June...ing

 Have you all been having a joyous June? Things have been good over here on the hill - hot but good. In no particular order and possibly things I have already mentioned, here goes!

Buying - Four Orla Kiely glasses, it was a treat but they were seconds meaning they were discounted.

Picking - more radishes. I have been sowing every four weeks but as the weather has got drier I seem to have a gap now before the next ones are ready.

Shearing - our sheep at the beginning of June. They were relieved before the very hot weather came along.

Visiting - Barmouth for a few days in the June Break. Good for big girl who was doing GCSE's and just needed to cool off in the sea for a few days; mentally and physically.

Using - up a little fridge haul from our neighbours who were going away on holiday and gave us a bag of veggies. I made a Mediterranean tart and a couple of salads.

Experimenting - with my new toy. A circular knitting machine. Mmmm, more practise needed I think!!!

Refashioning - a size 10 linen dress which was too small for me into a top for the Big 'un.

Knitting - the start of six different jumpers to try and get something started with my pink yarn. None of them were the right gauge or texture then some were just too hard to concentrate on or I didn't understand the stitches. I have settled on the simplest sweater from ravelry. Seems apt for my brain capacity at the moment!

Crocheting - a version of the Aster top. The pattern is actually for much finer yarn but I wanted a break from the knitting fails of late. Might do something better with the sleeves??

Going - strawberry picking. You may think this strange if you have seen my massive fruit cage full of strawberries but I made a gardening error and fed the plants at Easter then they put on colossal amounts of leaf growth and there are no strawberries. Whoops!

Making - some jam from my bought strawberries. I love homemade jam and have become such a snob about jam; bought jam just tastes of sugar not fruit.

Loving - my current table vase in my vase challenge to have flowers from the garden continuously on the kitchen table. The sweet williams seem never ending and have such a long vase life. I have paired them with a zingy euphorbia. 

Cleaning - up my treadle sewing machine. I used to use it at my nan's farm when I was about 10 or 12 to mend my grandads work overalls. My nan hated me using it incase I caught my fingers but I never did. I have had it all apart, cleaned the components and then put it all back together. After watching a very useful Youtube video of someone setting up a similar one I have got it going. I am just getting a bit of tangling after a run of about 8 inches because the spring on the tension discs has bent out of shape so it catches the threads when I get a bit of speed going. I am going to get a new one. After looking up the serial number, it is from 1858.

There is thunder in the distance so I had better pop out and bring some things inside. Toodle oo!

Jo xxxx

Looking Great Here

Well the gardening has certainly picked up since my last gardening post. The weather here in the UK has warmed up considerably at the start of June and everything is growing well. Lets's take a little tour shall we.

My best thing to show you is this yellow peony in my warm tones garden. It was one of the original plants I put in 3 years ago and it has never flowered. Peonies take a few years to get established so I am thrilled. There were five flowers and now these have gone over, the yellow rose behind has taken over the bloom position. Perfect. 

Next to this is another new one to blossom which is a new bearded Iris which I bought in a sale at Autumn. It looked so sad in the pot but I love an underdog. It was £2 and I gave it a home next to the peony. It has been stunning.

They both sit in this border which is looking fab. I love the foliage contrasts. This was a couple of weeks ago so the daff leaves have now been removed to make way for the summer flowers. I now have plans to empty some of this border because I over planted it when it was new. Now that I have found out what survives in full sun and what has filled out into quite substantial sized plants I can do some moving come the autumn to give the thriving things more room.

In the greenhouse the tomatoes have gone from this...

To this in a matter of two weeks. Similarly, the veg patch has had a full planting going from this...

 To this. A few things didn't come so I have, with immense amount of hope, re-seeded some crops but I know it is a little late really.

My table vase challenge has been helped by the contribution of flowers from my flower grower companion Beth. If the flowers don't fit her wedding brief then I get them!

