Presenting a Wild Pelmet

Presenting the wraps first. I had a ball tying bits onto the strings to make them more interesting. The beads are beads and the rings are seashells with their middle bits worn out. They are abundant on our shores.

My sister-in-law has birthday today. She has unwrapped her present, I have checked. When I asked for an idea for a birthday present, she wanted to have a pelmet for one of her kitchen windows to hang from the upper edge. There was then a LOOOOONG list of colours this pelmet should include. I think I managed to cram them all in.

The other present  contained a pencil case/make-up bag, which was an alternative wish. As I had some ready made, I thought I would be generous and fulfil both wishes.

Here is the whole pelmet. Due its shape, it was quite tricky to get a picture of.

The details bit by bit

I know, I know. This pelmet is suitable window dressing for a five year old or somebody past fifty...I promise, this is very much her style. I was told to make an eye-catching piece. I don't think there is much to say about the techniques, the pictures say it all. If you have questions, please ask. The only new technique for me was couching used in the plant stem. It is made by sewing strings of embroidery floss onto the fabric. I used machine. A hand stitched would have been even nicer, but I was a bit short of time

Inspirational

 

I have been eyeing these  tulips, which a client of mine brought for me from her garden. They are called "Ballerinas" and the skirts open up more than in the picture during the day. They have been beautiful and inspiring at all stages. I have been  very tempted to draw or paint them in their turquoise vase. I took the picture to be sure that I have something to refer to, if I don't get to draw them while they still decorate our dining table.  I think I might look for bulbs of these ballerinas to plant for the next spring.

Storage Jars and Homemade Trousers

This is a project I have thought of doing a long time. I even bought the blackboard paint and had everything ready to go in my craft room. Alas, other things were more pressing, like making trousers for the Son.

I cannot claim any originality with this one, but I took what I need from other people's ideas.  I used normal cello tape to mask the glass and painted over twice. I did key the jar lids with sandpaper before painting. The little 250ml jar of paint covers approximately 3 square metres, so plenty to go with, if you plan to paint this type things. It cost £5 in our local paint shop.

I could have painted the lids with another colour, but for us the lid is the important bit. We have most of our dry goods in drawers, and the lids are the bits we see most. I did paint the lids twice as well, although once might have been enough. I plan to make many more of these.

 

The painting makes a haphazard collection of recycled jars to stylish "set" and makes labelling easy.  I am in two minds whether I bother putting the "labels" on the rest of the jars. You might think "What about when you open the jars and they are not labelled?". The foods I keep in this type of jars are easy to identify, either by sight or by the smell in case of spices. On the other hand I am about to take my liquid chalk pen to my flour jars and mark them. The pen does not need the black paint, it will stick to glass directly. I usually leave a cut out from the flour bag in the jar to tell us what is inside. Writing on the jar would ease the identification.

I made one for the Son as well

 

The black Dalek is one of the plastic ones in the jar painted over with the blackboard paint. He can choose what he is going to put in it, the aliens were in the jar just for the photo purposes. I have seen some really cute ones painted with spray paints sporting different plastic animals from kids' play sets.  I have another idea brewing, I'll show you, if it is a good one.

Sewing machine has sung quite a lot lately, the results cannot be shown as yet. The above mentioned trousers have been finished though. They did not come out perfectly, mainly because I went and changed the pattern a bit, which then skewed the whole thing.  The material was actually "too good quality" for the pattern I had decided to use. In hindsight I can see I should have changed the pattern to suit this fabric.

 

The back, please do not scrutinise a la "Great British Sewing Bee", would get many "tut-tuts"

I think it is worth showing the things, which did not come out perfectly, because quite honestly, that happens to everyone. A lot in my case. These trousers will do for this summer, they are likely to be used like this anyway.  By the way, the Son doesn't have a double chin in normal circumstances, but was pulling faces and being silly. I did mean to cut the picture further down...

I choose to be grateful that he still would use clothes made by Mum. On the other hand I know that he hates shopping, so homemade has the allure of not having to go to the horrid shops and try clothes on.

Originally I was about to buy him a pair of trousers, but it is almost impossible to predict the sizes of the used ones and there are not that many on offer anyway in his size. I don't want to buy the horrible cheap ones, as the price in the other end is far too high. (We all have seen the reports from Bangladesh disaster). The fabric for these ones cost me £9. It is quality you would find in likes of Barbour clothing, so nothing I could have found on the racks of the shops I can afford. And no Mums were harmed in the making of this garment.

