November harvest

Little P gets a Daddy day........and I get excited about a new hobby!

 Yesterday Mr B was very excited as he had a 'Daddy and Daughter' day! I was off on a course for the day and so little P and her dad had an blissful sunny Autumn day to spend doing whatever they wished.  And just what do a daddy and daughter do when Mum's away...........make boats of course!!

 Here is little P proudly displaying the boat she made and then sailed in a local pond.

And what was I up to then?........
I had been invited by a very good friend of mine to attend a one day scrapbooking course.  Now I have a long history of making cards, but I've never tried scrapbooking before- but I have been intending to make a scrapbook of little P's first year ever since she was born.  This course was to be the catalyst that would hopefully inspire me to make the album- and inspire me it did!! It was brilliant! I was really pleased with all the pages we made on the day and I've come home full of new skills and techniques that I'm itching to apply to lots more scrapbook pages!

Here is Page 1- Little P just after she was born.

Page 2- A one month old little P

Page 3- A two month old poppet

And finally- (unfinished page) Little P at three months!

It seems I really am hooked on a new hobby! Can't wait to research and make more layout styles, and you never know I may just get Little P's first year scrapbook album made before she is six!

Pumpkins a Plenty!

The squash plants at the allotment are all dying off now.  I cant decide whether the colder weather has caused them to become wizened and the leaves to shrivel and die, or whether I just planted the seeds a little too early to be able to keep the plants growing healthy and strong all the way to Halloween.  This has been my first year of trying squash with any sort of conviction (I previously grew one small pumpkin a couple of years ago in our garden vegetable beds) so this year was to be the year that I gave over a whole bed on the allotment to pumpkins and squash.

There have been some successes and some disappointments.  The butternut squash didnt perform particularly well, but as you can see from the photograph below we did manage to grow two small fruits.

I'm storint the larger pumpkins in the greenhouse for now to hopefully harden the skin and complete the ripening process before storing in the house ready for carving at the end of the month!

The allotment is certainly needing a little Autumn TLC but we're still picking decnt crops of Runner beans and French beans- plus we've got loads of red salad bowl lettuce and lollo Rosso and a handful of bulbs of fennel.  The Brussels sprouts are also growing nicely- I'm hoping there'll still be some maturing later in the season for our Christmas Meal!

Garden vegetable patch haul!

Two posts in one day...........have I taken leave of my senses!! No, but I just couldnt resist as I have just unearthed a couple of lovely surprises in the garden.......

With all the rainy cold days of this August, family holidays, and with our allotment to look after, I'm ashamed to say that our garden vegetable patch has become just a little bit neglected of late.  This afternoon as the sun was shining I decided to clear away some of the plants that had gone to seed or had become old and straggly.  As I started the task of tidying up just one of the beds I discovered carrots, Kohl Rabi and flat leaved parsley all waiting to be harvested.  Then I picked the cherry tomatoes that are ripeneing beautifully on some plants that I just popped in the patch as an experiment and added those to today's tomatoes from the greenhouse, and of course this week's cucumber!  Altogether it looks like quite a haul, especially considering the fact that I thought I would just be clearing one of the patches, I never would have thought there was produce to be harvested too!
I have been particularly pleased with some of the tomato varieties I planted this year as they have been good heavy croppers.  In the greenhouse a plum variety called 'Shirley' has done really well, as has old cherry favourite 'sungold', however in the garden veg patch I planted a cherry variety called red cherry which has produced prolific fruits of pink/red colour in long trusses.  I think this variety is probably more suited to a container, where the fruits can trail over the sides, but I was nevertheless impressed with it's performance in the soil.  I wonder what delights vegetable bed number 2 will reveal when I tackle clearing it tomorrow?

New Fabric Purchases

On a slight detour from mine and little p's opticians appointments this morning we ventured into a small department store in Farnham.  It doesn't have a very extensive fabric collection and it is mostly geared for the quilting market, but I did catch sight of these two lovely fabrics from Clothworks.  They immediately conjured up an idea for a simple autumnal a line pinafore for Little P complete with contrasting fabric ruffle at the hem.  So I bought a metre of each on the spot! 
I also stocked up on some small haberdashery items as I am keep to make some little fabric bags to store Polly Pocket paraphernalia in. Little P received her first set of Polly Pocket for her recent birthday and the pieces are very small so I'm worried about losing them unless we can devise a suitable storage option!

Reversible Tote Bag Tutorial

This is my first tutorial so please excuse any formatting issues etc.

