Spring

Welcome spring!

Today is the Spring Equinox, the day when the day is the same length as the night and the beginning of spring.  From today until the summer solstice the days will get longer.

I decorated my dresser with spring flowers from the garden and a crocheted garland.

A few days ago I saw a post on Instagram inviting people to join in with making a flower crown and posting a photo wearing it today, so I thought, why not that sounds like fun, so I knocked this up

And popped it on!

Smelt nice too!

You can see the others on Instagram #primaveracrowns

FEBRUARY 2014 SCAVENGER HUNT

This month has flown by, unlike January which dragged on and on and on, and so it was a bit of a surprise to find it was the end of the month and I hadn't found all my photos for this months challenge.  So stuck my wellies on and went out in the wind and rain to finish them off and here they are...............

F is for ..............

Fingers!  or finger nails to be precise - had a gel manicure last week before we went away for the weekend.

3 p.m.

At 3 p.m. today I walked (in the freezing cold pouring rain) to the post office to post a swap parcel to New Zealand.


Grain

 My chickens have a handful of mixed grain every afternoon.  It is funny they eat the corn, but leave the sweetcorn which they eat the next morning.

Lamp

 This desk lamp used to be in one of the bedrooms and was red.  I wanted it over my desk, so we sprayed it grey!  Fits right in now

Click

Click, click, clickerty click - as I type and and a double click now and then!


 Honey

Alice bought this jar of honey back from Russia at Christmas, it had a paper label tied with string and a wax seal on it.  I also noticed that our favourite cereal bars are oats and HONEY.  Had a talk about bee keeping at horticultural society last year, it's a right faff, they need lots of work.  Not just a case of getting the honey out once a year, not sure that bee keeping is for me, but glad it is for some people!!

Fountain

 Fountains have been a bit thin on the ground in my part of the world. So here is the rain overflowing from the water but into a bucket causing a bit of a fountain!

Round

Pompoms!  round woolly balls of delight!

Shadow

Just me in the garden, we managed one sunny day this month!


Clouds

I was trying to get a photo of "The House in the Clouds" but got a good photo of the clouds but not of the house.  You can just about see it on the horizon.  Apparently this was a water tower, but they made it look like a house.  Taken in Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast.


Group

Spotted this big group of crocuses on the side of the road as I walked back from the post office.

Repupose

I save up all the loo roll and kitchen roll innards all year round and use them to plant my broadbeans and runner beans.  I planted some broadbeans a couple of weeks ago, but one of the old boys at the allotment told me they would rot, so I came home and planted the rest of the seeds in these tubes in the greenhouse -  I won't be beaten!

Well that's it for another month, will start looking for the March photos.  Thanks to Greenthumb once again!

Something to sit on

 Ta Da!

 The wind is howling, the rain is lashing down, what to do but stay indoors and crochet.  The chair cushion is now finished.

 Started a couple of weeks ago, choose 9 shades of blue and green for the centre then a round of grey, a round of cream and a round of green. All wool left over from other projects.  Nine granny squares altogether.

Joined them together with more green and then two more rounds of green around the whole lot.

And it came out like this.

I made a cover out of fleece and edged the flap with a row of green shell edging.

Pinned the crochet to the cover

And hand-stitched it on.

Here it is on it's chair

And the other three.  The one on the left was my practice ripple, to learn how to ripple before I started my blanket.  The one in the middle is just one big granny square, made when I was between projects and just wanted something to do.

And here they all are around the table!  Just one more to make, but that can wait for a bit, got a little something else on the go now.
 

An excellent weekend

Oh no he didn't!  Oh yes he did!  Panto time!

 And I nearly didn't make it. On Friday evening as I drove to the end of my road I noticed that there was an enormous traffic jam (we don't get many as we live in the countryside) but realised that I was not going to get to Colchester the normal way. Took a detour through some lanes and hit the traffic jam from the opposite direction, so took the "long cut".  This took me about 20 minutes longer than I expected and arrived at the theatre with a 5 minutes to spare!  I found out after that a lorry had overturned on the A12, closing the road, this means that traffic diverts through the country lanes near us, but there was another accident on this route and it seems the whole of North Essex was at a standstill.
I joined the others from the WIGS (WI girls) at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester for a fabulous production of Sleeping Beauty.  What fun it was!  lots of singing, dancing, silly jokes, being squirted with water and an ice cream tub in the interval.

Saturday was a lovely bright and sunny day, popped to the market to stock up on fruit and veg and came home to get out in the garden.
 Picked up this lovely pot of daffodils for just £1.

I let the chickens into the greenhouse and they had a lovely time dust bathing - rolling around in the dry earth working it into their feathers.  They then stand up and have a good shake and cover me in dust!  They must have loved it as Sunday they laid two eggs.  Have been having one or none most days.  I don't think that Marjorie is laying though, I have had words with her.

