Category Archives: Gardens

When not in textile mode my other passion is gardening and my garden

Let the Dog See the Rabbit…

…as my father used to say. I don’t know about rabbits, it’s been possible for a small herd of hippos to find hiding places around here over the past few weeks such is the amount of stuff I have been moving from place to place and box to box. Last week it all seemed to reach a crescendo of chaos and, despite my inability to be tidy, I am debilitated by mess.

However, I think I am now on the verge of normal service being resumed. The studio is more or less fit for purpose and the bogeyman now has room to fit back under my bed (even the the dust bunnies have gone thanks to Kryton)

I’ve managed to keep up my Twenty Minuter pledge with little, in-front-of-the-telly sized projects, but between the box shifting and the vegetable plot not a lot of creativity has happened.

Outside though, Mother Nature has been as creative as only she can be, and the camera has been an essential part of Higgins walking equipment. One of the joys of blogging is the discipline it imposes on recording things to write about so this year I have far more images of the fleeting loveliness of the English Spring to keep the memories fresh.

I love the lush, multi shaded green-ness of May, with the sprinkling of bright spring flowers from Bluebells and Stitchwort, Speedwell and Queen Anne’s Lace, wild Plum and Apple blossom right down to the humble Dandelion and Dead Nettle.

The tulips have been lovely this year, and on a visit to Kit’s garden I found one which had obviously been wired up to the National Grid!

I do have a few of my own, but I think I will have to take a leaf out of Jane Brocket’s book for a more spectacular show next year.

The beautiful red tulips at the end of the garden are Higgins favourite. Unfortunately he thinks they are delicious and I caught him tearing round the lawn with one hanging out of the side of his mouth like Carmen Miranda! No picture alas, I couldn’t catch up…

I shall have to dash now and get a little parcel all packed up. I’ve been taking part in a bloggy swap organised by Emma of Em’s Shabby Shack and have a little pile of goodies ready to send off to my partner, Kelly of Kelly’s Recipe’s for Life. I shan’t show them to you just yet or I will spoil the surprise so watch out later in the week.

And don’t forget there is still another week to run on the 100 Post Giveaway so if you haven’t done so already don’t forget to enter the draw,

Back soon…!

Off to the Fair…

…the Norwich Bead and Textile Fair that is. A lovely Sunday morning treat. Having said that, I ALWAYS get a headache when I go to these things, I get so overwhelmed with colour, and texture, and wanting to try new things and talking myself out of it … Anyway, we did our usual circuit to check out what was on offer, a coffee to calm down and then spent some money.
I couldn’t resist this fabric…

I seem to have a ‘tea’ thing in my head at the moment,because there was also this button…

(which is much much smaller than that!)

I’ve been wanting to try printing some fabric for a project for ages so I was very happy to find Crafty Notions stand, a range of textile paints called Colourful Thoughts and a nice lady demonstrating exactly how they work so I bought these…

And then, to keep myself occupied in odd moments with a ball of wool, I HAD to have this…

Natural Dye Studio ‘Angel’ baby Alpaca, Cashmere and Silk lace weight. It is SO soft, and came with a free scarf pattern…

It was nice to meet up with old friends, and make new ones. Fellow students from courses at Broadland Art Centre, a bloggy friend, Teena of Kitschen Pink, and Bridget of feltbybridget.com with her lovely felty, woolly stall. Bridget even went home and started her own blog!

Outside in the fresh and rather damp air, were some lovely pieces of floral inspiration. Don’t you just love the colour of these pansies?

I feel a patchwork quilt coming on…

…and in the strange rather stormy overcast light, the euphorbia was almost Dayglo green…

And we found a little bed where the planting was straight off a nineteen thirties printed cotton frock…

And now it’s time to get some work done. I’m still working my way through sorting stuff out of boxes, but I now have a work surface and lots of things to get on with…

Back soon!

P.S. My 100th post is coming up very soon, watch out for another giveaway…!

Out of the Blue

Today I find myself popping out to the garden to gaze up into the perfect, blemish free, china blue of the sky in amazement. Only last week when Higgins and I were out on a walk I had remarked on the fact that over our rural part of Norfolk there must have been 30 to 40 vapour trails in various stages of decay. The Icelandic volcano is causing all sorts of havoc to so many people, so it’s good to record a positive aspect.

