Tsubaki Cable Sweater and some winter flowers

January 31, 2025

 


I've always wondered why I didn't make knitting a white cable sweater a higher priority in my long knitting career. I guess I was looking for the perfect pattern. Then I found it and this is it! 


These big gorgeous cables make a big beautiful statement by being so lofty and squishy.  Plus, it was fun to make. The pattern is an easy one to follow but I made a few changes that I chronicle on my Ravelry page, link below.
The sleeve detail that uses a special "zip up seam". 

There is no cable pattern on the back or on the sleeves.


The baby amaryllis that are wintering in the greenhouse won't bloom until next year or the year after, but look at the big daddy in the background, it has two flower stalks! I brought it in and within days of being in a warm (ish) house, it has bloomed.  I think the variety is called Vittata. I found a link on Amazon although I got these from a friend. (Edited the next day because I just found out that the variety is called Giraffe.)The fourth picture down is a close up of the bulb and two new baby bulblets coming from the sides of the mother bulb. They will be separated and planted after blooming. 






When my friend moved from her house to an apartment, she dug up about a dozen of her cymbidium orchids and gave them to me. I didn't know what colors they were so just potted them into one large pot. Turns out some are yellow and some are a rusty red and all very pretty and long lasting. They sit under the shade of the olive tree and don't get much attention except a watering once a week in spring and summer, but I pretty much ignore them in fall and winter. It's been a dry January so I went out to give them some water and I counted over 20 flower stalks! 



The camellias are beginning to bloom!



I've also got a half dozen scraggly hellebores that appear every year at this time. They open up into this unbelievable neon green. If I didn't know for a fact that they were real, I'd swear they were plastic. I saw faux hellebores at Michaels and thought, these don't look fake enough to be real hellebores. My real ones look way more fake (and this only makes sense if you grow this neon green variety). 


Thank you for popping in! 
xoxo Kristen

My granddaughter writes a blog and this week's post is so moving. I hope you will read it and share it with anyone you know who could benefit from her kind, sweet and wise words. I'm so proud of her.

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6 Comments

  1. Another pretty sweater Kristen. Your speed astonishes me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The amaryllis is ‘Giraffe”. Thrill d to see it’s flourishing in its new home xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. The sweater, the amarylis, and the other flowers are beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi, your sweater is really lovely and I envy you for the amaryllis and these great orchids. it is a lot of fuss having them nice and beautiful in our part of the world.
    I went over to Annie's blog, what a lovely and courageous young woman, tried to send her some good vibes.
    I adore reading your blog and always await the garden posts with your beautiful pictures.
    Have a nice day (night?)
    Jeannine

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a beautiful sweater. I love amaryllis but always forget to buy

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  6. That was Chloe up above. I too responded to Annie’s blog and hope that it was helpful. It is so easy to say the wrong thing when giving advice. I hope I didn’t do that! Annie is an outstanding young woman. She should never let her disability get in the way of living a whole life. Chloe

    ReplyDelete

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