A Welcome Surprise

I missed posting last week as I was spirited away on a surprise holiday by Himself. It was wonderful to have some time away at last, after all the ill health of the last couple of years, preventing either of us from being well enough at the same time to go away. I'll tell you more about the holiday next time.

This week I'd like to finally welcome the Policeman to the family of Knitted Collectables. You last saw the naked version of him here.

It always amazes me how they come to life as you start to add the little details.

In allotment news, the harvesting has begun.

It's great to finally be reaping the rewards after all the hard work of digging and preparing the soil. 

There's still lots more to come, I think I may have planted a few too many potatoes for the two of us, but I'm sure I'll be able to make all sorts of interesting things with them.

Just a quick post today to catch up with myself. 

Hope you've all had a great week.

xxx

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My Sunday Photo ~ Sunflowers

This year I planted Sunflowers on my allotment for the first time and they're growing beautifully tall and strong.

I can't wait to see their big smiley faces, at the moment their flower heads are forming, I love how they're just waiting to burst open.

Hopefully it won't be long before they burst forth and look even more gloriously beautiful than they do now.

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A Painfully Slow Week

As todays title suggests it's been a painful week here in the Stone Pit Cave, my right hand has been very numb, swollen and stiff due to the Arthritis plus my left shoulder, which I dislocated a few years ago has also been very stiff and painful, therefore it's been a slow week for crafting.

 

I've had to put the Mitred Baby Blanket to one side for the time being, until the flexibility comes back, so for now I'm knitting with a thicker yarn and larger needles because they're easier for me to hold and it's been very slow going.

 

I found this pattern for an Owl Tea Cosy in one of my knitting magazines, although I can't remember which one, as it was a while ago.

 I think it's great fun, I just adore Owls and knitting with my favourite Aran yarn, normally I could have knitted this in a couple of days but with all the stopping and starting it's been a slow make.

 

 

It was my mums birthday on Saturday so I made her a Butterfly Card, painted with water colours then  clear embossed the darker colours to make them really stand out. So many people commented on it as it really stood out in the hall where mum had a massive Party.

 

 

In allotment news Himself has erected a large gazebo, which we are going to net  and use as a fruit cage once the ground has been dug **groan**

It didn't look nearly so large in the garden centre when we first saw it. It'll certainly be interesting trying to get the scaffold netting over the top of it.

 



 

All I can do at the moment is a little light weeding until I've had my six week check up with the surgeon, it's so frustrating as I want to get going again and get the Raspberries planted, but it's best not to rush these things I suppose.

The Physio said I can drive again, I can now bend my knee 125 degrees, the first thing I did was I head down to the allotment  to do some harvesting. My Cauliflower's and Broccoli have been brilliant this year, I'm so pleased as I grew them from seed and they tasted delicious. 
 

 



I'm also really pleased with my first harvest of Peas, I grew these from seed too, they nearly filled this 4ltr flower pot, plus there's lots more to come as they mature.

The Sweet Corn is starting to grow rapidly now after a difficult start, sadly only approx a  third of them survived the slugs, I then cheated and brought the rest as seedlings from Homebase. The taller ones are the ones I grew from seed but I'm sure the others will catch up soon.

The Sweet Peas are doing brilliantly well, every time we go down to do the watering I bring a large bunch of them home, the scent of them in the house is delicious.

 







I had a lovely email from Jill at Christmas Pie Crafts asking to use some of my photos for her Friday Review  of my Knitted Collectibles which was a lovely surprise.
Thank you so much for your kind words Jill.

As is usual on a Monday I'll be linking this post to Creative Mondays and Handmade Monday.

I hope you all have a great week crafting.
xxx

 

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My Sunday Photo

The first harvest of this year's peas, and what a bumper crop almost filling this 4 Ltr flower pot until I ate a few.

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Beautiful Sweet Peas

 Beautiful Sweet Peas picked from my allotment first thing this morning, the scent is just amazing, I always prefer to put them in a clean jam jar as they never look right in a vase.

Sweet Peas are one of my favourite flowers, so many beautiful varieties, my favourites being the purples, pinks and whites as they have the strongest scent. This year we've planted six different varieties down on the allotment, and can't wait to see them all in flower.

 We've also planted several Giant Sunflowers, so far so good and they're approx 6 foot tall with good strong stems, I can't wait until they flower, should be good to practice my Macro photography on.

