Garden pics

Hi everyone, here we are, as promised, some pictures from the garden. I have been playing around with the mosaic feature on Picassa, great fun! This collage shows the Hardy Geraniums, Poppy, Cosmos, pots with annual Geraniums, Heuchera and a gorgeous Sarah Raven Carnation called Moulin Rouge which has a beautiful scent. Shame you can't smell it through the computer!


These pics are of some of my homegrown vegetables. Our strawberries have done amazingly again this year, it's a pity I don't know the variety because they really are fantastic, the fruits were big and very tasty. The bottom right picture shows my 'pea shoots'. I don't know if you followed Alice Fowler's Edible Garden programme, but she showed you how to grow pea shoots from a 38p box of dried peas! They taste just like fresh peas and are a great addition to salads.

Most of the beans (runner, french and dwarf)have got black fly on them which seem to be everywhere this year, so I'm hoping it won't reduce the bean harvest.
But my courgettes are really getting into their stride and I have picked quite a few, same with the cucumbers, I shall take some pics of them for you.

Flying the Flag

Hi everyone, sorry it's been so long! But I have been so busy making things and keeping up with orders I just haven't had time to post. The garden is looking fab so pictures of it to follow.

My wedding bunting on ebay has been popular, with one lovely customer ordering 125 metres! That took a while to make and kept me busy while hubby was watching the football. Here is what it looked like





Hopefully I may get some pictures of it in the Wedding Marquee to show you.

Talking of football, it got me thinking of doing some Union Jack themed items which I thought you might like to see.
There are cushions







and bunting in traditional red, white and blue





and pink and green for something a bit girly!







Hope you have lots of sunshine!

Summer weather

Hi everyone, hope you all had a good Easter! We have been having some glorious sunny days, so I was inspired to make some Beach Bags





They are for sale in my Ebay shop

Hope you all have lovely sunshine!

Summer Skirts

Spring is well on the way, so I've been thinking ahead to Summer and making some children's Summer clothes. I love designing and making childrenswear and have wanted to have my own range for a while now, but as it takes so much time to make all the patterns and the sizes etc I just haven't got around to it. So having a spare few minutes recently, I thought I would start off with some simple little skirts. You know, really pretty little designs that can be dressed up or worn as they are. I found some beautiful floral fabrics in my local fabric shop and have made a couple of designs.



One is a simple skirt with elasticated waist and pretty ribbon trim.


The other is a tiered skirt with ric-rac braid and contrast topstitching.


They are listed in my Etsy shop and I'm hoping to do Custom Orders for them. I love making clothes for Little One and she gets really excited when trying on my new creations! I just have to hide the ones I am selling otherwise she would take them all to put in her ever growing wardrobe!

PYO and Jam

Hope you all had a good bank holiday weekend. We went to a PYO farm on Saturday. Resulting in huge bag of apples, damsons and plums; one bruised face from falling bramley and one large bite from flying insect! Still, it was great fun!
Got up early yesterday and made the damsons into some jam, delicious!



Last week I had to start picking my tomatoes. The warm and humid weather this summer has meant they have succumbed to blight. It was quite depressing pulling up all the plants; remembering how exciting it was planting them all out as little seedlings. But I will salvage what I can, I've put them on the window sill with a couple of bananas (it's supposed to help ripen them) and I'll use the rest for chutney. Yes another batch of Green Tomato Chutney! Seems the last three years have proved very difficult for my tomatoes.


My Mum has some glass Kilner jars and we bought some new lids for them from ebay so I'm going to have a go at bottling some of the red tomatoes and some fuits. Have to read up on it first but will post soon on how I get on.

Reasons to be cheerful!

1. It's Bank Holiday Weekend and it's not raining!

2. My cucumbers are still growing!

3. I've just bought some new wool!

In the Pink!

The sun is shining and we're feeling in the pink today!


Decided to make a little skirt for my daughter. It was such an easy pattern, just three pieces of fabric, some elastic and hey presto a new skirt! The fabric was some I found at a local fabric shop, it was very unusual, shaded a bit like those dip dye jumpers you get.


I feel like making some more. so I've sorted out a few bits and pieces to make another one.


Beetroot. These are the only ones that grew this year! Not sure why They didn't do well, but I will persevere with them next year.



Osteospermum, which flowers for such a long time. This one is great because it is winter hardy. Lost three others last year from the snow. It's also very easy to propagate, you just pull off a piece with a root and stick it in a pot with some compost and it will take easily.