 Time to start sowing some seeds. I love sweetpeas and try and grow lots on the allotment.  I am starting them off in the cold greenhouse now, in pots.  Sowed some mixed winter salad leaves in a big pot.  In theory you should be able to grow lettuce all year round and not have to buy those expensive bags from the supermarket, but I have yet to achieve this.  Perhaps that should have been my resolution this year  - to grow all my own lettuce!
Leek seeds in the greenhouse, onions and lavender in the airing cupboard - just got to wait and see now.....................  I will let you know if anything grows.

 Just one week after Alice's birthday it was Jared's turn.  His birthday was on Friday, but he had had exams this week and decided to stay at Uni and have  a party with all his friends.  He came home of Saturday and of course I made him a cake  - chocolate sponge (made with eggs from the girls) filled with cream (found half a pot in the freezer) blackcurrent jelly ( a Christmas present from a friend) topped with buttercream (left over from Alice's cake) and decorated with half a packet of chocolate buttons (left over from the gingerbread house).
Yes I am on a mission to use up all the bits and pieces in the cupboards and freezer.  Just shopping for things as I need them - I wonder how long I can go before I need to do a "big shop"?

Sunday was spent cleaning the house, doing my household accounts, a bit of crochet and finished by watching the darts final and Sherlock  -excellent weekend!

Blanket Ta-da!

It's finished!  My green and pink ripple blanket.

A close up of the pattern.

I made it to go on my bed, and oh! how warm and cosy it is.

 The yarn is Rowan, Belle Organic by Amy Butler. The pink is 4 ply, the turquoise is aran and the rest is double knit, this has given it some texture.  I bought the yarn from John Lewis last January and have been working on it on and off all year.  It was never meant to be something that was rushed at, just a project to pick up and do a bit now and then.  It was a bit thick and warm to work on over the summer and also got too big to take out with me.

I was, of course inspired to make this by Lucy at Attic 24, I followed her instructions, stitch by stitch and then voila!  A whole blanket!

 

Autumn show

It's not quite Autumn here yet, but yesterday was our Horticultural Societies Autumn show.  It is quite a small show, with only and handful of entries in each class, but I enjoy all the preparation -  the growing - the making - the cooking.  
Some things have been over a year in the making such as the wine and others are very last minute like the Victoria sandwich and the flowers, which need to be made or picked early in the morning.

 I have had a plan for the week running up to the show. Firstly I had to choose and and order my photos 

Four categories here, My 4 legged friend, Trees, The seashore and A special event, my photos of the Olympics won a 2nd prize.

 Next the wine needs to be tasted, re-bottled and labelled. I entered 4 bottles, white dry, white sweet, red dry and a rose and won a 1st, 2nd and 3rd!

Have been working on the handicraft entries over the year, this knitted fair isle jumper for a child won 3rd prize.

I am quite proud of this appliqued and quilted tea cosy, especially as it came 1st!

The worst thing in the whole show is a dressed doll.  So old fashioned and really not my thing at all.  I found a really complicated pattern with a very difficult lace pattern, knitted on thin needles and 4 ply wool, but it only got 2nd prize.  I was a little disappointed.  I have no idea what to do with this now, who on earth would want it?  I won't be entering this again.

Gave the pot plants a wash and brush up.  Wiped over the pot and cleaned the leaves - made all the difference my lovely Aloe Vera won 1st prize.

 We grow lots of raspberries on the allotment and I made some jam earlier in the summer, this also won 1st prize.  Last week I made some very red beetroot chutney - 2nd prize.

No luck with the rest of my cooking. Alice beat me with her Victoria Sandwich, she was very happy to get the 1st, but neither of us got anything for the banana cake and both our savoury biscuits were "a bit dry"!!!

A basket of veg, all picked from the allotement.  1st prize for some Cavalo de Nero kale, carrots, beetroot, peas, lettuce, spring onions, courgettes, cucumber and tomatoes - Wow!  Of course can't take all the credit for this one, Mr HH does the hard work  -all the digging, composting and watering!

 There are two types of flowers that can be entered, one is called decorative, which is proper flower arranging with bought flowers which I cannot do and the other is homegrown flowers which I can do.  These are my ten stems of garden flowers (no prize!)

 

and a vase of annuals - came 2nd with these, mainly marigolds and cosmos.

Here I am with my Anniversary Class entry.  This one has 4 items, a vase of homegrown flowers (more sunflowers) a pot plant, handicraft (knitted socks) and a cake (cupcakes)

Phew!  I did enjoy that!  Time to start thinking about planting some bulbs for the spring show!