Out of Time

Today was one of those lovely days that somehow will sit always in a sun-dappled space in my head; a memory out of time…could be anytime, what was relevant was the company, and the feel of the day the scent in the air and the quality of the light. And the murmur of friends… a clink of glass and the green scent of fresh salad on a clean white platter.

I woke early and put the quiche filling into its crisp baked, buttery case I made the night before, and set it to cook…it’s my favourite quiche, from my usual source, the BBC Good Food website. Leek, Mushroom and Gruyere, lovely. Make it yourself, click on the link for the recipe:-

Quiche Here!

I like a quiche neither hot, nor cold, it must be faintly warm to really savour the subtle blend of the flavours…Anyway, down to the cabin to set the scene for my girls…Beautiful satiny roses from Drew which he got me the night before, I need them with me, the scent the colour all day, I could kiss them. I did.

  

 

And what’s in the pretty hand-made boxes? One for each friend, and inside a little bar of handmade soap, a packet of dried lavender, home grown in a small town near me called Hitchin; button and fabric, everything to make the lavender sachet (which you can see if you click the link here):-

Lavender Sachet

In the heat of the afternoon, I didn’t have the wit to photograph the finished ones they made, and I’ve misplaced my own sample, but the link shows the one pictured on the website. Pretty innit?

But I’m galloping ahead to the finished thing and have not spilled the jewels of the day…Must have been the hottest day of the year, and we fair melted, but everyone finished a lavender sachet, and half-made a little teddy bear from a new book I bought recently called “Quilt yourself Gorgeous” by Mandy Shaw. I got it from Threads and Patches, and it has lots of lovely pretty ideas. I will say that the instructions are not the clearest in the world, but the pictures make up for it. I put up bunting because it was a special occasion; good friends coming for a whole day and no pressure to do anything other than sew and chat, share a meal, just enjoy the day – and so we did…if you want to make some bunting, email me and I’ll send you my pattern.

 

I love this strange shot because it’s all wrong and unreal; the bunting is pinned against the cabin door which is opened flat against the building, and it’s dreamy because you can see the reflection of the garden in the glass of the door world beyond world and the shadow on the glass seem to add rather than detract…

Apart from the gift of good company and a nice meal cooked and shared, I got some lovely extra treats I didn’t deserve or expect, wine and a lovely card from Naomi, the freshest greenest lettuce Mr. McGregor ever saw and rosemary from Trish from her own garden, and a very special piece of plastic from Marjorie, which will be well bent, because it gives me 10% off every purchase I make for a whole year in one of the nicest of local garden centres! Wow, I can’t believe how lucky I am, and thank them all from a fluffy cloud called “Saturday, July 10th, in the year of our lord…!”

Good company makes your thoughts turn to other dear ones, and my sweet Isolde couldn’t come because she wasn’t well, but whilst we were down in the cabin Les popped in with a pot of luminous and velvety African Violets, which I brought down so we could look at them through the day…

 

And who was sauntering about the garden? Digging the spuds for lunch and indeed serving the lunch and clearing up, and generally looking after us? Gool ol’ Boysie, he who will be on the receiving end of my scissors tomorrow, yes, a bit of pruning is what’s needed, free of charge, no worries. Naomi said, “And what will you do this evening when we are all gone and left to yourselves?”” Well, it was very simple really, a lovely cool shower, an easy sort of quick dinner… And after, when the cloak of dusk  settled on the shoulders of the evening like a fall of thick velvet, we picked our way down the gravel path and sat on the decking; talked long and cool finally, a bottle of chilled Cava dispatched by the flickering light of a candle, fragranced with oil of Citronella to disperse the insects…

 

A still night; the aromatic scent of Trisha’s rosemary, tossed in my big Italian bowl to dry, perfect day…