Another skirt, this time a fairy princess one! This is made from nylon mesh fabric in two colours. All I did was cut double petals, fold them over some elastic and sewed together for the waistband. The top layer has a gorgeous silver sparkle effect all over it. I want to make more of these possibly using tulle instead as the mesh is so heavy, I think tulle would give a more 'floaty' look.



Love this rose, I think it's like this one Definitely on my wish list, but just need to find room to put it!

Freebie Food

We went to a Wildlife Fun day for children this week at a local Country Park. Whilst walking around the activities, I spyed these little beauties growing in the hedgerow.
I only had a carrier bag with me to put them in so they were a little squashed when we got home! But they were delicious stewed with a Bramley apple and mixed with some yoghurt.

Back home, I harvested some of my Swiss Chard, before the snails devoured it. The leaves are a bit like Spinach so I made a sort of curry with it adding some Chick Peas. The stems are supposed to taste a little like Asparagus but i just chopped them separately and through them in aswell. It went down very well with home made pilau rice.
If you can beat the snails, it's actually quite a good vegetable to grow. Bright Lights is a beautiful variety; the stems are either red, yellow or white. An amazing vegetable for a potager garden. It can also be sown in September for Winter harvesting.

Camping

Just had a lovely weekend away camping in Swanage. Played on the beach with our two and a half year old, building sandcastles. Enjoyed a stroll around the town looking at lots of little interesting shops. Two, in particular, caught my eye. One was Chococo, which sold handmade chocolates. Delicious! The other, Petite Mouette was a really cute little childrenswear shop with some gorgeous little clothes and accessories, both well worth a visit.

This week there is a Carnival in the town, which was planned to coincide with Cowes week. On Saturday we could see the fireworks on the beach from outside our tent.

Sunshine and harvests

The sun has been shining and it feels like summer again. We went to a 'Big Lunch' children's picnic yesterday and it was lovely to see all the little ones running around in the sunshine!

Back at home in the garden, we have had a mini harvest of some vegetables. The carrots and turnips were just thinnings but looked big enough to eat, so we kept them. Always seems a waste to throw them away. The only disappointment is the radishes, think I may give up on them for the moment I just don't seem to able to grow them. Any tips on growing them will be gratefully received.



We have limited space in our garden and so decided to pool resources and use a bit of my parents garden as an 'over flow'. My Mum is also a keen gardener, so it works out well; we do some weeding and digging for her and then we share the growing space. It's a great idea! We have our name down for an allotment but have been told the waiting list could be five years! I also registered with Landshare but it seems spare land is like gold dust in this neighbourhood.


I read this morning that there is still time to do a sowing of runner beans right now, so I might give it a go. If only I had more space!

Wedding Bunting

Well, here is my first tutorial. I hope you find it easy to follow. I was saying how I'm into making bunting and had a great idea for a wedding style one. Today I decided to get on and make it!


I have a huge stash of lace left over from when I used to make Bespoke Bridalwear. So I chose two similar designs with quite a dense pattern, so that it would show up well. The laces are very pale ivory in colour, one with a pretty daisy design, the other with a leaf pattern.





So here's how to make it:
You need:
About a half yard /metre of Lace in two designs
Cardboard
Disappearing Ink Fabric Marker
Satin Bias Binding
Ribbon and/or Silk Roses to decorate

Step 1 - Cut yourself a pattern out of cardboard. I like to make the triangle size approxiamately 7" wide by 8" long (18cm x 20.5cm). You can, of course, make any size or even two sizes, so you have alternate large and small triangles.


Step 2 - Now you have a cardboard template, use it to cut a pile of lace triangles, at least 20 or so. Use a disappearing fabric marker to draw around the shape, then carefully cut with scissors or you could even use pinking shears. When placing out the template on the lace, place one triangle one way, then turn it upside down for the next.


Step 3 - Now, using the satin bias binding, place the top of the lace triangle onto the inside of the bias binding, against the middle and then fold it down so your lace is caught inside. Pin it to hold in position. Space the triangles along the binding with about 3" or 4" (7.5cm or 10cm) in between them. Leave about 2" (5cm) extra at either end. You can tack in place if you wish.

Step 4 - Sew along the edge of the bias binding, making sure the lace is caught in between and that both edges of the bias binding are level. When you have done this you can fold in the edges either side of the first and last triangle and hand sew them to finish off. I added ribbon bow trims and some cute silk roses to the one i made. I just cut lengths of ribbon and tied them into bows and hand sewed them on alternately with the silk roses.You can add co-ordinated coloured ribbons to compliment the wedding colours.

And Voila! Wedding bunting!