That green bit out back...

What a weekend! We wholeheartedly deserved that glorious weather, and more of it, too (hear that, Mother Nature? I hope you have lots more in store...).

Computers, television and phones were turned off. The back door was opened wide and we spent the entire weekend out in the garden. Bliss!

The first picnic of the season

I am slowly reintroducing myself to my garden. It’s been a while, you see, since we’ve seen had proper, quality time together. I’m talking years.

I grew up in a decidedly non-gardening family. I didn’t have a garden in my twenties, renting my little place while I worked in the city. But marriage and a baby brought out the nurturing, nature-craving instinct in me, and as soon as we moved to our home, I was out in the garden, reading about plants and flowers, watching Gardener’s World religiously (oh, Monty!).

Little Flower planted bright anemones outside her playhouse this weekend

When Bunny was little, we built miniature raised vegetable beds, inspired by Carol Klein’s wonderful Grow Your Own Veg series. We planted seeds, we weeded, we picked, we ate...I transformed the raised border surrounding our patio into a magnificent herb garden, chock full of a variety of useful and tasty herbs for cooking and teas. (Yes, I do find edible gardening much more aspirational...)

But in 2009, after years of trying and then giving up, lo and behold I fell pregnant with Little Flower. I have big babies, so by summertime my five-foot frame was carrying a massive baby bump, and no way was I going to make it down to the ground to pull weeds. The raised beds became Weed Island, with all varieties of garden invaders making the pilgrimage to the haven.

2010: Little Flower is an infant and we take her to see her family in America for a big summer holiday. Facing all the overgrowth of weeds and mess from the previous summer, I turn a blind eye to my poor garden.

2011: No recollection of this summer. Must have baby brain.

2012: Rain, rain, rain...oh, and more rain.

2013: I assume, unfortunately, that we were in for more depressing weather, so I leave the garden to its own devices, furthering the violent coup by the invading weed army.

2014: Little Flower is four and keen to grow things; I’m so fed up with the rubbish wet winter that now I’m ready for battle! We venture to the garden centre to choose seeds and shrubs to replace one lost in the storms.

Unable to choose between a pink azalea and a white one, we buy both and plant them side by side.

We pick millions of tiny twigs from the hellebores, the ferns, the hydrangeas, the herbs...the strong winds blew our silver birch trees to smithereens. 

The trees are still standing, thankfully. Little Flower raked up the smaller garden shrapnel, while I handled the larger bits.

Of course I have little to show for this weekend’s toil other than large swathes of bare earth where grass used to grow, and piles and piles of kindling!

But I have promise: plants, seeds and the desire to get back to gardening after a long absence. This will be a good summer to reacquaint myself with that green bit out back, no matter what Mother Nature has in store (*more sunshine*, *more sunshine*, *more sunshine*...).

Chrissie x

Stitching Sunday: Order from chaos

In line with the sunshine this morning, promising Spring and its requisite cleaning, I want to start reorganising my embroidery supplies. I picked up a handy tool to make sense of the plastic bag(s) of embroidery floss...

If I wind a few a day, I could have them all sorted and ready to file away in this handy-dandy gift from my mother:

My mother is the most organised, tidiest person I’ve ever known, and the sight of my craft supplies (or craft piles) must make her cringe. She has given me storage gifts for yarn, fabric and threads. I aspire to get it all sorted this year...

The top will hold hoops and fabric, the drawers keep floss, scissors and needles tidy. And its portable, so I can take it to my craft groups...

I also have this lovely vintage sewing box, bought from a friend who refinishes old and tattered furniture

It has the original blue velvet lining in the top, and a small drawer for organising bits and bobbins

Another embroidery tool that keeps me organised is my magnetic needle keeper. I have a few at the moment, they beg to become a collection!

I have shared my love of magnets before, in this post, written in the first two weeks of my blog. These invaluable little pretties are perfect for anyone who can’t ever seem to be able to sit for more than five minutes without someone somewhere in the house calling out for something! Rather than stabbing the fabric repeatedly or just losing the needle in the back of the sofa, I park it on the magnet, sort out whatever minor crisis only I can solve, then pick up the needle and carry on with my work.

My little magnetic frog!

I found these lovely magnets here.

Now that we’re into February, I can report on the &Stitches Finish-Along. No, Sam-I-Am isn’t finished (ha! Don’t be silly!), but hey-ho, I’ve made more progress with him this month than I have all autumn and winter!

The ham is just about complete. I will add more black stitches today, but I wanted to show you the flow of the green stitches, following on from last week’s post.

I used long and short stitch embroidery, curving very gradually as I stitched. Here’s a size reference:

I couldn’t have done this without this super-geeky piece of kit:

This is a magnifier that I wear around my neck, so I have hands free to stitch. It comes complete with a tiny light if I need extra illumination to my thread. I am so rock-n-roll crazy it frightens me.

I wonder if I could tart up this magnifier, make it less, well, old-lady-ish? I mean really, I love embroidery, I love the cute magnets and gorgeous array of floss, so why can’t there be some Cath Kidston-inspired magnifiers and lamps?

Before I leave you to your day, I want to share some lovely discoveries in my garden this morning...

Amidst the rubble...

Despite the winter storms throwing all and sundry onto the back border of my garden (a thousand twiggy branches from my birch tree, piles of leaves, buckets of rain, and the odd bit of plastic bag blown away from a rubbish bin), the first few blooms change are making their tentative appearances.

