...this and that

• Years (decades) ago I visited a Mondrian exhibition in Holland, and was completely fascinated by the early work on display, particularly his paintings of trees. Mondrian is so famous for those geometrical abstract paintings - black and white grids broken up with areas of primary colour - it was hard to believe I was looking at the work of the same artist. I bought a postcard of the above painting as a souvenir, and it is one of my favourites. We were out walking in the woods the weekend before last and I was immediately struck by the similarity in the lines and colours of the bare green tree trunks against the warm russet leaves. Life imitating art!

• Another day, another walk. A very old, very mossy oak tree, bare branches twisting skywards.

• My daughter treated me to a year's subscription to the Rowan Knitting and Crochet magazine for my birthday this year. I used to have a subscription and have picked up a few second-hand copies here and there since I let it lapse, so there are quite a lot of past issues in my knitting 'library'. It was lovely to receive the brand new copy in the post - such a beautifully photographed and presented collection of knitwear! I particularly love the crocheted/woven wrap on the front cover. As with the vast majority of Rowan patterns I will probably never get round to actually making it, but it gives me so much pleasure just to drool over it!

• I pulled over and took this photo of the most spectacular sunset from my car window on the way home from work last week. It doesn't really do justice to the  glorious gold and peach display, but it would have been rude not to try and capture at least a brief reminder of the moment.

• I worked on this chunky garter stitch jumper during January. It was for my middle child, who needed something really warm and cosy to wear during the self-build construction of his very own first house. It's not the most beautiful thing in the world, but it fits quite nicely and will do the job it's intended to do. I'm very pleased with myself that I saw it through. There were a few moments (front neck shaping, picking up collar stitches and sewing it together) when I could have easily put it aside for something more interesting and colourful and fun, but he had actually asked me to make him something to wear on the building site so I couldn't let him down. Forgot to take a photo of him modelling it though! The pattern (Rugged Charm by Ruth Maddock) is available on Ravelry - the only adaptation I made was to the collar. Middle child didn't like the floppy rolled neck so I just made it to match the cuffs and hem. I'm really not a sweater knitting person (I've decided) but at least chunky yarn knits up quickly, and the garter stitch ridges made seaming it together very easy.

• I'm rewarding myself with a nice new project I've invented myself, involving self striping sock yarn and an interestingly sculptural (but prosaically named) stitch pattern (Pattern 156) from Hewitt and Daley's 'Classic Knitted Cotton Edgings' book. It's going to be a cowl for one of my friends at work. At the moment my only issue with it is that I've only bought three balls of yarn, and I think it may need four - I want it to be long enough to wrap twice around the neck. Watch this space.

• Finally last weekend's walk brought glad tidings of springtime - catkins and primroses boldly blossoming in the mild February sunshine. And the days are definitely getting longer - hooray!