Have you chosen to sew anything instead of buying?

Knitting, knitting

...just keep knitting. (To the tune of "swimming, swimming, just keep swimming" from "Finding Nemo").  I took a bit of an internet break after a month of journalling and posting. Also some sort of spring has arrived. It seems still be wobbly, with sudden temperature dips and I for one am not going to plant out my beans or pea quite yet.

The socks are a second pair of this type. I made a pair last summer on my holidays to be my dedicated bed socks. I need to have warm feet to fall asleep. I kick the socks off at some point of the night, I don't need the heating help once my feet have warmed up. Actually when I get going, I overheat quite easily. My husband says that the energy problems would be solved if I could somehow be hooked on the national grid while sleeping.

Throwing silly shapes in my socks...

I am using woolly socks all the time around the house, all year round. I usually have a stash, as I also get given some. This winter I have got through several pairs. I assume that all the socks were of similar age and were now beyond repair. ( I do darn my woollens). I am left with one pair from my stash and made these, so I could have long socks for daytime too. I feel that they are lovely and comforting especially when my calves ache.

This is the wobbly beginnings of an ambitious project in my book.

I have started a cardigan. I found the yarn in Finland last year and found a pattern on the net, which I like enough and which is at the same time not too complicated for a beginner like me. The knitting is not smoothest ever seen and I have made plenty of grim mistakes, but I hope that they get less as I proceed. This is the back piece, so maybe I can be a "wall flower" with it and nobody notices! What has kept me from big projects is that I used to get carpal tunnel syndrome as soon as the knitting got heavy. I hope I can hack this now. I haven't had bother with my wrists for years.

What really takes my time at the moment is the garden. I will now bore you stiff with unexciting pictures, which I took mostly for making a note of where I am at this point, this year. As mentioned, we are behind, like everybody else. Being in the Northern England means that we are at least two weeks behind the Southerners anyway, but this year is quite in its own league.

This is my polytunnel seen from the "main door". Can you see the greenery poking up from the hanging pots? They are my first peas. They are safe there from mice, which might still be tempted at this point of the spring to seek the sweet shoots in the tunnel.

 I use the tunnel as my potting shed and also store some stuff in there, all against the good principles of greenhouse gardening and such! I don't care as long as it all grows. Until now I have not had problems with any horrible plant diseases because of this. As you see, I am at the "seedlings everywhere" stage. This includes by the way also my kitchen window sill.

This is the far left hand side all full of seedlings and some lettuce growing. I would not have it had I not cheated. I bought a tray of"living salad" and planted it in my tunnel when it was a bit cooler still. It allows the roots to take and now I have some early lettuce. I tried another go two days back, but I think that at this point the plants have so much light and warmth that the shock of being re-planted is too much. You see one of the new seedlings near the bottom of the picture. It has laid itself as a limpet on the ground. I'll tell you if it and its mates perk up, but I seriously doubt it.

This is the big middle bed. A net divides it and today I planted some French beans along the net on the side of the round pots, where there is more space. The beans will grow behind my cucumbers and on the other side of the net go some tomatoes. A bit of the end of this bed is reserved for the sweet corn. I had a great success last summer, but in the end the aphids absolutely overwhelmed my beautiful corn and the cobs were underdeveloped. They simply did not get water enough.

My grape vine says hello! I am very excited about my grape as last year despite the horrendous weather I got 8-10 bunches of grapes.

On the right side of the tunnel there is in addition to the grape a shelf for seedlings and another bed, currently taken by overwintered leeks, which I hope to harvest in the end of May. In the first tunnel picture you can see that there is a climber in the end. This is a passion vine, which I have two of. I hope that they will flower and set fruit, nom, nom, nom. It didn't get damaged too much during the winter and is now getting ready to grow again.

By the door I have an old tumble dryer drum as a planter. An overwintered coriander sits there at the moment, but will get company as I sowed some more coriander there. I might also move the coriander production entirely outside.

Yes, desperately uninteresting, but I am so delighted that my garlic is doing this well. It is the two right hand rows. I planted it in November, it likes the cold to make the bulb split into cloves. My last attempt was not successful, but then I planted in the spring and my bulbs came from a chain store garden centre. These are from the Organic Gardening Catalogue. The punier bits are onions, also sowed in the autumn, but I think I might have set them a tad too deep.