You will need:-

2 x pieces of fabric 36cm x 27 cm (outer)

2 x pieces of fabric 36cm x27cm (lining)

2 pieces of fabric 5cm x 60cm (outer)

2 pieces of fabric 5cm x 60cm (lining)

Step 1- make handles

With right sides together pin one lining handle piece of fabric to one outer handle piece. Using a 0.5cm seam allowance sew handle together along long edges. Turn so that right sides are outermost and press. If desired or if time allows top stitch 0.5mm from long edges.

Repeat for 2nd handle.

Step 2- Sew main body of bag

Using outer fabric and with right sides facing, pin and sew around 3 sides (2 short and one long side) leaving top side open. Still keeping right sides together place your hands inside the bag and push out the bottom corners to create a triangular shape at each corner.

Pin, perpendicular to the bottom seam 2.5cm from the corner to keep the triangle shape in place.

Then sew a seam along this line perpendicular to the corner (see photograph)

Cut excess fabric off

Leaving a 0.5cm seam allowance.
Repeat from beginning of step 2 for lining fabric.



Step 3- attaching the handles to bag

Take the outer bag piece and turn right side out. Take one handle piece and face the outer fabric of handle onto the outer fabric of bag (so reverse side of handle is uppermost). Lay the handle so that the loop is resting at the bottom of the bag and pit the two open ends to the top of the bag about 11cm apart. Using your machine attach handles to bag using a 1cm seam allowance. Turn bag over and repeat to attach handle to the opposite side of the bag, making sure the two places where you attach the tops of the handles match up on either side.

Step 4- making up the bag

Well done, you’re almost there! Keeping the bag outer just as you’ve had it for attaching the handles, take the lining section and with the right side of the lining facing the right side of the outer fabric, pop the outer fabric bag into the lining fabric bag. Line up side seams and pin the open section at the top of the bag together. (making sure the bag handles are safely tucked inside)

Sew around the top of the bag leaving a gap between the handles on one side of the bag open for turning.

Turn bag out like so:-

Next, pop the lining bag inside the outer to create your (almost) finished bag!

Pin and stitch the opening where you turned the bag 0.5 cm from the top.

Then continue to stitch 0.5cm from the top all around the bag to give it a neat top stitch.

Congratulations you now have a new, finished reversible bag!

This technique can be used to create a variety of different sized bags. You can embellish it with appliqué or pockets and if you don’t want to make it reversible you could easily secure the top of the bag with a strip of sew on Velcro or attach a button and loop closure. The possibilities are endless!

September sewing in the garden!

Phew, where did August go? A month of holidays, birthdays, rain, wind and a lot of busy times, the month seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye! Well, now it's a new month, September is often a time of new beginnings with children starting a new school year or perhaps even starting school or Nursery for the first time.  Well, today I had a first, it was the first time i have been able to sew in the garden in the sunshine for ages!!  Not once in August could I have achieved what I have done today...

To celebrate I have written my first tutorial which i shall try and upload in my next post.  Long may the September sunshine continue!

Fruity pirate ships and sunflowers!

We're under quarantine!

Last Thursday saw the last day of Little P's first year at school, but in the early hours of the morning the little poppet woke up covered in itchy red spots...........yes, you guessed it, Little P had caught the Chicken Pox!!

It was inevitable really as the virus had been circulating in her school for over a month and little P had managed to avoid it previously, but in a small school environment these germs seem to get shared around quite readily!

So the first few days of the long Summer holiday have not been a barrel of laughs. Poor little p has been quite poorly, but we have had one very enjoyable afternoon's activity. You see about a year and a half ago one of my lovely brothers bought little P an amazing craft set and we have been waiting for the best time to use it, a time when we could devote at least a few hours to concentrated cutting, glueing and pasting loveliness. Chicken Pox has given us the perfect opportunity to make this amazing 'Three little Pigs' craft set. It kept us entertained for a full five hours!! We loved it so much that we looked up where to get another set in the same series, but sadly it's no longer being made. It's such a shame as this is easily the best children's art and craft set I have seen in years, complete with a brilliant instructional DVD designed for children. All I can say is, "Thank you Uncle Mark, you've made a little girl and her mum very happy!"

Little P gets a new bag

About a week ago I made a reversible summer bag using some remnants of material from our local curtain fabric shop. Here's the link in case you missed it. Well, ever since then, Little P has been badgering me to make her a reversible bag too. So this morning I planned cut and sewed her a little bag ready for taking to school at pick up time later. I t was surprisingly easy to come up with the pattern and as I was using thick fabric there was no need to use any interfacing which made it a lot quicker to cut out. I'm going to work on a larger version for me now, as you really cant beat a tote with long handles to put over your shoulder when going shopping!

