Macro

The first day of Spring in Lincolnshire leaves a lot to be desired. Plans to take our four legged friends to the coast (for me as much as them) have been shelved until the rain stops. The last time we took a drive out to the coast it was sou’wester weather and we spent much of it clutching a weak mug of tea in a steamed up fish and chip shop.

Harvey has experienced the sea and sand on numerous occasions but we’ve only had Riley for three years and can’t quite remember whether he’s been to the coast with us. He’s certainly been everywhere else imaginable, forests, nature reserves, canal side walks, lakes, country parks, camping. He loves car journeys and looks out of the window constantly on even the longest road trips. I suppose the rain does give me a bit of extra time to do some amateur dog grooming. Neat coats make for less mud, well a little bit less anyway.

Another wip bites the dust this week. It was quite a tedious and long sewing up job and took me most of the Sunday football match that M and J watched yesterday. There were a gazillion ends to weave in too. Overall I’ve no idea whether the finished jumper will be a good fit or not. It looks long in the sleeves and short in the body to me. I’d use a yarn with a bit more fuzz if I made one again, that way the cables would still be defined but not as clearly as they are with this yarn. The pattern called for three balls of 100g dk yarn but this size has only needed two. If I pay attention to yardage I might be able to make another using a dk tweed yarn from my stash. On the other hand, why make something twice when there is so much choice out there?

M ran a few errands this morning, mainly dog food purchases and men’s toiletries. I swear that M and J use ten times the amount of toiletries than I do. I have mentioned the ozone layer on more than one occasion. Today though, I did not. M spotted an inexpensive clip on lense for phone cameras and thought I might like it for blogging. I love it. It actually has three lens; macro, wide angle and fish eye. I’m having trouble wth the tiny screw thread on the wide angle one but the other two work perfectly. I’ve spared you the fish eye photographs of both the dogs noses!

The macro lense is incredible. That yarn close up is lace weight can you believe? I’m not sure how often I will use it for blogging but it’ll be a lot of fun for nature and wildlife subjects. OK maybe just nature. I tried the four legged wildlife in the house for close ups and they move too much. I need to teach them to stay still for a reward or maybe a tennis ball. I’m not proud of this particularly, but I taught one of my previous Springer Spaniels to balance a dog chocolate button on his nose for however long i wanted him to and then with a nod or raise of one eyebrow from me he would flip it in the air and catch it. I was young, is all I can say, there is so much more you could train a dog to do. Alerting me to the doorbell would have been more useful for a start!

I’ve now got four quite monotonous wips to tackle. I will probably stick with M’s linen stitch scarf to start with. I’ve realised that projects get shoved to one side when a potential problem creeps into my mind. In this case I think I might need a third ball to make it a wearable length and I’m also wondering about the yarn I’ll need for the tassels. I’m going to ignore those niggles and see what happens when the yarn runs out.

The other three monotonous projects are another scarf, socks and the blanket currently pictured in my header. I think I can at least find some enthusiasm for finishing the blanket because it’s going to be much needed when M finishes the teardrop trailer this year and we take it on its first camping trip. I’ve got a blue vintage suitcase packed with vintage goodies to kit the trailer out with so crochet blankets fit the bill nicely. I’m working on M to agree to doing Route 500 some time later this year. So far, every time I mention Scotland he mentions midgies. They can’t be that bad surely?