My  mouth waters like Pavlov's dogs' when I am looking at these plants. They are globe artichokes. I usually plant a bit flowers with them as they are big and beautiful and I don't want to disturb the bed too much during the summer. In the middle I will put sweat peas and in between some cosmos. There are bi-annual pinks in the border already. As you see, I leave the dried plant stems for the winter to give me an idea where my plants should pop up again. I need to cut them away now.

I love the fact that all one needs to do is to get an artichoke growing and then weed a bit. The artichoke takes care of itself and comes year after year, unless you get a really cold winter with a prolonged frost period. That happened to me first winter when I had artichokes and even then one survived.

 In addition those boxes of seedlings have sprouting broccoli, kale, cucumber, spinach, artichoke, asparagus, basil, dill and parsley. I have pepper, more tomatoes, pumpkin, courgette, peas and beans on the window sills. My flower seedlings include nasturtium, calendula, tagetes, cosmos, zinnia, dark sun flowers, sweat peas, snap dragons and corn flowers.

 I took a risk and planted both beetroot and carrot today. I just have to repeat, if it gets still too cold. Some other veggies have to wait a bit too before I dare to sow them. A week ago or so I put my first potatoes in. I only do punk fur apples, the most delicious salad potatoes. I will do another batch in couple of weeks and then a final one for the main crop. That has always a risk of getting potato blight, but I'll try.

Well done if you made it here! I really, really wrote this for my own benefit to see how the garden changes during the summer and then again how the spring will be different in 2014. Have you planted anything?

March Journal day 31 and what did I learn?

So. Today is the last day of Journal March. It has been really enjoyable to wake up and check what the task was for the day and think about it.

Today's task was: What did you learn in March?

My learning is not at the deepest philosophical level, but an important thing for me.
I have truly had a very serious block for drawing for a good while. I don't mind it at all when I am sketching a  dress or a bag or even an embroidery, but drawing in order to produce a picture on a paper has been a no-go area for a good while. It has been good doing it this way; a set task, not necessarily drawing and just for my own perusal. I wonder whether I should push myself through a month of painting as well, hmm....I should find a place to chuck topics at me. Maybe not quite once a day, maybe twice a week. And I would not mind doing a month of papercutting as well. I have discovered I like it a LOT!

Maybe even that horrible cold was meant to happen. I had more time. Correct: I prioritised differently, as I had no energy to do housework and sewing and gardening and, and,...I gave myself permission to be creative without having to have a product in the end. 

Have a Lovely Easter everyone and I will be back soon. Maybe even today...depending on whether I am required to be the DUNGEON MASTER in the Elf Son's game. I take my role very seriously, you see.

March Journal days 28-30 and Happy Easter Tree

Helloo!!! Went awol for a while. I have been busy with life, so did not get the pages uploaded.

Day 28:  Stain your page

..or connect the item with the correct stain. Too much of wine and too late, what ever. I had problems as I did not really do or eat anything which would have given good stains, so here we go with rather vague staining.

Day 29: A funny and an irritating idiom.

This clearly invited participation from the family and as I happened to ask, I felt I better take their advice, since they were in total agreement  about this. The first one is the irritating and the second one is the funny:

You might notice that we are on a "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" kick here. Elf Son got the original radio series as DVDs for Christmas present and they have been played and replayed. He can fluently quote several aliens and certainly Marvin the paranoid android, so deliciously played by Alan Rickman. For those who are not familiar with the story the second quote is the equivalent of the first one amongst the  Shaltanacs. As it was such a mouthful to say, nobody ever bothered and they were the most contented inhabitants of the universe.

Day 30:  Scavenger hunt. Collect on your page:
  a yarn scrap
  a fruit sticker
  a piece of an envelope
  a (sticky)note 
 something round
 something green
 a bandaid

Aargh...I could not find anything really interesting. My note is from the bin...I was planning our train journey to York. The green is wrapping from one of the Elf Son's presents this morning. It's his birthday. This is the first time since his birth that the Easter Saturday is the 30th March. He was an Easter Bunny among many others. They had to open up an extra room or two that Easter on the maternity ward. What was special about Elf Son was that he was a boy. Most of the babies in that particular hospital that Easter were girls.

I could probably have sold that plaster in an antique shop, so old it was. We have some rather old stuff in our medicine box, which the husband rolls eyes about, but I keep, because hey, it will stick, won't it? The round thing is holes. The board is a bit of gaming counter board from "Dungeons and Dragons" game. Yes, he got that one. Thank you Vaari and Mummo! We have been playing the first adventure this morning and I AM the dungeon master, the evil one moving the monsters and knowing where all the traps are etc.