Stuck

Do you know the sort of day when the sky has a tight grey lid on it and your soul something similar? The kind of day when you feel you can move nothing forward? I feel today that the only thing I could possibly move would be a cup of coffee, or maybe my fat self to Tesco’s for some blasted groceries…But Oh La! This is not the snivelling puddle of negativity for which you joyfully log on to my blog is it? So. I shall endeavour to do better. There are one or two reasons for my malaise; Flossie McGinger, my little red hen has gone broody. She thinks that if she parks D’Arcy on the coop all day for ever, some darling fluffy yellow chicks will at some point pop up and entrance us all. I am struggling with the notion that she’s just a not-very-bright-creature, following her instincts, and I have to push back the thought that perhaps a size five trainer up her rear end might Move Her On a Bit… But no, I let her make like a fat ginger cushion until the other two need to go on the coop for nature’s call, and then she harrumphs about the garden pathetically. Oddly, none of my Little Talks about “Some chickens having a garden no bigger than a piece of A4” have had the slightest. mood-enhancing effect.. (I swear I would never, ever, even in extremis – utter the word “battery” –  they are tender hens, mine), although I was nasty enough to mutter the word “Paxo” early this morning, that achieved nowt either…

Well she’s forgotten to sulk in this picture because she’s naturally a camera-whore, but she’ll be sloping coop-ward the minute my back’s turned, you can be sure.

On the way back to the cabin I cheered myself up with taking a peek at the courgettes, which are going crazy in wild abandonment, romping across the soil willnilly.

 

 

          

They are looking mighty fine, and fried in a very little bit of butter and some crushed garlic, they are a lovely accompaniment to a meal, or a tasty snack with a bit of french bread, perfect. A grate of parmesan on top, even better!

Crispy Courgette deliciousness! Click the link here if you have a glut of courgettes already, and need another tasty way to deploy them! If you don’t have a rosemary bush yet, now’s a good time…

Positive Thinking!

I have stopped dreaming and have taken a big step, which is to put myself on the waiting list for an allotment!

Now quite why there should be a waiting list is beyond me, it seems from sauntering round the plots, that it’s the allotments that are waiting, waiting for someone to take them up and give them some TLC. There are many plots that have been started, and the tenant’s realised a bit late just how much sheer graft and man- hours they gobble up, and so the plot lies suspended whilst nature tends to chaos…And there are other plots which have never been cultivated; they lay barren with not even a boundary to call their own. Sometimes it’s a sadder tale, in that some old fella has got too old, or his wife’s ill, sad personal reasons why the plot is left to itself.

I lost the plot last Friday, but that was due to drink and too much sun…

So I’m on the list anyway, with just 21 lucky folk ahead of me; my faith in the speed of the local council knows no bounds. I’m sure they’re giving it their all – indeed, I have proof, because fully three of them – all different – emailed me yesterday about the same matter, so encouraging to hear thrice of the same no progress…

One thing about the prospect of the allotment is not a thrill; although there are stand pipes, about one to every three plots or so, but you’re only allowed to move the water in a vessel like a watering can, you’re not allowed to put a hose onto it and do the job properly…why? Because the site has only one water metre, and the bill has to come out of the tenants’ rents, and if everyone had enough water, the rents wouldn’t cover the bill. Well once I have got my plot I shall forward a cunning plan to the council. Why not sack three of the staff for idleness, and deploy the bonus of their wages into the water fund? Simple. Because what is the point of lovely soil, a keen work ethic and the money for seeds if you can’t manage to water as required…? I have seen another really clever solution, my brother’s neighbour on the allotments has put a big steel tank under his tap and from there, he has plumbed a hose. So he ties the tap into an “on” position – amazing how many Criminal Uses of a Wire Coat Hanger I’ve come across – so the tank fills, and the hose carries the water to where he wants it. I like the cut of his gib! Technically nuffink wrong with it.

Well now I have cheered myself up with a good old back-biting yap at certain elements of the world, I shall leave you with a couple of pictures, memories of a good weekend…

Youngest son, only daughter, and my sweet ol’ Boysie. Should’ve looked at them all earlier and given us all a rest!

A day on the land…

Yesterday I woke at the crack of dawn – well a quarter to five, and just knew I had no chance of returning to sleep, the light was so lucid and lovely, the birds singing in the stillness of a perfect morning… The garden was calling to me green beguiling come hither tones not to be denied…

The day before, a box came for me with a hundred plants in – well three boxes to be exact, and I thought what a good time to get them into the soil, before the heat of the day plumed up… I’d unpacked them and watered them, but left them on the railway sleeper that bounds the plot – and I had a twinge of anxiety that Mr. Fat Greedy Pigeon and his buddies might think I’d left them a picnic, so I got dressed quick and scampered down, to find, mercifully, all intact.