Sunday's harvest

Another beautiful and very hot day today. I spent a good few hours down at the plot, digging up the broad bean plants as they've now stopped producing and planting red cabbage, red salad bowl lettuce seedlings and sewing winter cauliflower and Kohl Rabi seeds.

I was joined after about an hour by Mr B and little P and they planted the five little lavender plants we bought yesterday and we dug up about 4 of our salad potato plants. The picture above shows the booty we gathered today. Unfortunately the potatoes are hidden in the photo by two enormous beetroot, but we have white and red salad potatoes and we cooked some for tea,......delicious!

Lavender day

We had a fantastic day today and discovered an amazing place to visit (provided they have an open day). As recommended by one of our fellow allotmenteers we travelled down to the sleepy Sussex village of Lordington and attended one of Lordington Lavender's open days.
What an amazing place......the Lavender in this field was planted back in 2002 as part of a diversification programme. The field was initially hidden away, we parked our car by the farm buildings and walked down a little track and through a glade of trees, and as we turned a corner this immense field of purple opened up in front of us. It was a truly awesome sight!
Visitors could walk up and down the rows of lavender, take in the gorgeous calming scent and listen to the gentle hum of the bees as they buzzed around the crop. The owners had also set up a little tea and coffee area aided by a Chichester ladies charity group who had also made a selection of Lavender biscuits and cakes. All the proceeds from these sales went to charity.

Inspired by the awe and wonder of the crop, Mr B bought 5 little lavender plants to plant on the allotment so that next year we'll be able to harvest our own lavender for cakes and biscuits. I bought some lavender essential oil that can be used for cooking, I'm going to be experimenting with making Lavender ice cream!

Wednesday Musings

I was just starting to think that I should re-name my blog as all the posts recently have been about plants and our allotment. Well, there has been some crafting going on behind the scenes, more of that later. But first here is a little glimpse of my new acquisition of which I am very excited. You see it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and my parents very kindly bought me this fantastic trolley! I now have no excuses for driving to the allotment as I can transport all my seedlings, tools....and little P up to the plot in style. Here is little P showing us just how much she's enjoying her new mode of transport. It's great exercise for my arms I also discovered the morning after pulling little P the 1Km to our plot! As I mentioned earlier there has been some crafting going on recently. I made little P her reversible blue gingham/flower hat for school that I talked about here, and then today I made a quick and simple little summer bag. I bought the fabric from a remnants table in a local curtain fabric shop so it was very cheap to make too! I'm really pleased with the result and the bag would make a great gift idea.

Finally for today, it's back to edible plants again! We have strawberries and raspberries in abundance in our garden so much so that we can't eat it quickly enough at the moment, so I have ventured into the world of jams! It's brilliant fun making jam and again pots of jam make great homemade gifts. I have already given two pots away! This evening though I made my first batch of 'Summer Fruit' jam using a mixture of strawberries and raspberries as I didnt have enough strawberries left for a single batch of strawberry jam.

I took a photo of the jars of jam I made and couldnt resist including my vegetable 'booty' from a visit to water our plants at the allotment this morning. We're now eating courgettes, french beans and beetroot (although I'm just looking at the later, not eating it!). We might dig up our Charlotte and Red duke of York potatoes at the weekend too.

cutting patch harvest

You might remember a while back I mentioned that we were going to trial a cutting patch at the allotment. Just a small bed, about 2m x 1m, and after Mr B kindly dug it for me back at the beginning of May I set about planting it up with Sunflowers, Nasturtiums, Cosmos, Asters and Calendula. Well today I went to water the plot and thought it was about time to pick my first bunch of flowers from the cutting patch.....and here they are!
Not very prolific at the moment, granted, but I was very proud of my little bunch of Cosmos and Sweet peas. The sweet peas are in fact so uneventful that you can hardly see them in the vase, but they are there all the same, smelling beautifully and looking very pink!

I love the colours and shape of the petals of Cosmos, and they're so easy to grow and keep on flowering for ages (as long as you remember to dead head them!) I remember when I was little my Grandma used to have a collection of swimming hats adorned with cosmos like plastic flowers hanging in her poolhouse. These flowers always remind me of her, they're fast becoming my favourite hardy annual flower.

Having now picked the flowers the alotment plot is looking decidedly less colourful, I think a bit of work is needed down there this weekend.

Our first allotment Harvest

It's finally here!! Our first little harvest of fruit and veg from our allotment- beautifully contained in the custom made garden box/trug Mr B made me for Christmas this year. If truth be known it's actually our third bowl of strawberries but I keep forgetting to take my camera up to the allotment to take a photo.

The broad beans were delicious, I cooked and shelled them and added then to a chicken salad on Sunday night, yummy!
Our little memorial rose we planted on the allotment is not so little anymore, it's really thriving and is in full bloom at the moment and smelling beautiful with it's delicate 'rosey' fragrance. It fills us with hope and reminds us to be thankful for what we have.

