A friend visiting from far away.

Lovely weather, not too hot or too cold.

Everyone wearing red and white.

A little girl in a ladybug backpack (with handy-dandy leash).

A smallish dog that eventually calmed down.

Pipers.

Drums.

Our RCMP in their red serge.

A flag on a hockey stick.

Horses and dogs.

An airplane fly-by.

Candy, a frisbee and some paper flags.

Lunch of fresh ice-cream, gyoza and lemonade at the Farmers' market in the park after the parade.

Another pleasant walk home with a very tired girl.

We go for a walk just about every day. On weekdays Maisie and I walk home and collect Abby and go out on the trail. A couple of times a week my mum join us and stays for a cup of tea while Maisie has her snack. These pictures are from our walk last Monday. Lovely weather. Warm, not hot. No bugs yet. Still the remains of piles of snow in the shady places under the trees. Pussy willows blooming. Maisie tries to grab my camera. Abby tugs on the leash to get closer to a good smell. Perhaps a squirrel has gone by recently. Most of the lake is still covered in ice but the little ponds around the edges are ice free. There area a few ducks around. Maisie tucks in against my chest. So sweet. Fluffy, summertime clouds. Still, glassy water. Someone's work gloves. I hope they come back for them. Green, growing things starting to emerge. Maisie deciding that she's tired of walking and would much rather have some milk. Soon, sweetness, let's get home first. The muskeg is dull and brown right now but soon it will be covered in tiny white flowers. Abby spots a couple of ducks. The end of the trail is all willows. And a bit of mud. Tea for me when we get home. Maisie has a mandarine orange. She likes the squirrel on my mug.

I seem to have a pompom making problem. This hood and mittens set has been finished, except for the pompoms, since mid April. I finally got myself some pompom makers to make it a little easier and now it's so much fun. They turn out the way I expect and, even better, I can make matching pairs.

We had a wonderful spell of warm weather starting Easter weekend. It was sunny and above zero. I wore my sweater, instead of a coat, for a walk with Maisie. It even rained once. Then last Thursday the wind came up, the temperature dropped, and it snowed. It's been cold all weekend. When I took these pictures is was about -7℃ (note to self: always check the weather before you take your toddler outside and let her play without mittens on). We took Abby outside with us and enjoyed watching her run around like a crazy thing after squirrel smells.

This hood is the sweetest knit. The colourwork is just enough to make it interesting and a little bit warmer. The lining makes it look so polished. I spent way too much time agonizing over which colour to use for the lining. I settled on the Saffron after quizzing other people but part of me still thinks the Grey Green (the colour in the pompoms) would have looked really nice. If Maisie's hair comes in dark the Saffron will be especially pretty though. I followed the author's suggestion of braiding the tails into pairs for easy fastening by little hands. This is the smallest size and looks like it will fit Maisie for quite a while. The pompoms are really the crowing glory of it. That big one bouncing along behind her as she walks around and collects this and that … it just makes me grin. There goes my little elf.

I was so excited about these mittens. I think I'd started planning them out in my head by the time I was halfway done the colourwork for the hood. I used the same chart for the body of the mittens and drafted my own pattern for the tips. It took me three tries to get them to come out the right shape and with a pattern that looked nice once it was kitted up. The mittens are lined with Saffron, just like the hood, so they are extra warm. Thankfully they are also kind of big so I am hopeful they will fit next winter since Maisie isn't likely to need them this spring. The snag with mittens is you can't pick up rocks while you're wearing them. I'm a softie (and had no idea how cold it really was) so I pulled them off to enable a bit of exploring. I was handed quite a few rocks during our little photo shoot but she kept the pink one and brought it inside.

I think this is my first pair of rubber boots since I was a teenager. I got them a month or so ago when I was shopping for something else. Rubber boots covered in flowers just yell "spring time" and with many weeks to go before I was going to get anywhere near my garden I was happy for the reminder.

More details for Maisie's hood and mittens are on my Ravelry project pages.