So I set to, to be joined not half an hour later by Andrew, who had woken and feared I’d gone AWOL, so unheard of is it for me to get out of that blissful bed before he’s plied me with fully two cups of tea…

 

So, what was in the trays then?

• 6 Climbing French Beans
• 6 Runner Beans
• 20 Brussels Sprouts
• 20 Stonehead Cabbages
• 3 Bambino Courgettes
• 1 Cucumber Femspot
• 20 Little Gem lettuces
• 12 Pea Kelvedon Wonder
• Sweetcorn Incredible F1
• 6 Tomato Shirley
• No partridges….nor yet pear trees…

Now, I know that to many folk these two little shots are not going to be exciting; it’s just my small delivery of baby vegetable plants, waiting there in the still morning light, ready for me to plant them. But to me, a new gardener, they’re a bit like a paint-box, with which I shall wash the garden with (edible) colour. They are boxes of dreams, and futures, the making of nice food for my family and friends –  to eat round a happy candle-lit table with some good wine and the talking into the night of many things…so I make no apology for photographing trivia!

I ordered these things from a lovely company I found online called VegetableGardenDirect:-

Go gardening now if you like! Click on the hyperlink to visit the place I ordered my plants from. They were in excellent nick, beautifully boxed, taped and presented so they remained untouched by their journey; I thought of the person who’s job it was to handwrite all the white plastic tags, and how neat and clear and nice they looked. The way they word their website and set everything out is really friendly and nice too, so I thought I’d pass that on…

I had a nasty experience as I was planting; there were hoards of marauding flies lurking quite close to the soil, and they found the sight of my tattybojangles irresistible, and they munched on them willy-nilly – by which I deduce they must surely have all been males… And now they are a sorry sight indeed. The TBJ’s I mean, I can’t speak for the ‘skeeters…I would photograph them for you right here and now, and indeed have tried, but my arms are simply not long enough –  and know what? They ain’t a pretty sight at all! You’ve missed nothing, best not! Times like this, I wish I had an ugly soft old grey Sloggi bra with no seams and no lace, but hell, I am, as you know, a Glamour Puss and have only under wired and lacy… And talk about itch, I could  take a brillo pad to them! I could toast marshmallows over them! The pharmacist in Tesco blanched on viewing the aforementioned, and gave me antihistamine, tablets and cream, but nothing helps much…just time  I guess. Well enough about my tattybojangles, which have never been in print before, and on with the Green Stuff… 

 

 

 

The light of the morning was quite ethereal. I like the way the different sections of planting have a patchwork quality, a piecemeal look, and all the colours tone and harmonise. Little flashes of contrast. I like the curves of the growing stuff juxtaposed against the straighter lines of canes and fences…last two shots before I quit and went to Tesco having gardened for four hours straight are:-

 

A backward glance to my cabin green haven and the parked tools…

 

 

Chapter Two of a beautiful Day

Tesco for medical supplies and picnic materials, the rest of the day to be spent with my brother at his allotment, one of the hottest days so far, quite humid, we needed rain but I couldn’t wait to go. Because when I go there, it is a day out of time and I exhaust myself with fresh air and visual input. Also physical graft which I really like, I am a peasant at heart and indeed in the hips…I was so glad I had the camera because allotment is patchwork planet indeed and so whimsical and bizarre and organic. A place where man and green call a truce while they jostle together:-

 

 

 

Same colours, nature unchallenged….and let loose….