Her plot changes so much. She doesn't take any passengers - once they are cut and used, the are removed and the next variety fills its space. These ranunculus were just amazing though. The sheep fleece covered area is the dahlia plot starting to make shoots.

Other vase combos from my garden include...

A lighter arier collection of sweet rocket, allium, cornflowers and aquelegia. And this week...

A sample vase of all the things I knocked off while weeding! A lupin, snap dragon, a pink rose, an iris, a cornflower, a fox glove and the start of my sweet williams. 

 My first crops of the year are lettuce and radish. I am trying so hard to reseed every two weeks for a succession - the gardeners dream. This prize, unscathed radish was the size of a cocktail tomato. It wasn't even woody; it was delicious!

I have had a good old tidy up in the green house where I am watering twice a day. Thinking ahead I am also trying some dried flowers this year. 

Hope you are getting out to enjoy summer whatever you like to do. 

Jo xx

Woolly Chit Chat

 Feeling inspired to catch up with a few wooly makes today. Especially as me, my daughters and my mum went to Wonderwool Wales last month. I had it in my head that I should use up any wool from last years purchases in order to enjoy buying some more.

This was one of my usual mash up knits where I used the Bardini vest pattern as a base and made it work for the materials I had. I sized up as this is 3ply yarn and the pattern is for 4ply yarn.

I had a go at fading. I wasn't so successful on the first fade from green to the flecked blue but then I learnt, as I went along, how much yarn to leave from the old ball to fade in. You switch in the new colourway every other row until the last one runs out. The back and rib is made with a 4ply cream yarn from Drops which works well because you can see the fade on the side seam.

My last bit of stash knitting before our visit to Wonderwool was to knit all of my sock yarn scraps that would not be useful in an actual pair of socks into a cowl for skiing. We were lucky with the weather this year when we went skiing; it was sunny and there was not any driving snow. I had in mind when I knit this that it would hug my neck and be supper warm. 

I really don't like cowls that fold in on themselves into a useless ring around your neck. Harsh words I know. Without a pattern, I cast on the sock yarn on 3mm needles. Starting with the finest wool and then kept changing up a needle increment with wool thickness as I continued. It meant that with a stretchy cast off, it was wider at one end than the other and sits really well. The 3xrib was perfect and easy to do while watching a bit of TV. Functionality wise it is a 10 out of 10.

OK, back to the shopping. Yarn wise I had quite a haul. I always go to a guy at Wonderwool who looks like a market trader and if I am honest is a bit miserable. He has huge cardboard boxes with hanks of yarn with barely any details. Signs might simply say '4ply £5 hank' I am guessing it is deadstock but I like the jeopardy of buying something both unknown in quantity and composition. So many of the traders at the show sell expensive hand dyed artisan yarn that I would say it is hard to buy anything 'normal' so I think he has a good USP. 

I went for really harmonious choices. Everything is 4ply. I had ideas of what I wanted to buy wool for and then also I had in mind what I could use the left overs for. The pink, ran double, works well for any of the knits in my Ready Set raglan book so there is plenty of scope there. I then thought about a fair isle knit with the left over pink and chose some ivory and green to mix in with the left overs. The ball on the top is genius - it is a sock yarn split into two yarn runs so you can have matching ombre socks!!

Megan spotted this cotton in a sale basket, 5 balls for £10, and alerted me to it so I snapped it up and started a summer crochet top when I got home. This is my current sit-outside-to crochet project.

My girls always like the show day out...mostly because I promise them a crepe and there are always some lovely Angora rabbits, crazy looking goats or sheep with amazing fleeces to ogle.

I must admit to struggling with blogging at the moment. With a job that involves social media content it is hard to muster the motivation to write again here but I like to keep in touch with family and friends. I love reading blogs but can't always write my own. That said, I will definitely continue with my three word gardening posts, my ing posts and of course any ta dah! moments. 

Always happy to see you here. Love Jo xxxx