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!!