 

See what I mean? This is outdoors; man, and nature harmonising to make a new art. What was once a decidedly dodgy bit of carpet is for once in its life perfectly at home with a new lover…I see beauty in it, the unexpectedness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this one, maybe a better shot, I don’t know. The seasoned allotment folk lay down old carpet to stop weeds taking over bits of ground that they are not yet ready to plant up. By throwing on a piece of carpet, or polythene, existing foliage dies back and rots as it can’t get any sunshine, and new seeds can’t fall into the soil and take root. So the soil improves over time…

 

I took a lot of pictures, some for colour, some for  the shape of things, my eyes are thinking ahead to design source; I want to design another range of fabrics, and so I am hoarding up these images for treasure. This batch is me roaming around enjoying the colours and shape, thinking of fabric and patchwork, and how they will all blend eventually to a creative end…Some you may think queer, others not…

  

 

 

I hope you like the pictures. Part of what I can’t capture is the good feeling of the day off I had with my brother, pottering about doing stuff, eating the picnic with a bottle of rollingly warm wine and the heat of the sun. I did burn my face a little and in the application of some soothing cream after a cool shower, I noticed my forehead has accrued a few lines…but I am aware so much of life being good, an almost worrying contentment. The sort that makes you look back over your shoulder nervously. In a day as rich as this, I realise the only place to live is in the now…

Now here is some real juice, my favourite images last, and I know they are quite strange:-

 

 

If you can be bothered and you like them, if you click on the pictures you can see them bigger, and they are better… I will be doing things with these images which are memories pinned down by colours.

As we did our Grand Tour post- sarnies and wine, we met many people, and the loveliness of them all made it a great day. Marion opposite, an elderly lady who took on her allotment to keep her new hip moving, alerted Chris to some nasty critter that had infested her asparagus – (fancy!) and he must inspect his. And so he did, and found the same blight. So she brought over some concoction to cure all, and pressed it upon him. So nice. Warm, generous.

I took a shot of a lovely old chap’s Lollo Rosso, growing in rows of lovely cushions:-

 

 

 

 

I was too shy to ask for a picture of him, his lovely lived in face, (reminds me of where mine’s going ) – shorts, brown skin, lovely crinkly eyes, but I snapped his lettuce! Whore! But he wouldn’t let us go before we had a big lettuce tucked under each arm!

Last but probably the most, a beautiful face – pity I can’t give you the caramel of his voice the sun in his spirit and the simplicity of his laugh, but this is Morgan who I would call friend though I saw him but once…I take him six eggs next week…

And now I shall sign orf, another good day… blogging’s nice. Maggie over and out x

Bonnie Blue!

 

I went to visit Threads and Patches some weeks ago with three lovely friends, and over the banister was just the sort of quilt I have just always loved; a very traditional one-patch, repeated to make a single sized quilt of a myriad triangles. It was multi coloured – a true scrap quilt, with a strong tendency to blue…I really liked the way that the blocks went right up to the binding with no border, just a gorgeous flow and tide of colour to the very edge. 

When I got home I decided that I would simply have to sew my own version of such a lovely traditional old classic…

I’ve recently had my nose stuck constantly (painful!) in a lovely, hard backed book which Ruth gave me, called, “Country Quilts” by Linda Seward, which features a number of very old American quilts. It has a chapter on really beautiful old hand-quilted quilts, in traditional Americana folksy colours –  french navy, berry, russet, light brown and old gold, which I love poring over…I’ve been dreaming of making something with a similar mood and feel for some while… Here is my favourite page.

These threads of thought, plus a large and looming quilt show in August, coupled with the timely delivery of a luscious collection of fabrics called “Bonnie Blue” to Sunflower last week, all coalesced in the quilt I’ve started…

My palette is old gold, bubble gum pink, rust, french blue and other blues, reds, and soft dove grey. The prints are more or less tone-on-tone ,shirting type patterns, – very subdued and comforting somehow. The soft mellowness of the colours is enhanced by the rhythmic quality of the crisp, incisive and repeated shape of the triangle. I wanted the piecing to be as sharp and accurate as I could get it, and I used the foundation piecing technique of printed triangles on paper, which make it easy to get a true straight seam even on the diagonal seam where the fabric is on the bias…

Ah the Festival of quilts looms at the NEC in August, and so I am getting my fabrics in fine fettle and making up samples to decorate the stand and promote the goodies… If you want to see better pictures of all the individual fabrics, then control/click the link below to go to see them on my website. They’re not all on yet – Roobie did her best – maybe the last eight will go on tomorrow after a fine salmon lunch!