As I've mentioned before we're a little behind everyone else, even though we started really early this year, we had a massive slug problem due to the floods and wet start to this year. For the first time ever we've had to resort to using slug pellets, not ideal, but it's so disheartening to lovingly grow your seeds into strong seedlings, prepare the ground and then plant them out, then to arrive the next day and find everything had been eaten, week's of hard work amounting to nothing.

But as you can see from the pictures things are really coming along now.

These are my flower beds which are a first for us, but we wanted to attract Bee's, Butterflies and other insects, so far we've seen lots of Bee's and a few Butterflies, glad to be doing our bit to help the local wildlife.

Here's our Potatoes, Rhubarb and Cucumbers, we've had several harvests of Rhubarb already this year, the cucumbers have just started to flower even though they're still pretty tiny.

Next on our virtual tour are my Cherry Tomatoes, we have larger ones growing in the greenhouse, more Sweet Peas, Sweeetcorn and  behind that is my Red Onions, one or two of them are huge already.

Himself had just been round with the lawn mower,  the grass was pretty long because of not being able to get there since my knee operation for a couple of weeks, but it's all nice and tidy again now, just the way I like it.

I'm linking this post to Badger Boo's Smile it's the Weekend, Welcome to the Weekend Blog Hop, and How Does Your Garden Grow.

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Where Have I Been?

My regular followers will have noticed I've not posted since May apart from the odd Silent Sunday post. If you saw yesterdays you will probably have figured out that I've been in hospital and had my right knee replaced. I've been waiting a long time for this, I used to blog about it a lot on my other blog Me, Myself and I.

 

As a result of the surgery 12 days ago I'm practically housebound at the moment, I'm unable to drive for a minimum of six weeks and although the knee replacement has taken the pain of the Arthritis away in that knee, I'm still in a lot of pain from the surgery and the physio and unable to walk far or stand for any period of time.

 

I've had plenty of time to knit or make cards since I last posted, but to be honest my Crafty Mojo got up and did a runner out of the door, I was stressing so much about going into hospital.

 

The morning I went into hospital I started an event on facebook, as a result I had the most wonderful support every step of the way, from the most amazing people all around the world, who  took time out of their busy lives to wish me well and find out how it was going, if you want to check it out you'll find it here.

Writing the description for the event was hard, it just didn't look right so it became a poem, I'm no poet as some of you may know from my #BlogFlash2013 efforts, but here goes:- 

 

Goodbye Arthritic Knee

 

You've lost me my job,

You've ruined my life,

You've made me suffer,

Unspeakable pain!

 

You're selfish and nasty,

Enjoyed causing me pain,

Little do you know,

The fate that awaits you.

Give up I've wanted too,
 No, you won't beat me,
A solution I've found,
Soon it'll be,
A shiny new knee

A couple of days ago I decided to get back into the craft room and make myself a Get Well Soon card, I used the watercolour Poppies I painted a few weeks ago whilst trying out some new watercolour papers and a simple Bakers Twine Bow.

 
 

 

I liked this card so much I made a another card to send to a friend with a different sentiment and colours, I can't show it to you yet, as I only posted it this morning and would hate to spoil the surprise.

 

Whilst recuperating I finally finished the Paramedic for my knitted Collectibles. It's not the best photograph as I was unable to get low enough to get the picture I wanted because of my knee. His hair looks a bit odd to me, maybe it's because the others have hats on or maybe it is odd, please let me know what you think.

Himself took me for a hobble around Godalming the other day and I was pleased to see somebody had been out and done a Yarn Bombing on the tree in the High Street. It certainly bought a smile to my face, nobody from the Knitting Groups have claimed responsibility so it would appear we have a secret knitter in our midst.

 

In allotment news, there is no news.

It all appears to be growing well without me, including the grass which is in desperate need of cutting, a job for Himself next weekend, although he doesn't know it yet LOL.

 

 

 

 

I'm linking this weeks post with Handmade Monday and Creative Mondays.

Have a great week Crafting and I'll see you next week.

xxx

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Poppies and Raindrops

I love taking pictures on the allotments and in my garden, one of the plots near mine is a sea of red Poppies and I just couldn't resist taking some pictures.

My Poppies at home are still wrapped up tight and not ready to show off their colourful beauty yet.





They're a lot bigger than the ones on the allotments when they flower which may be why they are opening later, I can't wait, so I can get some fabulous pictures of them.

