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!!

Purses and projects

Time for another 'Ta Da' moment! Last week I invested in some teeny tiny purse frames in order to make some little coin purses. Some sewing friends came over on Wednesday evening and we all sat down and began to have a go at making our own purses. Lots of tea, chocolate brownies and chatter were enjoyed and we didnt do too badly at all. I couldnt resist finishing mine off on Thursday morning, and here it is.......Ta Da!!! It's very small, enough to put change for car parking in, but I think it's also very sweet. The little metal loop on the edge of the frame is an added bonus and I'm going to buy some little metal clips so the purse can be secured inside a bag etc.

Here is a picture of the little purse with matching pocket tissue holder!

Now, onto my next project........I'm still waiting for my cotton yarn to arrive so I can't start the granny square crochet blanket I have all raring to go in my mind ready for our holiday in the camper in the summer. After looking at the great pictures on Snail trail, little P and I have decided we are going to 'pimp the van'!! However, it looks like that project is going to have to wait a little bit.

For now, I asked little P to have a look through the mini boden catalogue and cut out pictures of any clothes she likes. She did better than that......little P came up trumps and made me a collage! Then yesterday I pottered down to my local sewing shop and bought a dress pattern that I thought would make a good 'bodenesque' dress. So hopefully this is going to keep me out of mischief for a couple of days!

Have a good bank holiday, Amanda x

Spring has finally sprung!

Wow, what a beautiful weekend we've just had! After the incredibly cold and seemingly prolonged winter, it's like someone just flicked a switch and pumped up the temperature! The plants have finally woken up and are beginning to put on some really good growth. The sudden dry spell has demanded a dedication to regular watering so we spent yesterday afternoon tending the little seedlings down at the allotment. and talking of little seedlings.....here is little P being a very well behaved young lady, happily focussed on eating her apple in the shade while mummy and daddy get on with planting and watering.

What a lot of planting has been going on too. The seedlings are fairing really well under our mega netting cloches we constructed last week and as you can see from the photo below, I've added some more little plants to my newly dug cutting patch. It's now sporting giant sunflowers, dwarf sunflowers, cosmos, calendula and nasturtiums. I'm hoping the greedy slugs dont manage to discover the patch until these little plants have had a bit of time to establish themselves.

And here is one of the triangle beds, it was supposed to be filled with dwarf french beans. I planted about 6 bean plants here last week but I had some luttuce in the greenhouse clearly aching to go outside so they're now sharing this bed until my next batch of dwarf beans have germinated under glass.

I'm hoping to show you some very exciting craft projects very soon.....they're ideas floating around in my head at the moment but the aim is to at least start one project by the end of the week. Until then, enjoy the sunshine!!

Relaxing at the allotment

Our little family has been having a bit of a tough time over the last few days, so I was really delighted when Mr B surprised me with a 'day at home' today. We took little p to school, she was very excited as it was a 'Daddy taker' day, and then we nipped down to the garden centre to buy some netting followed by a blissful couple of hours down at the allotment....... I really love working on our little patch, especially in the weekdays when it's very quiet. When the sun's shining it's a really beautiful place to be and it really makes your heart sing to be pottering about in the fresh air with the warm sunshine raising your spirits. As I feared we have a few casulties from the recent frosts, namely the courgettes, dwarf and climbing beans and the potatoes. Luckily I had a few extra plants in the cold frame as insurance for exactly these eventualities, so I got to work replacing my damaged plants. Mr B was very busy today constructing my netting supports with blue plastic water piping- the idea was to make a sort of 'mega cloche' to try to deter the crows from pulling out the seedlings and young plants. I think you'll agree from the pictures he did a great job and they look very impressive!

As if that wasn't enough, my handsome partner in crime then set about creating my cut flower patch which has been planned for ages but up until today had yet to be executed. And here it is, just in front of the bed with the three blue hoops in the picture, my first cutting patch (there's going to be a symmetrical one on the right) and it's difficult to see in the photo but I've already planted a row of giant sunflower seedlings with a row of dwarf sunflower seedlings just in front. At home in the cold frame I've also got cosmos and larkspur waiting to go out........

Our final job for the morning was to plant a little memorial rose bush towards to back of our plot, I think you can just make it out in the top and second photographs in the middle rear planting bed. We're really looking forward to seeing the beautiful pink blooms and smelling it's rosey fragrance in the summer.........

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!