Little P's pumpkin is also looking as if it's taken now- it was touch and go a week ago as after planting it began to look a bit yellow and sickly, but I was encouraged to see some new growth this week. Do you like her laminated pumpkin sign? No one can forget where we planted it now- and as we attached it to some garden wire it doubles up as a bird scarer when it sways in the breeze!

Finally today, here is a little picture of the left hand bed on our plot. Everything is growing nicely, even under the sweltering sun we've been enjoying recently. I was looking back at my posts from May and pictures of the plot then and I'm astounded at how much everything has grown in just a few weeks.

Happy gardening!

Friday's reveal!

Been busy on my sewing machine again this week, oh how I am loving my new machine, it's light, the motor's very quiet and the best thing of all is that it sews like a dream! I managed to whip up this little peasant top for little p this week in just a few hours. It's such a pretty fabric and it was a refreshing change to make her something in a colour other than pink! Here is the little poppet modelling her new wardrobe addition. I think it'll look great with a little navy cargo skirt or even teamed with jeans. I think i'll be making a few more of these this summer.

This morning there were many squeals of excitement in our house........my long awaited cotton yarn has arrived!!!! you see it all started before Christmas when I developed a sudden desire to learn to Crochet. I put myself on a half day crochet taster session at my local adult education centre, dizzy with the anticipation that by the end of the session I would be hooking away to my heart's content. But alas, it was not to be, by the end of the session I was completely frustrated and had not managed to master a stitch. Well, I wasn't going to let a little setback like that stop me- I was determined that I would learn to crochet and enjoy it! I went straight from the course to my local craft shop and bought myself two books on learning to crochet and promptly spent the rest of the weekend with hook and yarn practically glued to my hand........and i did it...I taught myself a few basic stitches and produced my first little piece of hooky goodness! From there on in I couldnt get enough of looking for all things crochet- from patterns in vintage craft books to reading about other people's crochet on the net.......and that's where I discovered the lovely Lucy at Attic 24. Lucy is an inspiration to anyone who wants to crochet bright, beautiful things. Her accounts and photos just make you want to pull out some yarn and get hooking.

Well, a couple of weeks ago Lucy caused a bit of a storm when she recommended a great cotton yarn in lovely colourways and linked to the fab shop she bought them from. They sold out overnight and have been working on supplying backorders ever since. I was one of those backorders, but this morning there was much squealing in the B household as my yarn arrived!!!!! Yipee!! Here it is, all packed up and lovely....squeal!!!!.....those bright colours just jump out and sing!!

I can now start the Granny Square blanket for our 'pimping the camper van' project that little p and I are working on to surprise Mr B before our holiday!!! I bought my yarn from this great shop, I really cannot recommend them highly enough. Lisa, one of the owners kept me up to date with how my order was progressing and was so friendly. It was really refreshing to receive e-mails with a chatty, friendly style from a retail store. I shall definitely be ordering from them again!

My last bit of creative making this week has been to sew a couple more purses. The first is another small coin purse in a pretty pink fabric. Much easier to do now I've made a couple.

The next one is very much 'work in progress' as I'm trying to design a pattern to work well with the rectangular frame. It's much harder than I first thought and at the moment it's got me beat. I am pleased with the fabric choice though so all is not lost just yet. I'm going to try and make the next one a little shorter in length and find a way of including a couple of pleats to make it puffy without changing the outline squareness.

Off now to start the first square of the blanket...........all those bright gorgeous colours...where to start? Yipeeee!!!!!

The garden's getting all fruity!

It's always a nervous time, as the blossom on the fruit trees fade and die away, you start to wonder whether the pollinating insects have done their thing and enabled fruits to form and grow. Well after having a little walk around the garden today I was delighted to discover lots of little fruits gently swaying in the breeze, soaking up the spring sunshine. We have apples:-
Little budding raspberries with some flowers still being polllinated by a friendly bumble bee (just above the centre of the picture.)
Tiny blueberries bursting with goodness- I'm hoping there are still some left to ripen as the blue tits seem to really enjoy visiting this plant in the early mornings.

And last but not least little pear fruits standing to attention. We have lots this year, I'm hoping they stay on the tree to ripen as last year many fell off before they had a chance to grow to a decent size.

And who can forget the huge crop of strawberries we have, all green and full of promise for the forthcoming strawberry season- I did have a lovely picture of some fat juicy strawberries but it seems the computer ate it! Honestly pests in the garden I can just about cope with, but gremlins in the computer........that's a whole new kettle of fish!!