Still alive and kickin' II

Hello my dear readers! Did you miss me? I was very quiet for quite a while now.. Life was so busy, I tell ya'! Mainly because of the end-semester-exams and other uni stuff. But also because of family and friends, real life stuff. ;-) BUT... I wasn't lazy at all and I'll show you some of my projects the next days, I promise!
I the meantime you can enjoy this picture I took on a botanical field trip end april/beginning mai. There were fields and fields of wild garlic blooming in the forest and they were so beautiful! Imagine a peaceful spring morning, birds singing in the trees, the sunlight falling down through the light green leaves and the smell... Oh yeah, the smell. I was overwhelming!

Spring Shrug - First attempt in pattern design

As some of you may already know, I taught myself how to knit some months ago and now made my first self designed piece! I made it for a swap on Craftster and it's now living in Sweden with my lovely swap partner Maria. It was quite a challenge to design, plan, and finally make this shrug, but I managed without ripping it, yay! :-)

I'm currently working on a second shrug for myself, made of a different material, and plotting and improving the pattern. I'm thinking about posting it here and on ravelry as soon as it's finished. What do you think? Would you like to get this pattern? It would be a one size fits most, big enough because I'm a big girl, but easy to make smaller for people with intermediate knitting skills.

The most breathtaking sweet little babies...

Seriously: aren't they sweet? I want to have sheep. And lambs, lots of them. :-P

And mommy's pretty, too

Spring's almost here!

I'm pretty sure that spring's almost here... :-)

 

 

Garden Plans

It's february now and time to make some garden plans! What will I have this year?! So difficult to decide! Have you ever pondered over a seed catalogue? If you haven't, it's like beeing a little girl in a toy store! Oh, I want this, I want that! And I absolutely NEED that! I have an itsy-bitsy tiny garden with aweful ground. And the place where my plants get enough sun is even tinyer. That's why I'm having a container garden. That also means very limited space. Luckyly, there are a lot of plants which grow well in containers. 

I went through my stash of last seasons seeds and decided to be strong and only buy the absolute minimum! Be frugal, girl, use what you already have.. But, there're at least some plants I NEED..

Last years chilis were awesome and I'm a sucker for cool looking chilis. That's why I bought four new chili sorts.

 

 Red Cap Mushroom-capsicum sinense

Don't they look cool?! It has a 4 on the 5point scala, so it's quite hot.

Black Hungarian chili-capsicum annuum. It's only a three, but the green leaves should be highlighted by purple veins. So pretty! And black chilis are cool! : D

Sweet Hungarian Pepper-Capsicum annuum. The dried and ground fruit gives you the real hungarian red and sweet pepper. Now I have a whole summer to find out how to grind them..

Tequilla Sunrise Chili-Capsicum annuum, Pro Specie Rara

I needed more colour and this yellow is just lovely.

I have a deal with a good friend: We'll exchange the plants we don't need. So I'll get at least two or three sorts more. YAY!

I love herbs, too. I already have some (Sage, mint, rosemary) and I have seeds for basil. I need more (thinking about making my own garden herb soap!) I decided on St.John's wort and borrage because I think borrage is pretty. (Silly me..) I will also have verveine and bee balm.

 

All pictures taken  here

Early Spring

 I finally managed to get some of those ubber cool glass vases in which you can grow hyacinths. I love hyacinths! They smell sooo good! And they're a piece of spring in the middle of winter. Those bulbs should make white ones. I can't wait for them to grow. What a lovely contrast: Red vases and white flowers against the gray winter sky...