Stash Avalanche

Wigwam bam

More catch-up...

I'd been wanting to make Stashlet one of these for a while, and had been constructing little graph paper models to try to decide on the best way to do it. Fortunately, Stashlet decided to 'play' with said models and I had to look on the internet instead, which was much quicker and more help than the graph paper, to be honest.

I found Alexandra's post very useful on how to cut the fabric and then went off on a tangent with seams and so forth.

I want this wigwam to last so I top stitched the seams, made little button holes for the front ties, and little loops for tent pegs. The fabric is Ikea's Sofia and I used the full width of the fabric (150cm) to make the panels. The stripes worked out well; I was afraid that they wouldn't match up but somehow (I can't remember now if it was by luck or design) they went together perfectly.

I used cotton tape to bind the long open edge and top, and hemmed the bottom. I had wanted to use a straight stitch to attach the tape but my line kept going wonky and the stitches kept falling off the tape, so I abandoned that and used a wide zigzag instead, which won't get me any marks for neat workmanship but does the trick.

The canes are held in lace by 3 loops of elastic sewn into each seam. My original plan was to do a kind of giant french seam and push the canes through the channels that would be greated by the two lines of stitches, but in the end I thought I wouldn't have enough fabric to do that and have decent sized panels. The system works ok with the canes, but would be better with dowel, I think, as the elastic would be stretched a bit and therefore hold the fabric more firmly.

There are a few things that still need sorting out.

The tent pegs: I got big plastic ones on the basis that they would be less dangerous than the metal ones, but I can't get them into the lawn, so I suppose I shall have to get metal ones and make sure they are well pushed/hammered in.

The front fastening: I think it could do with another tie lower down but that's not a high priority.

The canes: these are 6ft bamboo canes which are the right length but are too thin and whippy, so I either need to find thicker canes or buy some 1" dowel and use that instead.

And the top: I can't get the top of the wigwam to stay up very well or the canes to stay together in the right place. My current solution is to drill a hole in each cane and tie them together with wire, which holds the fabric up but the wire has sharp ends, so that's not ideal.

Anyway, Stashlet likes it and on the few rare occasions that we've had enough sun to be able to use it, has spent his time running in and out of it playing peekaboo with the flaps.

If anyone would like more detailed photos, let me know and I'll stick some up.

 

Pretty, no?

One of my myriad of Sansevierias is flowering. Never seen them do that before. They look very delicate and a teensy bit orchid-like to my mind.

Now if all 20 something of them did that at the same time, wouldn't that be pretty?

Meanwhile, in the garden...

I didn't do much with the garden over the winter and spring, except plant out some things in pots, because I was thinking we would have moved by now, but we're still here, and the garden is just a little bit crazy but at least it's not overrun by nasturtiums this summer.

I have a kind of ad hoc herb garden (because some previous tenants had planted rosemary and sage) but the mint is (unsurprisingly) taking over the chives...

Time to do a bit of chopping back I think.

One of the Phormiums is flowering...

They always remind me of miniature bananas.

What remains of the Buddleia (the wind snapped a lot of it off) is flowering...

This variety is called Harlequin and is supposed to have variagated (green and white) leaves, but they all fell off about a year after I bought it, and it's never shown any interest in becoming re-variagated since.

Another plant put in by previous tenants is this Leycesteria.

We have a west facing garden and it had been planted against the south wall. This meant it faced north and got no sun. I moved it to the other side of the garden and it seems very pleased with the relocation;  it grew nearly 6 feet in the first summer after I moved it. The birds love the fruits in the winter too.

These geraniums came with us from the UK, and I planted them out earlier this year...

They seem to be glad to be out of the confines of a pot.

I love Lobelias. They're just so blue, they're fabulous. I bought some in the spring (I have to buy plants and seeds even if I know we're moving - I think it's something genetic), and this is the only plant that didn't succumb to the slugs.

OK, so some of them are pink as well. I don't care!

Raspberries. Delish. These were also in the garden when we arrived, and I didn't prune them back because they didn't seem to be doing very well (another victim of the north facing wall).

Well, this year, they've perked up and we have a raspberry jungle. And lots lof raspberries.

Double yum. I feel a pavlova coming on...

I have nearly as many pots indoors as outdoors. A large proportion of them are Sansevieria (Mother-in-law's Tongue). In retrospect, I was far too soft hearted. I bought one plant. It liked the windowsill so much that it produced a load of new shoots. So I divided it and repotted the plants. They all liked the windowsill too and produced new shoots of their own. Awww. I divided them and repotted them too.