Here is HAPPY EASTER to you all. Elf son and I made an Easter/Spring tree yesterday and he decorated it with our Easter decorations. It was really easy to do. I used a bit of cello tape in the end to keep the strips of fabric in place. I did not need to tape in the beginning. This is a really good project for all the small scraps. ! saw the idea somewhere in the blogland and now humbly apologise that I did not take a note of where. So credit to whom it belongs.

 

Not great light, but I believe you can get the idea. A couple of detail shots to show you how easy this is.It looks best when not looked at this closely....

It's worth to let all the knobbly bits be under the wraps as this then gives you places where different things can hang from. I removed them from our first branch and that was not a good move.

March Journal day 27

Today's task was: "Tell something using a map"

The text says:

I lived and worked here for over 3 years.
Under the map: Yeyo! Eo. Itakwenya? Iko.

That is the extent of my Kimaa knowledge. I did not have time/energy/talent to learn the language of the Maasai, it was enough to try to manage Swahili to an extent that I understood what was going on in official meetings around education. I could not manage it any more. Loads and loads of it is in my subconscious mind. When I hear Swahili, I know that I should understand what is said, but the meaning is escaping me like a rabbit into a hole.

Not much to say about the page, apart from that in my heart I am a Tanzanian.

March Journal day 26

Today's task was to tell what annoyed you.

As I forgot about the Little My when we were asked for quotes, I decided to "borrow" her picture here today to illustrate the annoyed child inside me when:

• My sewing machine stitches were pulling. I so did NOT want to do anything about it, but had to as my quilt sewing was going really wrong because of this. It was something rather simple as it tends to be.
• The right side of my face was aching. I thought that I was through with my cold, but there is obviously one crooked and inflamed corner of my sinuses producing mucus and creating pressure under my cheek bone.
• My lower back felt as if I had suddenly aged thirty years. It was stiff and hurt. Totally result of not moving as I usually do. Luckily a bit of stretching sorted it out.
• There was no sun to be seen and the outside temperature is nowhere near where I could start with sowing seeds in my garden. Not even in my polytunnel. I think I have to give up and bring some pots inside to start my tomatoes, cucumbers and aubergines in.
• I got several bits of apple skin (I think) lodged in between my teeth. Had run out of dental floss and trying to use dental picks is action doomed to failure with my teeth. My teeth sit really tight, so using picks in between my teeth ends up with splinters in my gums.

On the other hand I was very pleased that I made a start on sewing the quilt. I am amazed that something with so small squares has come out of my machine. I tend to work with BIG strokes when it comes to quilts!

March Journal day 25

Today's task was to tick items on the given list, which were a part of your day.

Here is my list

 

I thought of waiting a bit to get "exercise"and possibly "a smile of a stranger" ticks, but had forgotten that Elf Husband has a meeting today and had to take our car. So no beach walk for Elf Son and I.

I had to put that cheesy grin on the cat's face. There are two cats going through our garden regularly and this is how one of them looks like. I like cats, but not when they are after the little birds. The black cat would definitely give this "Cheshire Cat" smile to a child, it's quite tame if child approaches, but legs it, if an adult tries to say hi.

I have just started on a new quilt, the fabrics and colours are far more traditional than my normal fare.  We will see what the end result is. I am not known for keeping to the plan, exactly.

It's so unseasonally cold here that the weather certainly is mentioned all over the place. I had to give some extra clothing to these girls in happy colours. Wonder what they had thought of the colours, had they had the chance of wearing them? (They are my great grandmother and her sister). Their participation in today's topic is a totally random thing.

March Journal day 24

Today's task was: Glue Easter sweet wrappers on this page. If you don't have them, tell about the sweets in another way or ad lib something.

I must admit that we don't have any Easter sweets  in the house, nor are we going to have any serious amount, because none of us eats them. We like our sweet stuff all right, just not any coloured-gummy-sugary-things. We do like chocolate, but are quite discerning what type of chocolate we eat. Easter eggs seldom make the cut. I tend to buy our son one "Lindt" golden bunny, just to have something Eastery.

One thing we all might eat is Cadbury's mini eggs. Last Easter I wrapped them in foil to make edible mini eggs for my sister-in-law's Easter egg hunt! It would not have been much fun to glue the bag here, so I decided to design nice eggs. Of course they would be filled with the yummiest dark chocolate with different add-ons like orange and ginger. I like nuts, but don't tolerate them very well, so no nuts.

 If I have time and energy, I might blow some eggs and decorate them like this with papercuts and hang from some branches as our Easter decoration.