A little helper

Firstly, thank you for the emails and comments I have had following the break in at the lottie - I have really appreciated your thoughts and humour too!

On a positive note - I am now feeling motivated to get to the lottie and start sorting it out ready for the spring,  both Mr Milly and the Portuguese Housekeeper have pledged time this week end to come with me and make a start - I expect the work will be down to me,  but the company will be extremely welcome.

I have had another offer of help today - from my oldest nephew,  he is 9 and often when he visits I will show him the recent photos I have taken and we talk about them.   He spotted the fox in the tree in a nano second!  Today we were discussing the lottie and  I duly showed him the pictures of the damaged door,  we discussed in detail what might of happened, he studied the broken door with great interest.  He has assured me he has some wood from his old bed that will help to fix the lottie door.  He asked his mum what he was doing at the weekend as he wanted to come and help me.   We talked about some of the other jobs that need doing,   planting the raspberries and building their frame,  pulling up the Brussel sprouts and clearing that bed,  a general little tidy up where the recent high winds have blown things around and whilst there is no new growth I would really like to cut down some more of the brambles at the back of the plot.   Now my nephew weigh all this up,  he established that he has some gardening gloves - and wanted to know how prickly the brambles were!

Anyway I have a lovely little list of jobs that he could do he was happy with that.    I'm not sure if he will make it to the lottie this weekend and as he was leaving I told that it would be great to see him this weekend,  but if he can't make it, then not to worry as there will be lots more weekends!  He did seem quite happy with this as he kissed me goodbye today.

Tonight I am sitting with some seed catalogues and trusty Google trying to decide what goodies I am going to attempt to grow this year.   Already there are things to be done - now is the time to be chitting seed potatoes ready for planting.   Which ones to choose - there are zillions of the things on offer and it is confusing and before even choosing  the type a decision to be made on which sort of crop - did you have any idea that the crop list was this long??????

Extra Earlies

Earlies

Second Earlies

Main crop

Late Crop

Pen and paper to the ready, trying to work out the whole thing out - how complicated for the humble little potato!

How annoying

This morning I had a phone call from the John the site manager of the allotments  - what was the phone call for?  My little lottie shed had been broken into!  

I had to wait until my lunch break today to go and see for myself what had happened.  To my relief nothing had been taken - but isn't that odd?  There isn't anything of any value in there as we did know of previous break-ins at the site and dire warnings from the other plot holders made sure nothing valuable was left there.  Having said that everything in my shed is valuable to me and it is mine!  I was most worried about my lawn mower (a second hand one) and my spade and fork - I did pay a reasonable sum for these (about £20 each so not a fortune),  BUT that is not the point - it would be annoying and inconvenient and costly to have to replace them and THEY ARE MINE!

It does look as if it was completely mindless, pointless vandalism and nothing else.  The door is damaged and the lock is broken,  my freebie freecycle clock is smashed and most strange of all - MY chairs were out of the shed, on the patio area as if someone had been sitting on them (Goldilocks - whose been sitting in my chair, springs to mind),  my scarecrow too had been taken out of the shed and thrown on the floor.  So it looks like some small minded person or people unknown have broken my shed to take the chairs out to sit on!  How very very stupid is that!    At least nothing is gone and some repair work will be required at the weekend.  Just keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have any rain between now and Saturday as the shed is definately not water tight at the moment.

Broken shed door

What a strange thing to do

Smashed clock on the patio

Considering it is the winter and the plot is seriously unloved at the moment and even with the broken door - No 95 is still looking neat and tidy - that does make me feel a little better!

Patchwork

Patchwork is something I have never really tried - I think I might have dabbled in the past but I don't think I had the patience for it.

My patience has improved a little (I'm not sure Mr Milly would agree though!),  I have had a go at paper piecing.   The result a lovely vintage looking project bag for me.   This has taken ages to complete,  in fact I think I started just after Christmas.   The bag is made up of 60 hexagons,  each one is cut around its own paper template and then tacked to the paper to hold its shape,  the hexagons are then hand stitched and once all are in place the whole thing is ironed and then the papers unpicked and removed.   It was quite fascinating putting it together and I have enjoyed sitting with the work on my lap doing some hand sewing.   The bag has been lined in a matching fabric and now I have a lovely big useable bag to keep my current project (or 2 or 3!) in.

My New project Bag

60 Hexagons later and matching lining

Paper template - one for each Hexagon

Fabric and Paper tacked together

The 3 steps for a single hexagon

So moving on from the paper piecing I've had a go at Cathedral windows.  This also is hand stitched and will become a cushion cover.   This first attempt is going to be a gift - It is a work in progress at the moment and I have learnt a lot from this.  The backing is 100% cotton fabric which is folded and ironed a couple of times before the inserts are folded and hand sewn in place.   This fabric is thick and my goodness it has really hurt my poor little chubbie fingers!  Plasters to the ready yet again and I have now had to buy a thimble too!  When I do another one of these and I expect there will be a few more, I will be more careful which fabric I choose to try and save my fingers!

A couple of pics of the work in progress.

First lot of windows sewn in,  one pinned and still to be sewn

The final windows in positioned and ready for attaching.