Now I have TWENTY pots of Sanseveria. I will not be doing any more repotting, I can tell you! So if anyone is in Ireland and wants a free pot plant, you know who to ask.

And this one is about to flower...

I've never seen Sanseveria flowers before so I shall be interested to see how they turn out.

So not a nasturtium in sight this year. I do like them, but a garden is so much more interesting and rewarding (ummm, pavlova) when it has more than one plant in it, don't you think?

 

ooh! p.s. Second tooth through this morning!

 

 

My desk

This has been my view for most of this week and a lot of the last one too. I'm in a medium study frenzy as I want to get my (distance learning) course done by Christmas, and of course I lazed away at the sewing machine over the summer and didn't do half as much reading and note taking as I should have. Bad, bad, bad.

And I know that I fervently vowed in the spring to pull out all the nasturtiums in the garden this year (after they smothered every other plant in the flower bed last year), but you know how it goes, the weather gets colder, you go out in the garden less, but the little buggers still germinate and grow. In fact I am quite surprised that I still have nasturtiums coming up this late in the year.

But my early de-nasturtiuming as not in vain, and the ones I have now are being considerably more civilised than their parents. So now the flower bed is gently dotted rather than choking.

And here's the thing, they make good cut flowers, even though they don't last very long. You can pick them in bud to open indoors, they have a good long, clean stem, and they have a lovely perfume which I sniff between bouts of note taking. Last year I had great enormous vines of them in a large vase and they grew roots and kept flowering for quite some time. The vase looked like it was having a bad hair day but better that than taking over the lawn!

The added bonus: for evey flower in the vase, there'll be at least one less seedling germinating in next year's flower bed!

Blog frenzy!

Wow! What a frenzy of looking and peeking and reading and commenting has been generated by Sew, Mama, Sew! and their May Giveaway Day. So firstly a big hello and thank you to everyone who has visited and commented so far.
 
And if you've just arrived here from Sew, Mama, Sew! and are anxiously looking for something to win, well, you'd better go here to find out what's on offer!
 
Goodness, there are soooo many blogs participating, but I must say that I was a bit disappointed not so see more from Britain and Ireland. I have had a good browse through all of them (foof!) and left some comments so perhaps I will win something myself too! I do like it when the postman brings me nice things and not just bills.



And because it seems a bit cheap to leave a post without at least one photo, here's one of last summer's nasturtium overload. They completely took over and I had to cut them back very severely about three times because they kept trying to cross the lawn.



So this morning I have been weeding. and pulling out nasturtium seedlings, which feels very cruel but has to be done. And yes, I know I said I wasn't doing much in the garden this year because we might be moving, but I just can't stand seeing the weeds take over. 

Now I think it's definitely time for a cup of tea. Happy Tuesday!

Small things

Welcome again, to the blog that has temporarily gone completely off the subject of sewing and veered of into random-territory. Reminds me of the time I took a corner too fast in my car and ended up doing bobsleigh kind-of-thing up a grassy bank.

Anyways... there's not much going on in our garden at the moment, mostly because I'm not doing much gardening. We might be moving house so it seems a bit pointless. I will however, be pulling up the nasturtium seedlings as they emerge this year. Last year they were half way across the lawn and smothering everything else, so I am being Mrs Severe this time. I think I would be rather embarrassed if new tenants moved in and weren't able to get to the shed. Even though they wouldn't know who was responsible.

In the meantime, I have things in pots, and they are doing things. But small things. 

My little Viola odorata 'Speckle' which came from Suffolk with us in a pot with a tiny oak tree (you see, I have a stash of plants too)...



And these little pansy-type Violas which have survived from last year...





and various Euphorbias (just don't ask me what species they are) are flowering...







I do love Euphorbias but they don't really like being in pots so it's always a bit of a struggle.

And two of my Pittosporums has just started flowering. This one is Pittosporum 'Elizabeth'...



...and this one is 'Limelight'...



The flowers are so tiny you can easily miss them, but that deep maroon-y red is lovely. And Pittosporums in Ireland grow fantastically. They are pretty common as small trees - something you would never achieve in the UK unless you live somewhere like Cornwall.

There are also small things growing all by themselves. This ivy-leaved toadflax (I only discovered what it was this afternoon) has grown up in the lintel of our front door, and it seems very mean to pull it up...



... such tiny-weeny flowers! And on a patch of grass by the road, we have a riot of dandelions and daisies...



... although I doubt these will last much longer - someone from the council will be along with a ride-on mower any day now to decimate our urban meadow.

Just sharing...