Bonnie Blue

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Here is my nosey Hen Queaver, she of the finest eggs, and next to her ,some of the triangles laid out like a jigsaw puzzle; then some rows of them all stitched together. They are looking rather well together, I think. Today I managed – in addition to copious amounts of blogging – to piece together one quarter of the quilt top, and here it is hanging from the picket fence, I’m enjoying making it and it’s coming together quite nicely. I think there are too many seams for me to contemplate hand quilting it, so I’m wondering, how about quilting it with a mellow assortment of recycled shirt buttons? That might be rather nice…I don’t much like machine quilting, well, the doing of it, anyway, so that’s out. The other alternative is to sweet talk my dear friend Janie into quilting it for me on her trusty Gammill machine, she’d make a cracking good job of it I must say.

Well three last photographs for today. The sun is cooling a little and the light was very dappled and green through the trees, somehow this is an outdoorsy type of quilt, I like the colours next to the green of the garden and dear Queaver. Must give the other two names, I will mull it over with the boy when I have a glass of wine on the decking…Once the gals lay eggs, they deserve names, I reckon…

 

Want to make something! Hottest day of the year so far…

 

I remember long hot school holidays and thinking this but not having the resources to do it…now I do. So.

Today Andrew’s Mum and Dad came over, Dad to fix the garage door for me and Mum for company, bringing her book and notepad; she was studying. She is eighty two, not my own first mum but she is all I have now for a mum and old though I am, I am glad of her…Lovely old fashioned gracious handwriting, fluting and moving forward. Ideas. Patience. I was betwixt and between, and so I went out into the vibrant hot morning with a basket and picked strawberries…lots of them. The cages we built, which were difficult and awkward to make only a week ago, did a good job keeping the birds off, but were hard for me on my own to lift off to pick the berries. Need a better solution…Chicken wire is stiff and lethal and won’t do anything graciously, it has to be beaten into submission, and we didn’t, quite. It loops and bubbles and warps, but the birdies don’t like it either so that’s good.

 

I felt dizzy bending in the heat, but got my required two kilos of luscious ruby fruit finally, sweat falling from my brow and the sun beating down. A sense of being suspended in time came upon me, and I sat on the sleeper and thought of Jackapple Joe and the allotment and that I want one, and the moment of unreality passed… I made several trips from kitchen to strawberry patch to get the weight I needed, which was two kilos… each time I went back, I spotted a few more. They lay like ropes of gleaming jewels in the straw, sleeping and warm, half- hidden treasure. I like that I planted single plants, and each one sends out runners and they root and make new plants, and the strawberries multiply themselves.

To the kitchen then, with the gleaming fruit, and a good and pleasant hour spent hulling and cutting them onto the scale, fingers sticky with juice and the heady fragrance of Summer filling the air. Mum said strawberries smell of Summer and so they do. I lick my fingers for the sticky juice, and a pile of star- like stalk ends and scuffed bits accrues, destined for the compost bin. A kind of re-investment. Back to the earth…

Finally, into my big steel preserving pan they go, two kilos of perfect Summer on a gentle heat, the berries warming to surrender their delicious juices. Doesn’t take long, ten minutes, and then I pour in the hiss of sugar, see the whiteness become stained with the most amazing lucid pink and the liquids sway and thicken, the sweep of the wooden spoon leaving a roll of fine bubbles…I am happy and I smell candy floss…

Now here the anxiety set in a bit, because the books lied and the jam didn’t reach setting point within ten minutes, it took a good twenty, and even then it was an act of faith and memory of awkward marmalade that made me think, “Hell, that’s enough, it will thicken as it cools” and I took it off the heat and trusted my (limited) experience.

The best bit is pouring the slightly cooled jam into the jars, through my special jam making funnel, and letting it cool and thicken quietly. Then on with the waxed circles to keep the mould at bay, then the lids, and tomorrow Roobie will come and make me nice labels, 10 lovely jars.

 

Well here they are on my cupboard shelf, not labelled but looking like bottled jewels and in the thick of Winter we will taste it and remember Summer and a beautiful day.

