so, what's been distracting me from

all you good people? colours, basically. . .

azurite greenand moss greena heather purplethe pink that you find on the inside of a mussel shell (kind of a lavender pink, almost a sky blue pink)a deep dusky rose pink a bright fuscia pink (midway between fuscia and gerbera)a pale pink (that I can't find a match for and won't try to explain); a coral colour similar to orange tomatoesand a bright poppy red yes! you guessed it: my randomly striped acrylic (*GAK*) jumper has taken shape (a shape of my own devising, if you recall - floppy oversized not-quite-a-roll neck with raglan shoulders and a simple rib on the sleeve and body cuffs)

as I knitted away contentedly I was aware that perhaps the only colour missing was a malachite blue. . . (in fact, if I had been knitting with wool it might have been like knitting with gemstones. . . . . .but acrylic yarn is much brighter in its own chemically false way so it's more like knitting with children's plastic beads) (the sort that would be thrown at you during a carnival procession) (I had a friend from when I lived in NYC who was at uni in New Orleans and every year she'd send me a huge envelope filled with Mardi Gras necklaces)

(that's almost what the colours in this jumper remind me of
now I come to think about it)

if I'd added the malachite in, the blue would have made all the other colours sit differently together and that wouldn't have worked at all - see, if the moss green is next to the dusky rose, it looks totally different to how it is next to the orange tomato coral pink and different again next to the magenta of the fuscia; I love it when colours do that - sometimes they blend together seemlessly, sometimes they zing

I hope that whatever project
you have set your mind to today
is completed with total satisfaction
or at least that peaceful feeling of
"good enough"

XXX

three. . . two. . . one. . .

. . .and she's back in the room

dear reader (uh-oh, you know that's not a good start, don't you) (don't worry, I'll spare you) (it's not that bad!) (actually, I'll stop and reconsider)
.

so, with the embroidery progressing well I decide to distract myself by starting to design and knit another jumper (I knitted one recently that I didn't tell you about) (kind of like a cricket jumper) (only banana yellow) (this one has raglan sleeves and a roll-neck jumper that doesn't roll but kind of flops in an overlarge-by-design-manner); the colours are wonderful - they were my inspiration, yarns I found down in Bournemouth (think I forgot to tell you about that as well) - a tweedy deep purple, a gentle lavender, a dusky pink, a verging on turquoise green, a moss green, a tomatoey red, a really bright coral and a vibrant magenta for which blogger doesn't have similar colours, a pale orange. . . sadly the yarn is acrylic (*GAK!!!!*), but then again if it had been anything else then I couldn't have afforded to make the purchase: there you go, needs must and beggars can't be choosers and all that

.

Mini-Teen (only a month to go now before she is thirteen) and I have been replanting lots of plants from the courtyard (mainly lavender and bay, some bamboo, a couple of thyme) into the front "garden" (the planting possibility of which comprises a small strip of dirt in the gap between two sections of brick wall)(oh, and a couple of window boxes) - which has involved digging up and moving all the nasturtium I planted in the gap earlier in the year and many many trips thru the living room with an overfull watering-can, which has involved much spilling and mopping up (it's the upstairs loo saga all over again, only this time it's voluntary)

.

I would *sigh* but actually the results are rather wonderful!

.

(-:

.
so good in fact that I then got the XY Teens to move my thinking bench from the courtyard thru the living room to the front "garden", so I can sit behind the bamboo screen, that now separates the pavement from my gap between the wall and the house windows, and think in dappled sunlight
.

*happy sigh*

.
and now it's raining
.

:-/

.
(but, the plants and gardens need the rain, more than my living room needs flooding, so I'm not going to quibble)

.

sometimes I think it's a good thing that I don't have a more engaging hobby to distract me - like kissing frogs