Busy times

Aah, my poor neglected blog! I cannot believe it is just over four weeks since I last posted. Where has the time gone? Well, I can safely say that I have infact been very busy indeed. My first project over the last few weeks has been to make some baby booties for friends. The two pairs below are a 0-3 months size, made as a gift for a friend's friends. I really like the use of the teddy fabric as I'm hoping they'll suit both boys and girls. My next task was to try and upsize my bootie pattern and customise it for a 6-12 months size for a friend's little girl who had grown out of her previous pair. Sizing up was quite tricky as the heel part needed to be long enough and tall enough to match the larger front section of the shoe. I think they worked okay though and I was surprised how using the same fabric for both heel and front of the shoe looked just as nice as using contrasting ones.

My other big project has been our allotment. Despite the cold and often windy weather, we have been religiously maintaining and adding to our new allotment. I've mostly grown the seedlings on in our greenhouse and then planted them out when they're small plants in the hope they'll stand a fighting chance against the large crow visitors that constantly frequent the site when there are no humans around! We have put some seeds straight into the soil, and at the time of writing our plot is proudly sporting little carrot, parsnip and beetroot seedlings! This is a notable achievement for me as I have never been able to get my parsnip seedlings to germinate before- there must be something about really bad condition heavy clay soil that parsnips love! So here's a picture of our plot at the beginning of May:-

We currently have carrots, parsnips, beetroot, strawberries, raspberries, broad beans, climbing french beans, peas, dwarf french beans, cauliflower, potatoes onions, garlic, lettuce and sweetcorn all growing at the site. I am a little worried however about the state of them today as we've just experienced two nights of a quite heavy ground frost, which is very unusual in these parts for the time of year. Watch this space and I'll keep you updated as to which plants have survived the frosts (hopefully some will have done).

And now- in this extra long posting, here is a little project that has kept me very busy over the past couple of days................... In the hope that I can singlehandedly entice the sun to come out, I have made little P a new summer skirt and matching reversible hat! What do you think? I am very, very pleased with how it's turned out, and although the hat was quite fiddly to sew I think it really does finish off the outfit!

And just to show you that the hat really is reversible.......here it is around the other way!

Inspired by my hat success I've decided to make a blue gingham reversible one for little p to wear at school. Ah, the projects never seem to end................fantastic!