Oh by the way, up popped a villain, dodgy looking fellow – that’s my son Jamie. An especially good day then…

More later…got some living to do!

This is why

Sometimes I get bogged down with the sheer physical work of my life; yes it’s fine to grow vegetables, keep the darling hens, make a garden, but the work of it sometimes feels overwhelming. Maybe I’m trying to do too many things at once, and so sometimes it all seems too much. But today we picked strawberries, gathered eggs, and dug up some potatoes, and somehow, I know why we do it. When the results come through the reason becomes clear….The sun was hot; the fruit was warm and scented like childhood and so vivid; and so I took some pictures…Part of me thinks how trivial, so what, you grew a few strawberries, why don’t you get them from Tesco’s? Easier for sure…But I know that’s cynical and silly. Because it was really satisfying to do the work, plant the plants, make the cages to protect them from the birds… I liked tucking them up with fresh straw so the fruit didn’t rot…And picking them is so satisfying, and the taste like nothing else. And it will get easier and not such a big deal as success is banked – and eaten! We will get to know the ropes a bit more through experience and things should be less exhausting.

I remember what it was like to have small children, and the way they give you the gift of a new world through fresh eyes, and it’s a bit like that getting a camera and getting comfortable with using it. Your eyes are enhanced somehow, you look at things differently…Here are some funny little pictures I took yesterday, that really gave me a lift. And a reward. If you click on “view full album”you can then zoom in on individual images for a bigger view, and they look better than the small images.

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I’m looking at all over patterns of things like the daisies, and thinking how would it be if I printed them on the special paper- backed fabric which you can run through the computer –  it would give me small pieces of really lovely and unique fabrics. Imagine if I tiled the single daisy head, printed it on fabric, and then centred the daisy on a hexagon…mmm, I’m liking that idea.

 

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If I’m not careful I’ll end up living the life to make nice pictures for the blog, but it should be the other way on and just photograph and talk about the interesting things…I don’t know. I must read other people’s blog a bit more and see how they go on…The strawberries tasted fantastic anyway, as did the spuds. When I scrubbed them the thin skin came off in the water to reveal pearly white perfection. With a bit of freshly picked mint added to them as they cooled in a buttered saucepan, they were grand, and I thought of the Irish people who died in the famine through lack of healthy potatoes to eat, which was pretty much all the had…a huge tragedy.

 

Over and out for now, before I wax lyrical about my Irish roots!

Getting There

Oh Boy my muscles are aching, and a dawning of respect floods in for my mates like Mark who use the skill and strength of their bodies to earn their living. All I did today basically was to  put two coats of paint on the garage, the first, diluted a lot with water to prime the plasterboard, and we did that together. I did the second coat by myself whilst Boysie went to the tip to offload an old freezer, rubble, bricks, crappola of varying size and weight…But, gals, I am shot. Those rollers on a long handle are nothing more than a gym with wet stuff on the end that would rather coat up your hair and clothes and glasses, and why bother with a ceiling? And remind me not to bother with hand cream, because all that means is that your hands are soft and get all holey when they’re required to do anything useful in the way of physical graft…

Never was a shower such a joy, though the hoze-lock spattering the garden right now is pretty joyful; but I’m sorry to say –  I’m Done In.! But – da dah! a few pictures to mark the forward direction…

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I nipping about the computer merrily now, and love the ease of taking photos and charting stuff with them. The whole thing of writing a blog is good fun, though I don’t suppose anyone’s seen it, but somehow it’s satisfying anyway. I always liked diaries as a kid. It sort of made the small stuff real. Life is just a handful or two of small stuff in many ways…

I’m going to post this and make another entry as a different person or maybe the same one in a different bit of life…

Progress report on the garage

Been a hot muggy day today and Mark is just finalising the second flood of latex to the floor, tomorrow I will be in there painting whatever the weather! I wanted to post a couple of photos of how it was, the transformation is so amazing…

                                 

Tomorrow I will be painting, let the transformation begin,,,

The Construction Front

Working from the cabin is a lovely thing…to potter up through the garden any time of the day or night, and enter my won little world is a joy. I thought when we built it that 5m x 5m would be big enough to teach my students, cut and prepare the fabric for the shows and for the mail order, and to do all my own sewing and designing, a lot of which goes into magazines which is part of my job…

I am a tidy creature by nature, but fabric and sewing is not easily confined; it strays and wanders and misbehaves, it Gets Everywhere…and I keep, oddly, buying more, and  so I spend loads of time just stirring it about, moving it from one place to another to find a clear workspace….but the end of all this is in sight!