The vegetable garden is still a battle ground, and I am losing. I have a sneaky black and tan garden pest, and a second sowing of salad greens with no labels and scraped up rows. I really thought the polytunnel would be a deterent but for a small animal of the low slung persuasion it seems not…

I ‘ve managed to protect the peas and beans with a cobbled together barrier of chicken wire and bamboo which has worked so far so we’ll see…

Things are growing fast. I photographed the rhubarb and the lovage a week apart…

The lovage is at it’s best when young and tender, by the time it reaches its full height of over 6 feet high the leaves are a little tough. I can’t wait for the rhubarb, I love rhubarb and orange crumble…

I’m plodding on in the studio. I have shelves waiting for Tim’s return next week and that will make a huge difference as I can then shift so much bulk. I’m slowly sorting, sorting…so much has got SO muddled, but it’s nice finding old friends and things I had forgotten about.

I’m still finding time to be a bit creative, bearing in mind the ‘Twenty Minuter’ message. I’ve needle-felted a couple more little birds…

…but when I tried to make a pale pink one it stubbornly insisted on being a pig…

My Tabby Cat and Goldfish now have a shelf to sit on…

Henry and friends donated the whiskers, otherwise he’s solid Merino wool…as is the Blue-haired Lady.

Just as well I’ve recorded the positive side of grounding all aircraft, Tim’s trip back from the ‘office’ next week involves a helicopter so who knows when he’ll get back…

Mixed Greens

A short post, typed through gritted teeth…can you type through gritted teeth? When I was young, and naughty (which of course was a very rare occurrence) my mother would say despairingly “I could give you away with half a pound of tea!”

So, puppy, anyone? Very nice tea, Clipper, organic. Very naughty dog though. No-one with any sense would want him, however good the tea.

The crime? Well it’s gardening related. Over at Purple Podded Peas Celia has some excellent staff, Undergardeners par excellence. Weeding, hoeing, pest clearance, manure…they are the business!

Here? Well, the Head Gardener is happy to put in an appearance…

…but is pretty laid back these days.

The Undergardener?

Over enthusiastic and won’t take instruction. Has been given a verbal warning.

After two afternoons spent tidying and clearing the vegetable garden and hoiking the weeds out of the raised beds out came the seed packets to see what I could get going in the one bed I’d had the cover on for a couple of weeks to warm up the soil. I sowed half a bed, salad leaves, chives, spring onions, red spring onions, radishes, carrots…and in pots sowed basil, dill and coriander. Tired by then,and thirsty, I popped in for a well deserved cuppa and came out to…chaos…

The Undergardener had heaved himself on his stumpy little legs over the sleeper which formed the bed, and into the nice, soft, fluffy compost and it’s neat rows of seeds and, well, I don’t know…disco dancing? mining? fossil hunting?

No more neat rows…no more labels…even the labels in the pots had been taken out and chewed…I won’t know if it’s basil, or dill, or coriander until they’ve grown big enough to taste…

So that’s why Higgins is lying in his bed looking worried about the packet of tea. But do you know? In the end my Mum didn’t give me away either….

…and BREATHE…

I feel as if I’ve been holding my breath for months, waiting for this moment. Waiting to open the doors and windows, to let in the sun and fresh air, to wander in and out without a coat…and here we are at last. I don’t want a ‘barbecue summer’, well, not one that will barbecue me, but pleasant warmth, sunshine and light, and just enough rain for the garden (only falling at night please, if we’re having a fantasy lets get it right).

I’m scuttling about a bit at the moment. A little bit of gardening, a little bit of sorting fabrics and yarns, some sewing, some knitting, symptoms of a butterfly brain. So excuse me if this post is a bit like that, I’ll settle down soon.

Firstly, the garden. You’ll excuse me if I don’t take you round the vegetable patch just yet. It needs a little more attention before I show it to visitors. Too many old bean canes and dead flowerpots. I do have lovely raised beds which I talked about in this post, and I have extravagantly enlisted the help of a gardening guru to make it look good enough for a photo shoot.

The wild plum is just bursting into bloom and I love the ‘spottiness’ of the buds just before they open. We started on the last of the wild plum jam on Sunday on warm scones.

In a couple of days it will just be a froth of blossom.

