Lots going on that is not necessarily quilting...

I had to pick up my oleander pots from the gardener where they had spent the winter in late March, and they had to face the temperatures on the terrace. I admit, I did not understand they were delicate towards what we have been experiencing in terms of weather because during the past years it has never been a problem. But this time around, as we are having a rather dry spell with temperatures that are probably much closer to ‘adequate according to long-term average’ than they were during the recent years, so leaving them out on the terrace uncovered during the night was not a good idea at all. Last year I could come up with a gorgeous photo of a ‘tomato oleander’ in its full glory (alas it has been lost to photo clean up on the phone),but at the moment the leaves look rather sad.

 

I will cut them back even further and hope they will recover when it gets warmer. They have been banned from the terrace by my husband, now they are waiting for warmer days just outside the garden door, and when they resprout I will argue for their return to the terrace.

It’s been a week full of events and decisions. (Not exactly how I had planned to spend my first week of vacation.) One of these decisions was the signing of a leasing contract for a brand-new car which I will need soon to accomodate the new situation. I never believed I would ever be the owner of a new car, in fact, I had sort of decided that I wasn’t going to be relying on a car for work commute in my remaining work life. But we live in an area where public transport is virtually non-existant, and certainly nothing to be dealt with in the direction I will be heading for work starting July 1^st. So we did a quick search, one test drive, a calculation, and signed the contract. Of course, it being a lease arrangement, strictly speaking I will not be the owner of the car, unless we buy it off the dealer in four years. I feel much better now (not primarily because of the car) and more at ease, so I suppose it was the right thing to do, although the coming weeks might be a bit of a challenge still, to bring it all to a civilized ending. And then something new will begin.

I finished a sort-of-red sweater, which was knit on rather thicker needles than I had been knitting on for a long time. 

 

A history of tendonitis in my lower right arm had kept me from going above 4mm needles ever since I started back to knitting, and I have always been careful not to overdo it, in order to stay on the safe side. But I wanted to try this three-strand combination, and it required 6mm needles. This sweater was started only a few weeks earlier this year, and as it was so much fun to knit, I actually got very close to overdoing it at some point. So I scaled back in amount of time I would spend knitting in general, and this sweater in particular. But it’s finished now. I used up every little bit of this salmon colored silk lace yarn I still had in my stash, 

 

and almost everything of a handspun sari-silk-thread that had severely discolored when I washed it after taking it off the bobbin. Which was actually the reason why I combined it with the red baby alpaca and the silk lace yarn, as the brownish result of the discoloring had left me rather frustrated.

This is a swatch for another knitting pattern which I received as a
present last week, made from that same sari-silk thread, just to get the hang of the pattern.

 

And this week was a first time for me, ordering a piece of fabric printed with my own photo. This is going to be my next contribution to the 20perspectives challenge, and because the deadline is looming I can’t really change my mind. I like the photo, but am not very happy with the fabric, I had imagined something different. 

 

I will do my best with as it is, but if it were not for the pressure of time I would try to find a different solution. Curious to see how this behaves when being quilted, and how it will turn out.