For the love of hellebores!

We were in Wales last week - some downtime to finish a couple of new projects in peace, without any distractions... or so I thought!  As it turned out, the garden had turned into hellebore heaven, with one or another variety of these brave little beauties beckoning wherever I looked. I found it hard to take my eyes off them and couldn't stop myself from snapping them from every angle. 

The Corsican hellebore with
lovely blue-green leaves 

Looking beyond to many more dusty pink ones 

Gorgeous with stone and moss

Not keen on pink flowers but dusty rose is a different matter altogether

Close-up of the fabulous speckled patterns

This white one is a super stunner! 

Arlo joins me on the hellebore trail,
 looking as if he's auditioning for a part in a Harry Potter film :)

I couldn't help feeling a bit miffed that our deep purpley-blue hellebores weren't quite out - still looking camera shy and cold in the very windy weather.  So can you imagine my delight when yesterday my friend Monica arrived for lunch bearing this dazzling bunch from her North Yorkshire garden.

Hard to capture the precise colour - sometimes it appears to be deepest navy,
then again it can look like a rich dusty purple. Each petal is delicately trimmed
with  burgundy and finished off in the centre with a zingy splash of lemon stamens

Another friend also brought these exquisite tiny snowdrops and tete-a-tete daffodils from her garden, so I was completely overwhelmed in the flower department in the best possible sense of the word.

If you click on the image and look closely, you'll see the tiny green arrowhead
patterns that tip all the petals on these elegant little snowdops - just gorgeous! 

But I digress, back to the main reason for going to Wales. I'd been working on ideas for designs using knitted crescents and eventually settled down to the job in hand.

I'd brought along the recently finished Moonlight Shawl and I had plans to write up the pattern and make a hat to match.

So off I went, starting with three crescents, and joining them together
on the second round. 

But then horror of horrors, I ran out of yarn, necessitating a  mercy dash first thing next day to LYS Clare's in Aberystwyth.

Once I had the new yarn it was plain sailing till I got to the shaping at the top - not so easy to figure, so I decided to sleep on it and sure enough, when I woke up the next day the lightbulb came on and tada, all was revealed and the Halfmoon Hat was finished in no time.

The uneven brim keeps ears warm and cosy

Let me know what you think, I'm now working on the baby blanket and throw versions, developing different  colour combinations, proportions and ways of combining the crescents.

Finally I just had to show you this hilarious pic of Django and P. It was coffee time and Django must have felt P was looking a tad disshevelled. It seemed like he couldn't bear to see another creature sporting magnificent grey hair just like his own, who was so obviously letting the side down. So he made a formidable effort to smarten him up, grooming P's hair in an exceedingly meticulous and assertive way, much the same as he would with another cat.

 

I'll leave you to work that one out!