The forsythia is doing it’s thing, quite a bit later this year. Every summer I look at this unprepossessing nondescript shrub filling up the border and nearly give it it’s marching orders, and every spring I forgive it.

There are assorted daffodils…

…and other, less assertive, little lovelies hiding their light under the bushes…

Meanwhile, back in the studio, there is a very different tree…

The little red bird is feeling a trifle lonely now that his pink friend has flown off to live with Elizabeth, I must get felting again.

…and then there is the knitting…

Quite big knitting as Higgins will demonstrate…

The ball has a history – which I’ll tell you about another time – but it’s just had a colour revamp before going off to our local Farmers Market tomorrow where the Knit and Stitch group are hoping to spread the knitting bug, (whilst spoiling ourselves with coffee and and the delicious, and very naughty, bacon rolls.

So, before that happens I must don my wellies and gardening gloves and head back out to the vegetable garden and absorb a little sunshine…

Higgins and the Robot

Ha! Now that’s got you wondering hasn’t it, and I’m not going to tell you about it till the end!

I’ve got quite a backlog of photos in the camera because all this tinkering with the blog and the studio has meant I’m really behind on posts. I was also full of good intentions to make pretty Easter things (I have to confess to 5 blown egg shells which didn’t get painted LAST Easter -I’ve forgotten the excuse I had then) . It’s been pretty inpossible to find any of my equipment however, seeing as it’s all packed in boxes in the spare room, and I’m trying to bring it all out slowly so I can sort it to avoid the minestrone type mixture of stuff I usually end up with when I’m working.

I did have wool and needles to hand though so I’ve been able to do a little knitting project AND write a knitting pattern so I have been putting in more than my twenty minutes of creativity a day.

Firstly, I managed to get a picture of the Twisted Hazel which I gave my Mother for Mother’s Day several years ago. It’s qite slow growing, and that first year had just the one catkin so it’s doing pretty well now.

The little daffodils sheltering underneath look so pretty. The miniature ones do so much better in this windy spot because they don’t get flattened as easily. It was even warm enough for not just one, but two ladybirds. I’ve only just spotted the second one.

With a birthday in the family this weekend and a celebratory lunch I’ve got the Easter Tree up and ready. This is where the painted eggs are supposed to hanging… Anyway, the little decorations look pretty, and the pink primroses set it off nicely.

Then there were the egg cosies, knitted in my favourite wool. (Hasn’t it gone a long way since I did all that dyeing last year? Time for a fresh batch with new colours very soon)

I’ve put the pattern in the tutorial section which you’ll find at the top under the banner.
And now for that robot… Several years ago a very clever person, someone who got their priorities in life just right, invented a robot vacuum cleaner. It was HUGELY expensive and I said at the time, if I ever win the lottery I’m having one of those. Well time went by …and I still haven’t won the lottery… but the price of the vacuum cleaner went down to a nearly sensible price, and Lakeland featured them in their catalogue and I thought ‘Why not?’ So Kryton came to live with us. He sits under the work top in the utility room until he’s needed, charges out with a triumphant little fanfare when he is switched on, trundles round the room humming and sucking away and spins frantically round on the spot with a blue light flashing when he finds a particularly filthy bit . Once he’s finished he wheels himself back to the docking station and parks himself with another fanfare before going back on charge, the light on top pulsing red like a heart beat. Occasionally we might have a little problem and Kryton stops, gives a mournful little toot and says, in a strongly American accented female voice, ‘Please clean Roomba’s brushes’ . I can’t tell you how disconcerting that was the first time that happened. Anyway, it’s great to be able to drink coffee and watch the vacuum doing its stuff without me and if that makes me sound totally lazy, well…

We also had an amusing moment when Higgins, as a very small puppy, went behind Kryton’s curtain and climbed on top, stood on the go button and rode out on top looking very surprised! Not a lot fazes Higgins, but you can imagine he’s not Kryton’s number one fan, especially when it chases him round the room with the filth detector light flashing. When I got to the end of the studio painting I took the vacuum out to clean the floor prior to painting it and, as Higgins does like to be in on everything, he joined in.

Sometime I must tell you about the day he met a seal…

Planet Penny

Crafts, Needle Felting, Crochet, Patterns & Tutorials