winter blooms

I lucked out when I brought two geranium plants in from my window boxes this past fall. I was able to keep them alive and get them to bloom again. There's nothing like the splash of bright color in late February to remind you that spring is coming and to keep your hopes up.

I love geraniums. I love how they smell - zesty and alive. I will replant them outside once the weather is tolerable, but I need to be careful to introduce them to the outdoor light slowly. One year I brought my geraniums out and they lost all their leaves and died because the sun zapped them. They weren't ready.

That's how Minnesotans are with spring sun too :)

Flowers on the Windowsill by Carl Larsson

This is a painting by Carl Larsson that always comes to mind when I think about winter time and indoor plants. I would love to have a space in my house to really grow some plants when the snow falls. (Right now my geraniums are tucked away on a north window upstairs where they thrive, but this is not a room that we regularly sit in.) Dreams for someday. See the knitting on the table? Such a cozy image.

The project is a pair of mittens that I started last winter. Then I found out that I was pregnant with Logan and I hijacked some of the yarn to knit a baby sweater. Then I knit a lot of other sweaters and baby things and now I'm just getting back to them as I wrap up those projects and the baby mania subsides. I'm using my mother's yarn again. It's interesting to see how the same yarn knits up differently in other projects. I used the same yarn for the yoke of the first baby sweater Logan wore.

Hope I have enough to still finish the mittens.

I talk about the mittens here and here. It amazing how life can change in a year - how your entire dreams for the future can transform with a baby.

We have been so blessed!

xo Jill

P.S. Linking up with Nicole at Frontier Dreams for Keep Calm and Keep Crafting On.