My Beautiful Courgette

(...with apologies to Hanif Kureishi).

A ring of copper tape around the pot appears to have thwarted the slug menace, or it may just be because I bought in some rufty tufty big plants rather than trying to grow from seed. The leaves are a bit prickly and probably not what my delecate little slugs are used to. First bud appeared yesterday and this sight greeted me when I went to hang out the washing this morning.

I don't think Gracie was quite as impressed as me. Which I can understand because she's not a food-orientated cat. She just likes to make sure her bowl always has something in it but that's about all in the food line. One of the benefits of having always fed her on dry cat food. She doesn't seem to recognise anything else as edible.

Not the brightest bunny in the box!

I've actually been quite productive this week. Last weekend at Woolfest I took the opportunity to spin up some Jacob fleece that's been hanging around since last year. Don't worry, it's all clean. I made the mistake of washing it all in one go and now I have a laundry basket full of the stuff and am slowly working my way through it. A couple of months ago ra lent me her new drum carder (purchased thanks to a particularly improbable Tigers win - see the Knit-Tigger blog for further details) and I carded a bit, or quite a lot if I'd been doing it by hand.

Anyway, having spun it up and plied it, on Friday night I decided to start making it into something. I had a felted duffle bag in mind. I'm a bit of a bag fiend, my obsession with them only overtaken by sunglasses this season. ra's convinced that every time I go shopping I buy a new pair of sunglasses. Actually, every time I go shopping with her I just happen to buy a new pair of sunglasses. This is not the same thing at all.

Anyway, back to the woolly bits, So I started to crochet the base, then I undid it cos it was too holey, then I started again with a shorter chain stitch. Then I undid it cos it was all crinkly (I'd increased too rapidly). Then I reduced my number of increases. Then I undid it etc etc. By Saturday morning I still had just a ball of wool. Anyway, after much deliberation and effort I now have.....

TA DA!

Yup, you guessed it. I've run out of wool. I use the words 'run out' loosely. I need to spin about three more skeins but you get the general idea. Can't wait to see what it's like when it's felted. I just hope it all behaves the same as the white wool is quite different from the grey. Yes, I know I should have done a tension square but that takes all the excitement out of it, doesn't it?