July 4, 2026

The jumper is finished finally! I think I started it in April, after Easter, so it has taken me almost three months to get it done. I’ve blocked it, to try to stretch it out a bit, and while it’s not oversized at all, it fits. The neckline is much too wide, which seems to be how the pattern intended, but I didn’t like it. I sewed in a small elastic around the top to cinch it in a bit. Overall, I love the colourwork, its a beautiful pattern, I like the light weight fine yarn, but yes I would have liked it bigger. I’m hoping I’ll get some use out of it in the autumn.

I have just under half the wool left over, which is annoying, but makes sense. If I were supposed to use up twice as much wool… Honestly, I don’t know how that happened. Anyway, since I basically have enough for another jumper, I’ve decided to start another. I’ve found a different pattern that also uses this exact wool. It’s a more snug fit, so hopefully I’ll have enough yarn. And if not, I’ll leave it to the sleeves at the end and see how far I can get. Maybe I’ll need to have slightly shorter sleeves. So straight onto the next knitting project - because I want to use up all the yarn. 

The new pattern

I went to the allotment a few times this week, uncovering the old raised beds. I planted a few seeds which I’m hoping won’t dry out in the sun. The plot had five raised beds in total and then at the very back is a row of compost bins, which are entirely swallowed by brambles. But I need those compost bins as I’ve got so much green waste. I had already filled up the 3 bins that were at the front of the plot. Hopefully by next year, I’ll have a nice amount of compost.

So I’ve still got to uncover the brambles at the back, but the 5 beds are all uncovered now. I brought over some woodchips from the field to put in the paths and in all the non-planting areas, to make it all look a bit nicer. The next jobs will be to patch up the greenhouse. I’ve ordered a set of shelves to go in there to help organise stuff. I also need to empty out the shed and see what’s lurking in the back. So far I’ve put it off because I know there are some huge spiders living in there. Ive been giving them time to vacate…

On Friday, the big old plum tree (technically a green gage tree) snapped one of its main limbs. It was a calm sunny day… and happened about 10 minutes before I arrived. About a third of the tree, laden with hundreds of growing plums, just broke. No wind at all. It’s quite a shame, and I had to spend my visit clearing it up. My theory is that it is an old tree, over 25 years apparently; it appears to be quite brittle (not sure if because of age or species), and I’ve been pulling on it a lot to remove the grape vine that was invading it. Anyway, a huge part is now gone. And it has me thinking if I should cut off the entire crown over the autumn. Most of the tree is now too tall to harvest plums easily, and i was already thinking it was a shame it had grown so tall. Given that this happened, I think I will take the risk of it not surviving a heavy prune to try to encourage lower branches to grow.

Anyway, that’s a project for the autumn, a bit of tree surgery.

tree accident

post clean up

 

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