What's on my needles - August 2010

Yesterday we had summer, a beautiful "Sunday". July - and August so far - were dull and often autumn-like. July was reported as one of the wettest on record in Ireland. It didn't feel like that here, there wasn't such large amount of rain, but it was constantly damp without much sun.

But we wouldn't complain, we are happy not to suffer from weather extremes as people do in other countries like Russia and mainly Pakistan at the moment. Am I not lucky to be able to write this now, sitting in a dry room, show pictures of my garden, and of course, to knit?

I'm still doing a lot of double knitting, trying out new patterns in small things like little sachets and purses for example, making some little tapestries as well. Was it yesterday's sun that made me start this piece?

I then realised the different sunny shapes that I can find in the garden, such as the centre of this poppy flower.

Some of the poppies were so wet for so long that their bud walls had got black and were sticking together now. I had to help them to open their flowers by cautiously removing these sticky capsules. My garden is certainly particularly damp because of the trees that surround it. The Mesembryanthemums (is this the right name? In German "Mittagsblumen" - midday flowers) were looking as if to wait for "the" sun since a month or so to flower, and yesterday - finally - some of their flowers opened.

Here I found other suns in dill weed's flowers,

straw flowers




marigolds.

and in Cosmos, which is there again. I had saved seeds of the darkest purple flowers last year. Most of them are purple this year, but some are white again.





These are just some of the "suns" shining around here. I'm also always amazed by the textile fibres in some plants, such as in this willow herb.

All the shapes and forms in the plant world amaze me. Here are the seed pots of Aquilegias; even when they are dry and grey and brown, but full of seeds waiting to be shed, they impress.

One of my tapestries was inspired by them, when they were still green, though.

Their other side always looks different, with the colours inverted.

This one was inspired by where I pictured it: The patterns of ivy stems growing at a wall.

Here are Aquilegia pods from another perspective. The shapes and patterns seen in this picture will make it into another little tapestry I feel.