Hello! Please meet the latest additions to our household: three tiny chicks. With just two ancient hens left, it was time for some new life in our chicken coop. Not all of the eggs we put in the incubator hatched, and sadly one of the four chicks that did hatch died soon afterwards, but we’re very happy to have three healthy, lively, fluffy, adorable speckled chicks.
Ideally they’ll turn out to be one cock and two hens, but they may just as well be three hens (fine too) or three cocks (not really what we’re hoping for). We’ll wait and see.
With the new chicks, fresh green leaves unfurling on the currant bushes, fat blossom buds on the pear tree and many bulbs in flower, spring has truly sprung in the garden.
On the knitting front, it’s as if it’s a little earlier in the year. Do you know that feeling? You can feel that all kinds of things are happening below the surface, but above ground there is very little to be seen as yet.
I have made some progress on my Linea socks, though, and the foot of the first sock is finished.
I started out doing the cables without a cable needle, as a fast and easy method. (All the cables are basically just pairs of two stitches crossed in front or behind each other.) But after an inch or so, I noticed that they didn’t look great. Especially looking at the tiny cable to the left of the diamond, I think you can see what I mean.
Along the bottom half of the diamond (without cable needle), the tiny cables look irregular and sort of angular. Along the top half of the diamond (with cable needle), they are more regular and rounded, as well as more open in the centre. So from here on I’m using a cable needle, even if that means slower progress.
The rest of my knitting is still in the incubation stage. I keep lists of the projects I want to focus on now and would like to knit someday in this notebook.
For me, old-fashioned hand-written notes on paper still work best. With ideas and notes in computer files it is often a matter of ‘out of sight is out of mind’. And the actual act of writing things down by hand seems to connect to a different, more creative part of my brain than typing does.
The notebook was a souvenir from France, and the cover is a design by Gaëlle Boissonnard. I adore her work. Her blog can be read here – it gives a lovely insight into her creative process. Google doesn’t do a great job translating her poetic texts, but just looking at her images is inspiring, too.
Feeling frustrated by the slowness of my creative process, I was thinking of the garden. Why can’t my projects flower now, like the hyacinths and all the other spring bulbs? And then I discovered that I just need to be a little more patient, because I’m a sunflower!
You can find out what flower you are by taking this quiz. Have fun!
Och wat leuk die kuikentjes, hierdoor krijg je naast de kleurige bloemen nog meer een lentegevoel!
Ja, zo leuk, en ze groeien hard! Voor mij is de lente nu echt begonnen.
Thank you for this! I am a sunflower too!
The baby chicks are wonderful! I used to hatch them each year that I taught kindergarten. Brings back great memories!
Hello fellow-sunflower, haha. What a wonderful thing to share with your kindergarten kids, baby chicks. Our grandson (1 next week) is coming to visit soon to take a look at them.
De kuikens zijn schattig! En ook een zonnebloem…
Ja, echt schattig, dat kleine grut. En wat grappig, nog een zonnebloem!