Tiptoe through the tulips.

These tulips are a bit funny, they smell of wool!





















And in theme...traditional austrian costume socks from 'around the world in knitted socks'.

Spring is bustin out all over

Well summer really. In Italy we seem to miss out on the inbetween bit from cold to hot weather and consequently flowers are thrown out of sync , late daffs alongside early geraniums.

The wisteria has excelled itself yet again, the scent fills the house and intoxicates the cats who are all fast asleep under the porch. All rivalty forgotten in a happy hopeless heap.

Whilst inside the house we have vases of dafs and tulips here and there. Not having green fingers, the needles come to the rescue.

Miss you dad.

Adrift

Knitted in organic 4 ply cotton

pattern by Carol Feller

Part of a KAL on Rav,

and for those not in the know, nothing kinky involved, a KAL is simply a knitalong with everyone doing the same model but naturally in different wools and tensions.

Oh and its a top down pattern, that means no sewing up at the end but a long boring bit to knit in the middle.

Fame at last!!!!

Italy has finally got a decent knitting magazine. To be honest I've got most of the patterns as they are just reshuffled and translated from the British 'The Knitter' magazine.

But issue number two does have an exclusive.!!!

Just check out page 35.........

And my creative streak goes on.....

all the way up the stairs.

what could be more fun than knitting a ball of long colour changing Kauni wool? Why knitting two together at the same time!

Fascinating.

Morocco stole by Ilga Leja

Pietra di Bismantova

After a month of bad weather, the sun poked its head out, accompanied by a galeforce wind straight from the Arctic.

The perfect afternoon for climbing Bismantova, at 1047 metres, the rock dominates the mid Apennines.

Look at those blue skies. And no we didn't scale the bare rock walls, although many others did, but found a muddy path round the back.

The hermitage

The flat top measures one kilometre and well worth the climb. Snowy mountains all around us

Sheer drop

Pretending I can't feel the cold in newly knitted purple cotton cardi. Maybe it could have been a size smaller but georgeous colour.

FLAG

Ladies and gentlemen please welcome

FLAG!!!!

Val Modolena

Not feeling too spritely, today's walk was rather a sober one and we stuck to the roads.

Starting point: Church Madonna della Battaglia,

legend has it that a miraculous fog fell here in 1092 thus letting the local queen win a battle against the German emperor. (373 metres).

And finished here. "Mandarein" farm restuarmt where we had 5 pieces of cake (very small pieces-honest) before walking back uphill.

The road follows the south facing slope and all the snow had melted. In fact we were almost overdressed.

Whilst there was still plenty of it on the other, north facing vally wall. See pretty picture

So, all in all, a good walk and made a break from the ongoing 'flag' project. Got to the middle red stripe, 60 rows of garter stitch in lace weight yarn. It is moving slowly but I'm pleased with results. Maybe I'll have done the back this time next Sunday. Have a good week...