmer months seem just that little bit closer.

We popped round to my Grandmother's house this afternoon and I had a quick wander around the garden to see what's happening. This house is still quite new to us as she only moved in in November 2015, and things are still springing up in the garden that we had no idea were there. She has a species of giant snowdrop flowering happily alongside a normal sized snowdrop. The buds are enormous and the stems twice as high!

She's also got this fantastic tree growing in the very corner of the garden. I have absolutely no idea what it is other than an incredible curly-wurly branched explosion tree! Look at the wiggles it's got going on there! It reminded me a little of the crochet shawl I have been asked to make for a display at work. After settling down with it yesterday in complete silence and fuelled with coffee and scrambled eggs, I finally cracked it!!

I don't like to be beaten by a pattern so was quite relieved to suddenly have that sunburst of realisation when you figure out the rhythm. Once you have the feeling for a pattern it becomes almost automatic...almost (there was still quite a lot of undoing when the fingers got too confident in themselves and made a wrong move).

These images were taken halfway through with six more panels to go. I have now finished the complete shawl but the light is not good enough for me to photograph it and I shall have to leave you with some suspense! Currently I am trying to figure out the pattern for a flower fastener that goes with this to help secure the shawl in a pretty way. I think it's the pattern wording that's stumping me- I'm more of a visual learner than a reader and some diagrams would have been helpful!!