Hello. I have a few things I want to do posts on, and a couple of them are rather small and bitty, so there will (should) be a trickle of posts through on completely unrelated things over the next day or so.

First up: hoverflies. The latest copy of the Royal Horticultural Society  magazine was stuffed in my letter box this morning (in fact I really should mention this to the postman; he also folds envelopes which say Do Not Bend). They generally have very lovely artistic images on their front cover and this month's is no exception. 



Isn't that a fabulous photo? There must be some applique or embroidery or something in that somewhere.

And hoverflies are great. Not cutesy-fiable (like crickets (and have you seen Heather Ross's new logo by the way? very cute) and not alarmingly scary (like any spider over about half an inch wide), but... you know, I just can't explain it. A bit dozy, a bit curious... not sure at all but there's definitely something about them.

 We had nearly a plague of them one summer when I lived in Suffolk, and it wasn't at all scary but it could get a bit oh-for-gawds-sake-get-out-of-my-face/tea/salad... I got to see them really close up, and while bees and wasps have a kind of solid look to them, hover flies always look so light that they could almost be hollow. Also, their larva eat ragwort, a plant which looks pretty enough growing in the countryside but is poisonous to livestock, so much so that the UK even has the Ragwort Control Act 2003. And that is definitely A Good Thing. And they are also stripey which I like, but can make other people kill them because they think they're wasps. Silly people.

If, on the highly odd chance, you want to find out more about hover flies, have a look at The Garden Safari (but there are plenty of other sites too), and if you get really keen you can join the Hoverfly Recording Scheme, but I won't hold it against you if you don't. After all, you thought you'd come here for a quick chat about sewing, didn't you?

A little late

Spring came a day late to our garden this year. 

I had really hoped the daffodils would open on Sunday, and they were a real tease with their yellow buds all firmly closed. But yesterday they opened so I managed to dash out between the showers and grab a photo or two. Most of them were a yellow blur because it was so windy, but I did get one or two shots where they were still. So...



... Happy Spring!

Nearly Spring

Hello! I've been making vegetable soup and there is something about chopped leeks that always make me feel very Springy - it's all those different colour greens. They do it for me every time.



So I thought I would share some other things that are green and make me feel Springy, despite the fact that it is FREEZING here today.

Two bracelets that I made a while ago. This one ...
...


and this one...



Sorry about the background. I had to photograph them on one of the cat tree steps - it was the only place with enough sunshine.

One of my very new hellebore seedlings...


Not a great photo, but very Springy none the less.

And my spring garden from the wonderful but tiny cottage I lived in in Suffolk...
 


What make you feel Springy?

Happy Thu.. er, Fri.. er, Saturday!

Well, as you can see, I have been trying to write this post since Thursday but it involved taking photos and I kept forgetting to take them while the sun was out, so it was all a bit of a (minor) disaster. 

Anyway, today the sun shone (in fact it still is, and if it's still there this afternoon, I will jump up and down, and possibly even venture into the garden to hack at the brambles) and I managed to be with it enough to remember to take photos too so I can finally share my happiness. 

My Flirt order arrived (hooray!) from the nice wool people at J.J. Wool & Crafts together with a pattern for a fabulous looking top, also made from Flirt. 


Yay! I can finish my blanket.

In fact I have become pretty enamoured by Sidar in general, because they have some lovely simple top patterns which I have been looking for (for ages) and also a random dye yarn that looks rather enticing. 

Another  thing I'm going Yay! about is my BEAUTIFUL wrist warmers which I knitted in the week and are now tacked on to the cuffs of my puffy jacket. I had intended just to get some plain blue yarn because the jacket's cuffs had lost their elasticness so I was going to replace them with a spot of woolyness, but I couldn't find anything I liked and desperation set in. But this time it worked in my favour, and the little department store down the road provided me with a ball of Ocean which is made by Tivoli Spinners. 

OHMIGOD. I am SO in love with this yarn. SO in love. But I can't find any photos of it on the web to link you to it and I have to say, the photo of the pre-sewn-in wrist warmers below does not do it justice at all. I tried every setting on my camera imaginable, and still the range of blues just didn't come out like in real life. So you will just have to go and find some. 

Here are my lovely and totally unphotogenic wrist warmers...



I even tried fiddling around with the colour balance in PhotoShop but that didn't work either. But they are lovely lovely lovely and have increased the warmth of my jacket tenfold. 

And now I think I have to go and jump up and down because it is definitely The Afternoon and the sun is still shining. And that is Very Happy Making indeed.

Happy Saturday to you!