Flaming June

Pardon? "Flaming June"? More like "flamin' weather". I took my girls with my MIL to Wonderland today, and we had a good time but returned home thoroughly soaked and cold. As we got on Teddy's Train back to the Town Park, my youngest daughter said "Look Mommy, I've got dragon's breath" - meaning she could see her breath as it was so cold!

Still, I'm warm and dry now, although my hair still looks like it's been electrocuted - no I'm not posting a pic of that.. ;-)

I forgot to say the other day I bought a bracelet from Oasis to match my Beach Tank, and it matches quite a few other of my garments very nicely too:

Oooh.. more beach inspiration..

I was playing around with yarn for the cover top of the June '05 Sandra mag, and worked up a swatch using 2 strands of Rowan Linen Drape. I managed to purchase a huge bag full of Linen Drape in a sale a few months back for the disgustingly bargain-atious amount of 50p per ball. You should have seen me, balancing as many balls as I could in my arms with it falling all over the place while I raced to the till before anyone else could get their mitts on any of it.. ;-)

After all that excitement, I really didn't know what to do with it as there is a mixture of 6 complimentary but different shades and I've gone off stripes. This swatch has shown me the light! I don't think it would be stretchy enough for the top, but I adore the look, and so I think I'll be cooking up another design on Knitware Sweaters for this very shortly:

Yum!

As for the Sandra top, I got sick of being saintly and trying to find something to make do from my stash. So I bit the bullet and ordered the yarn specified in the pattern, which is Lana Grossa "Presto", from Wollywood in Germany - I even bought the same shade pictured (06) as I seem to be going through a blue phase in my knitting right now. I'll let you know when it arrives!

As for my other purchases this week, they're completely non-knitting related, but I got almost as excited about them.
They include a fab new Breville Diva steam iron in pink!

Yes, I'm excited about my new iron.. Does that make me a sad individual?!

And also a new little house for my seedlings, which I've been contemplating for the last 2 years so it was hardly an impulse buy:

Snug as a bug - hopefully not!

Oh, and a couple of flower pics for today; firstly my newly-planted hanging basket:

I hope it fills out!

Finally the irises which have just started to bloom in front of my white broom which I grew from seed:

Blue and white again..
You can just spot a couple of peony buds at the bottom there too. :-)

Well, time to return to my mohair wrap and crochet diagonal blanket - both of which are getting close to completion. Watch this space..