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Sunday Photo ~ Strawberries

It's always great to see the first strawberry flower appear in my garden, it's living proof that the warmer weather is definitely and finally on it way at last.

Yesterday I thinned out the Strawberry plants at home to replant at the allotment. Now we have the space, the plan is to grow enough to start making my own organic jam again. How I've missed the taste of home made jam since we moved to this tiny house with its miniature garden.

The the beds are now ready to plant, soon we'll be reaping  the rewards of all the hard work we've put in.

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Digging is Crafting!

I've been pretty busy this week, I started knitting my first ever pair of socks but I've not made anything else, I've been working hard digging at the allotment because I want to enter my plot in this year's "Godalming in Bloom" competition.

As always I had my camera with me and just had to take a picture of the beautiful Apple Blossom. We were lucky enough to have been left an Apple Tree when we took over the plot, I have no idea what sort of apples they are, but they're beautiful and crisp and very red and shiny, drooling at remembering the taste of last year's crop.

I'm really pleased to see the blossoms appearing, I had to give the tree a heavy butchering pruning in the winter, as it was growing out of control, was very straggly and we had a serious overcrowding of apples last year, many were far too small and bitter to eat as they couldn't ripen.

I don't know about you but I know nothing about Apple Tree's, but with the help of the internet and youtube I set about it with my loppers. I took loads off and got it looking like a  sort of goblet shape with no branches crossing over, then I had to wait in anticipation to see if I'd killed it! I'm hoping the sight of the blossom means we'll be getting apples this year, but if we don't  I'm just happy that the poor tree survived my butchering pruning attempt.

As I said before I've been doing a lot of digging with the help of Himself and now all the raised beds are in at last, it's been hard work but they'll look gorgeous when planted up. I've already planted my Sweet Pea seeds, if you look closely you'll notice my inspired (in my opinion) use of knitting needles to help them find their way onto the netting.

I think we'll leave the back half of the plot as mown weeds grass for the time being, although it's our second year we never got started properly until this year, due to Himself being so unwell over the last 18 months.

All that's left for me to do now is to tidy edges, plant the rest of the seedlings from the greenhouse, water and wait. Himself is in charge of cutting the grass, he enjoys doing it, I'll rake it up and that's it. The big old petrol lawnmower we got off FreeCycle is far too heavy and has a mind of it's own, it has a habit of moving off on it's own at a rate of knots and I can't keep up with it. I'm keeping my eyes peeled on Freecycle for a Sit on Mower, that'll be much more my style.

I'm so pleased with how much we've achieved, but I'll let you be the judge as this is what the plot looked like when we first took it over last March and why I titled this post "Digging is Crafting".

View from bottom end

View from top end

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter and a great week crafting.

xxx

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Smile it's the Weekend

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Taking Shape

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Getting Ready for Spring

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Smile it's The Weekend

Badger Boo loves coming to the allotment with me, usually he likes to help with the digging, but as it was a bit chilly yesterday he opted to take a supervisory roll, watching me from the comfort of his cushion in the shed.

 

 

I recently decided to hand back the rear half of our allotment as it's just too big for me to manage on my own as Himself can't do any of the heavy work at the moment.

 

Last year I covered the rear to stop the weeds growing and to save me having to mow it in the summer, as I'm handing it back I had to get it uncovered ready for the next person to take over. The back half is in a lot better condition than when we took it over as you can see here.

 

The tarpaulins look so untidy to my tidy mind, but in the long run they will make life so much easier when it comes to digging again.

 

I've left one of the beds uncovered as it has the Rhubarb and some Leeks in it, plus last year it was turned over many times and the Couch Grass was sort of under control by the end of the Summer.

 

Now it's time for my favourite part, planning what to grow this year and setting out the plans for some new raised beds, I already have the materials just didn't have the time to sort them out last year.

 

I'm also thinking of planting a Pear and Cherry tree to compliment the existing Apple tree which bore so much fruit last year I've not had to buy any apples and still have plenty in my shed at home.

 

Originally there were plans to have a meadow area at the back to attract bees and insects, I'm hoping to still have an area to do this but not sure how it will fit in now on a smaller plot.

 

I had so many plans for the allotment last year, and hope to get them all in place this year and turn it into a beautiful and tranquil place that supports us with yummy organic vegetables.

 

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Hope you all have a great weekend.

xxx

 

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Silent Sunday

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