Spring Is Here :)

We've finally had the last cold snap here, and it is now officially Spring - well, I say it is and that's what makes it official ;p

I've been wandering around my garden looking to see what has come back. We had a really cold winter, and the ground was covered in inches of snow for weeks. So I didn't hold out a lot of hope for many of my plants. But most, if not all of them, came back! Yay for hardy perennials! :D




These are the ones I was most surprised at - Asiatic Lilies. There was no way I thought these were strong enough to survive the winter, but I went out my back door the other day, and there they were! I can't wait till they grow and flower, I love lilies!



Another surprise - Dicentra or "bleeding hearts" If you'd seen the mess this was in a few weeks ago, you'd be surprised too. There was nothing, not even a green sprout, just a mess of brown sogginess. Then, all of a sudden, this appeared! :D

A couple more growing pictures:




And some water droplet macros:




And what do you do when it's warming up, and nature is blooming all around you? Why, you knit colourwork mitts of course! ;)





These are the Starstuff mitts by Amy van de Laar - a free ravelry download. I knit them out of Stylecraft Special 4 Ply, using 2.75mm DPNs for the cuffs, and 3.25mm needles for the hand. I like them :D They knit up quite fast, and the pattern was easy to follow once I got the hang of the "extra" stitch at the end of the chart. Basically, you just follow the chart and knit till the last 8st repeat is finished, then you knit stitch no 9 from the pattern, substituting in the "extra" stitch colour. That makes more sense if you're actually reading or knitting the pattern, I wouldn't bother trying to understand me if you're not :)

I'm having a real mitten craze just now, browsing ravelry like mad for colourwork patterns, and I've got 2 other pairs on the needles just now. Just the thing to knit in springtime :)