The mighty-yet-dainty snowdrop, which no doubt would find a way to pop up through a glacier if challenged. I love these flowers, so delicate yet determined to flourish – never to be thwarted by the ongoing grey of January (note to self: take a cue from the humble snowdrop next year post-Christmas!). They pop up just when you need to be reminded that change will come!

Hiding behind the foliage

I was so delighted to see the hellebore blossoms opening this morning. Only last week I thought they had succumbed to the Christmas soaking, but by the end of the week, fat buds were sneaking out from beneath the leaves.

I love how these blossoms perch bashfully on their stems, heads down, revealing the beautiful rosy streaks on the back of the petals.

Eenie, meanie, minie, mo – do I work on my sewing projects now, or go outside and do some chilly gardening? I think I’ll take advantage of this gorgeous golden orb in the sky...

Chrissie x

Simple gifts still life

This week I have received generous and beautiful harvest gifts from friends: 

The last of the dahlias from Jooles garden, tied with a velvet ribbon and given to me this morning when we met to do some quilting (more on that soon!).

A generous batch of quinces from a crafty friend's tree - their heady scent has filled the kitchen, simply scrumptious! We plan to meet up to make quince jelly and to try a recipe I found for quince and pumpkin chutney (more on that soon, too!).

The last of the apples shared with me by a music teacher friend - the rest made their way into apple-cinnamon cupcakes with honey frosting (The Love Bakery Cookbook, a gem!). These last little fellas are destined to become apple-blackberry jelly with the frosty blackberries in the photo, picked from the hedgerow on our road and frozen to try to keep little hands from gobbling them all up! 

What has autumn given you this week? 

Chrissie x

The edible bouquet

I see plenty of beautiful flowers in the florist’s window. Supermarkets now stock an abundance of bouquets, and even petrol stations stock enough blooms to cover an emergency hostess gift. But my favourite posy to give is an edible one, picked straight from my herb garden.

 

All you see here is can be eaten! I love picking an array of pretty blooms and leaves and arranging them in a wildflower-style bunch tied with twine.

These posies make me happy, even happier when the recipient discovers that they can snip various leaves and blooms throughout the week to flavour dinners!

The variety of herbs varies week to week – the little purple orbs of chive flowers always look pretty (be careful, though, or the bouquet will smell entirely of onion!) but they died out last week. The soft green sage leaves haven’t grown high enough yet. So what culinary treats are in this particular bouquet? Let’s see...

Start with one perfect rose...

 

Add some more floral colour with bronze fennel flower, lavender and marsh mallow

 

 

The liquid resulting from boiling the marsh mallow plant can be used like egg whites.

Then we need some background greenery. The ferny fronds of sweet cicely and the bold bay leaf work well...

 

 

Need some architectural interest - some arching, frothy bronze fennel leaves

And the dainty white-dotted stems of oregano and savoury

Just caught the oregano flowers before they completely fade

The savoury stems curve up nicely...

I usually give a posy to a fellow foodie friend. To make the offering even more of a ‘proper’ gift, add a little recipe card featuring one or more of the plants in the herbal bouquet – a soup, a salad dressing, even sugared rose petals for cake decorating...

Happy crafting and bon appétit!

Chrissie x

Crack the WIP!

The Blossom Bag was pushed aside and stitching was left in the hoop as I frantically put the finishing touches to the baby blanket I’d been sort-of-secretly working on for a while.

Can you guess why? Yes, my friend’s baby boy couldn’t take this summer heat anymore and arrived early! (Which puts to rest any fancy ideas that I was, maybe, just maybe, making the blanket for a certain royal ‘friend’...c’mon, didn’t you think it for a brief moment when I first showed the WIP? Nah, I didn’t think so...)

I really like the picot edge, this little detail gives the blanket a baby sweetness.

All that’s left now is gift wrapping. I don’t know why I’m rushing, with this heat it’s not like mummy will be using it anytime soon!

I used a soft green shade – Sirdar Snuggly 0403 – and the size is perfect for a pram or a buggy. I enjoyed making the raised shell pattern, where every odd row was worked Back Loops Only.

But wait, there are more babies about!

Here is the second baby robin this year; I guess the fine weather has stimulated a baby boom in the bird world! This fledgling hopped up along the feeder...

Then made himself comfortable sitting squarely on a seed ball! He pecked away for a long while – imagine sitting on a giant chocolate chip cookie you have all to yourself? *Mmmm*

These are the latest brood from the Blackbird Clan, who arrived during our first summer in this house, nearly 10 years ago. I love the friendliness of blackbirds, like robins. They all know me, and most mornings one or two will stand outside the French doors in the kitchen, looking sideways at me as if to say, “Breakfast, please!” Then they sit on a branch, hanging around while I put out the seed.

For a special treat, the girls and I put out handfuls of sultanas or raisins, then sit and watch them scoff the ‘candy’

Steady on, piggy!

 

Little Flower is fascinated by how close they allow us to be. Our back garden has a little area that you can see here – about 15 patio tiles just plonked down by the previous owners, probably for their barbecue, but for us it’s a spacious bird feeding station!

Here is daddy bird, with distinguished patches of grey feathers...

 

I’m afraid there are no more photos of The Woodpecker Family, at least not this summer. The last time I saw Baby Woody, he looked well into his teens, all slimmed down feathers, sassy look in his eye – even the red tuft of feathers on his head looked gel-styled! I grabbed the camera as quick as I could but, alas, he was gone. I’m not sure he even ate that much – perhaps he was just coming to say goodbye. Best of luck to the fella! 

I will end this post with a big swathe of jasmine flowers for my new friends and followers, welcome and thank you for visiting!

Happy crafting!

Chrissie x