Random Update

The weather here has been very un-usual, well some would say lots of rain and no sun is a usual British summer but really it isn't not on this scale.

The allotment feels on the verge of being flooded the whole time and indeed in places the ground has been saturated for months now, in my potato bed we gave up planning before we finished as putting potatoes into holes full of water seemed a little pointless and indeed the hedge side of the bed which is lower has pretty much drowned.

In brighter news I have a great crop of onions and the garlic is looking good as are the Jerusalem artichokes which are obviously appreciating a lot more water than they got last year.

I don't think I've mentioned here yet one of the reasons I've been to busy too blog which is that I've been helping to set up Five Acre Community Farm. The weather has slowed growth there as well but we had our first of what will hopefully be weekly harvests from now on last Tuesday, this is what my box looked like.

First weeks share from the farm

The idea behind the farm is everyone who is a member is involved in running it to some extent and is able to be more involved in how their food is grown and indeed have some say in what is grown. We have however employed a professional grower to oversee things as running several acres of veg production and sticking the soil association rules to keep the lands organic status intact would be a little too much for a group of enthusiastic but mostly unskilled, in growing at least, volunteers.

All being well between the allotment and the farm we will have more veg than we know what to do with this year !

On the making front I have been busy with commission stuff for Mandala which I can't say to much about currently as well as making things personally. I also made a wedding cloak for a friend and finished some socks for mum.

socks for Mum, pattern is called Dicey

I have also got my spinning wheel out for the first time in years and plan to do the Tour De Fleece in July, which is basically the idea of spinning everyday of the Tour De France. Plus Jon made me a peg loom which so far I have made a rug on which is made of strips of jeans and an old stripy blue man's shirt. Hopefully I will shortly own a half share in a Rigid Heddle loom soon as well !

Rug being woven on peg loom

So all in all quite busy really !

fabric egg and flower photos

I just like this photo for all it's faults.

Noddles has to have a decorated hat or boiled egg for the Easter parade at school. Now he wanted an egg but we both agreed that a boiled egg could not be kept after and so as I had just found this lovely idea on Reto Mama we decided a fabric egg would be better.

Fabric as duly chosen by him and i then sewed it. He put the stuffing in though. Are you as surprised as me at the colours he chose given he had a fair range to chose from many of them quite bright? He is going to decorate it some more so you never know what it will be like by the end.
I thought you might also like to see some of the Helibores we have in the garden this year as they have flowered amazingly.

I'm tempted to remove at least some of them as they current occupy the area you see as you look out the back room and one of the few sunny parts of the garden. Currently the leaves fill the bed for most of the summer which is rather boring. I will either move them round to the shaded side or take them to the allotment I think.
Finally a shot of Treestump who is now starting to grow out of 12 to 18 month old clothes even though he is only a few weeks past his first birthday ! The surface with the monitor on is at normal table height ! He is also now happily walking around everywhere and was off across the playground at school yesterday when i let him out of the buggy.. exploring without a care in the world !

a wonderful giveaway

I've just found a wonderful new blog by a very talented lady (found as in pointed there by another blog I read regularly). The blog is called Don't look now.

She is having a giveaway of her new pattern and I am so tempted by it. The picture at the top is a detail of the design isn't it fabulous! Pop on over and have a look, you can even enter the draw to get one of the made up cushions.

Just noticed the colours match my fish :)

Crochet doll is a hit.

I recently made this doll form a pattern in Let's Knit, though it is crocheted not knitted. He is called Dude in the magazine and I thought he would make a good present for my 15 month old nephew. One each obviously. I finished him just before Aunty Jane's party and showed him to their mum who thought he was wonderful so planned to make a second one and give them to them in January as they are in South Africa for christmas as her mum lives there.

However Treestump saw him and made a grab for him and ever since has tried to get him when he has seen him so I have given in and let him have it. After all he seems more interested in him than most toys so go with the flow. Does mean I need to make two for late January... and probaly one for Christmas as big brother wants one, wel maybe two more as he thinks the other young cousins needs one.. and then there is our friend's baby boy.. I could be making quite a few !!

Luckly he is easy to make even over a sleeping babay as all the parts are made separately and joined together so expect to see various versions of this over the next few weeks,

Hypobolic Crochet and tiny hats

I recently made a scarf for a swap which it turns out is hypobolic crochet!! Now I have some understanding of hyperbolic maths though not much but apparently crochet is the best way to model it. In simple terms you start with a line or a point and then each line out form that gets bigger so you end up with a plane that turns in on itself. In scarf terms you get a corkscrew effect which is easy to do and very effective.

Also this last weekend I saw more hypobolic crochet becouse the UK crochet coral reef was at the NEC. It was really fun, i wish i'd gone down to London now to see the American one but I'll have to make do with the photos here instead.

So what about tiny hats? Innocent smoothies run the Big Knit each year, they ask people to knit little hats which then get put on their smoothies and sold in Sainsburies then 50p each smoothie goes to Age Concern. If you look on their blog you will see my friend Heather's hats being showcased too. I plan to do a few this year though I don't think I will be able to match her or indeed the other friend I know is doing them who has done over 30 so far! Oh and when I say knit they are happy to get crochet ones too.

Spaceships and progress out back.

The picture at the top is a spaceship the small one made recently. We were told firmly we had to save rubbish to make things from and indeed we were happy to do so for the school as the teacher had asked but himself decided he needed first pick to build something at home which he had great fun with. Since then it has sat ignored on the table so I took a picture and took it apart so the parts can be re-used to make something else.

So on to progress with the re-organisation. The area to be sorted is too big to be cleared of everything as suggested so I am doing it in stages. I have started to clear the wooden floor area though the building supplies are still there.. however as those are to finished the heating and therefore destined to go under the floor which of course will be out of sight. There is no point making Jon's life more difficult by moving it farther away at this point. However the pile of fabric that was there has been moved and sorted into keep and not keep. I am part way through washing it all as it is very musty due to being a small part of a lot of fabric I inherited in a round about sort of way (see earlier posts) and had been stored in a barn for a while.

I have also got two huge boxes of sewing pattern which I have sorted into keep and give away and got several friends to take what they want. One more friend to look through them ( and anyone else who reads this and is local is welcome to) then I'll see if there is any interest in ebay for the rest.

I did however do some tidying in another part of the room. The dresser had become a complete mess as any small items without a home had been dumped there so I cleared it and got out some of my Denby which is now on display.. It makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere.

In reply to the questions here.

I haven't got appropriately labelled boxes because typically I managed to recycle all the appropriately sized boxes just before we started but I'm working on that. I agree it's a good idea however.

I haven't set a specific time each day but I am trying to do a bit each day and see how much energy etc I have,

I don't want to get containers because a) we have quite a few, they are just full not nessacaraly of stuff we want to keep and b) I want to get the shelving sorted first so they are the right size.

I feel both overwhelmed and excited at the same time.