A little bit of knitting has been going on. Just a little.
I started a baby shawl in Bendigo Wool 4ply, using this Sirdar pattern.

This is how far I got.

I wasn't very happy with it. I liked the pattern, but I hated the construction. First you cast on, knit the centre square, cast off the square, then cast on and knit the four borders, then cast them all off, and sew it all together, knit the final border, and sew it on seperately.
Far, far too many cast on and off edges for my liking. As you can see, I started with a provisional cast on. Then I had plans to graft it all together, but the stitch counts didn't match up. The square has 105sts, the borders each have 91. Madness. And the fabric knit at the gauge they recommended was far too stiff for a baby shawl.

So I'm going to design my own.

Yep. But it's all a little harder than I expected. Of course, that could have something to do with the little tiny perfectionist streak I have. I started it with the yarn and needles that I intend to use, but I stuffed up the charting. Then I was stuffing up the pattern. This is the very beginning of my shawl.

Nothing too difficult there, yet. I kept going, but I was making too many mistakes, and I had to keep frogging it. (Is it possible to make mistakes if it's your own design and no one else knows any different?)
So I pulled out some sock yarn with a similar gauge and started the pattern with that, charting it carefully. This way, it doesn't matter if I have to frog so much that the yarn becomes unusable!
I wanted to chart it, just in case it comes out really nicely, and I want to knit it again some day. Hopefully I'll get some time to knit some more of it soon!

Here is the start of the pattern in the scrap yarn.

I'm pretty happy with it so far.
The mailman brought me this on Friday.

Meaghan at The Knitted Bunny sent me this Fibreworks lace weight merino/possum blend. It's gorgeous! I love the colours, and the yarn is so soft. I haven't knit with possum before, and I don't know quite what I expected, but I never thought it would be this soft.

My garden is blooming! I have a notorious knack for not being very good with plants. However, we recently planted some rose carpet bushes, and they're just starting to pop out flowers everywhere.

Aren't they pretty? Mind you, I can't take any credit, I've just left them alone, and they did all the hard work themselves. ;)