We built Andrew a wooden workshop next to my cabin, right at the end of the garden; right here….

Here is the beginning of the job;  the little tool shed had been moved, and the task was to level the ground and lay paving slabs for the workshop to sit on. Well that off- the –cuff, simply tossed off little remark was not a task, it was a lethal, back breaking, relationship destroying, pain in the butt….I might be overweight and tending to Elderly but I tell you what, I can throw a pick axe thirty feet when roused…So thank the lord that one off the team members, yes you’re right, that would be me – had the wit to accost two muscled heroes known as Council Workers, who were innocently digging up the pavement outside the house at eight o’clock in the morning. I was about to hurl abuse through  the bedroom window for disturbing my deserved slumber, when a cunning gleam entered my eye, and the thought, “Hmm, maybe the poor lads would like a coffee to set them on their way” And for a very reasonable amount of money they came the following Saturday and finished the job completely, ready for us to build the shed. Sometimes a bit of cash hoyed in the right direction is like a miracle!

Billy Oh!

Hmm, that was the name of the company that manufactured the shed, and we were not impressed with the quality, the finish, or the fact that their phone lines were out of commission they day we were trying to put it up. As for the instructions they were a woefully inadequate dismal affair – but enough, this blog is not a vehicle for my bitching. I can’t swear to keep it eternally bitch-free though, ‘tis like a garden, there be weeds…

Andrew has spent the last few hours arranging his tools and Boys’ Stuff that came from the garage, and it’s looking neat and reasonable. The old fridge from the kitchen is in place, and I’ve promised to clean it thoroughly and stock it with a selection of cold beers, reward for giving up the garage to my ends.

Yup the garage is going to be my new place to store all the stock, do the cutting and the mail order. And when it’s show time, we won’t have to haul all the bolts and heavy stuff down the long length of the garden to load up the van. No, it will be fling open the end doors, and the van will be backed up nice and snug, so much easier. And my space down here will be calm and clear, and I will be able to concentrate on the good stuff like sewing and designing, Can’t wait for the final stages.

 

Here are a few more pictures, of how the garage was a week ago, and how it is now. Nearly done…

               f

More news tomorrow when Mark comes and floods the floor with something gummy, day after painting and after that, moving in. Will there be any time for sewing?

New patchwork Project!

I have started a new piece of sewing, a simple quilt of good, old-fashioned hexagons. But I have chosen really hot and vibrant colours, fuchsia, old gold, lime green and bright yellows to list a few. The palette comes mainly from a selection of small scraps which Ruth gave me…At the moment I have been tacking a stack of fabric hexagons onto cheap computer paper; I don’t know why all the books say use thin card, it makes the work rigid and inflexible, and it’s hard to get the needle through.

I’ve really enjoyed sitting and doing a few at a time in odd moments, sitting under the umbrella on the decking and watching the birds. Nice to do that and talk and sink a bottle of Cava after a few hours working on the vegetable plot! Very civilised…I shan’t start putting them together until I have a large palette to draw from…

This little diagram is something I doodled in a quilt design program called “Quilt Pro”, I was just fiddling about trying to remember how the pieces fit together, and how to arrange the colours to make patterns. I was pleased to find that I could use control c and control v to copy the image into the blog text…most bodacious! This is much easier than Blogger to use, and is more controllable, you can manipulate things to where you want them more easily…I’m liking it, trouble is, I just lost two hours…

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This little album of colourfulness shows lots of hexagons all laid out on a board ready to sew, and my box with threads and papers and needle-case etc, and a luscious stack of tacked hexagons which are dreaming about being stitched together someday soon…Well I think some dinner’s required!