Mr Milly is thinking this will make a great quilt,  I am thinking this would take years to complete and would probably cost more in plasters than fabric :)

Cookies

Do you remember these?

Today the first of the cookies in a jar have been created!  My oldest niece DJ called this morning to tell me the cookies were underway - how lovely to know that the gifts are being used.   I have been sent these lovely photos to show progress of the cookie making.

DJ mixing the cookies

This picture made me laugh....  these cookies
 won't be allowed to burn!  LOL

Yum -Well I'm impressed!



All done ...

I think they look great - and DJ does too  :) x

I've been playing a little more with the needle felting,  I think I am getting better as my fingers only have a few punctures this time!

Bear

Flower Fairy

Toadstool House

Mr Milly has claimed the little bear and a couple of the others have been claimed by My Girl and the Portuguese Housekeeper - in fact the girls had a bit of a fight over them which was quite entertaining LOL!



Cunning Mr Fox

Fortunately all of my chickens are safe and well.    We have had a visit from a Fox - you are going to have look really hard at this photo to spot the fox.....

 Did you see him???   The tree is very very tall,  much higher than the house and growing behind the garden fence.   Mr Milly spotted the fox yesterday, but I didn't see him - today we saw him again.   Perched right at the very top of the tree sitting watching the chickens and everyone else in and out of our garden and from that vantage point several other gardens too.   I think our dog and the dog next door could both smell him and not see him as they were both very vocal all afternoon.  As the sun started to go down, down went the fox, no doubt to return another day.  Peer closely at the top of the tree and you might see the orange Mr Fox

A couple of better pictures of him - posing for the camera I think.

Can you see him now?



A zoomed in shot of the fox watching me photograph him.

Just goes to show that if you are keeping chickens a fortress to protect them is needed,  6 foot high fences are really no defence when they are able to climb like this.    Another learning for today - Mr Fox can climb very high trees! 

Gifts

For Christmas this year I was really lucky with my gifts from  the lovely Mr Milly,    one gift I did know about was my new sewing machine.......   I love it!  I have had mine for 25 years and although going strong it was really showing its age and behaving like an old lady.  This one will be kept for Mr Girl at her request.

The new one is all singing and dancing,  I think it has something like 225 stitches,  automatic button holes,  clip on presser feet - no more fiddling with a tiny screwdriver to change the feet AND an automatic needle threader - this is brilliant, especially as my eyes struggle now with threading a needle - that is my age according  to my optician (he really cheered me up that day!! LOL).

So here it is the new well loved machine.......

And what does a new machine need?  Well a new cover of course....  brilliant practice on the machine,  a bit of quilting, some patchwork and then some applique - me and Mr Milly worked on this one together as the maths and angles is just not my thing and his number crunching was really needed.   Mr Milly also arranged the patchwork,  I did try to get him to cut out the 42,  2 inch squares but he was having none of that!

I think Mr Milly is worried that I don't have enough to do and occupy me - and after watching Kirstie Allsopp' Homemade Home he gave me a needle felting kit for Christmas.

The kit looks like this;-



Book, wool, needle tools, felting mat..



I have been having a play  with the needles and wool and after puncturing my fingers on numerous occassions - the needles are barbed, triangular and incredibly sharp,  my index finger and thumb looks like  pincushions!  I think I am starting to get the hang of it  - and learning to keep my fingers out of the way!  Very briefly - you get some wool,  place it on a brush/sponge and stab it multiple times with a needle to mat it and sculpt into whatever you are creating.   Brilliant therapy after a hard day at work!

My first couple of efforts - with some more to follow in the next couple of days.



Gnome Garden - 20p to give an idea of the scale



Learnt today - A collection of ladybirds is ' A loveliness of Ladybirds' - how cute is that!!

New Year's Resolutions

1. Save money where ever possible - clear all debts and save a bit
2. Don't put things off - this puts me under self inflicted additional pressure
3. Try to be calmer - this will be a real challenge!
4. Go to bed early - after midnight most nights is just too late
5. Try to learn a couple of new things every week
6. Come out of Hibernation.  I feel that I have hibernated this year - a coping mechanism I think.
7. Loose weight - I believe this one is compulsory for a New Years resolution list!
8. Get the allotment cleared and sorted

I think that is enough resolutions for one year!  A list written down does feel like they are proper resolutions and maybe achieveable - let's wait and see!

Out with the old and in with the new - I've made a few changes to the blog template,  what do you think?  

All is quiet again in our house,  My Girl is off visiting friends she will be home early next week for a day and then back to work in Kent.   I am going to miss her,  but I won't miss her messiness!  My goodness she is untidy,  in fact she can walk into a room and devastate it in about 30 seconds - she really does have this down to a fine art!!  Mr Milly gets frustrated with shoes - he will frequently ask her how come she has one pair of feet,  but there are 12 pairs of shoes all over the place! LOL!  The Portuguese Housekeeper has now also gone home,  so back to just the 2 of us.   This helps the first of the New Year's resolutions - the heating has been turned down a notch or two and is now on for just 2 hours in the morning and 2 at night.

Lastly on this very first day of 2012 a few pics of some of the makes for Christmas - not many photos though, as I forgot to photograph most of them!! 

Cowgirl and Cowboy cookie mix in a jar.  Just add butter and they are good to go.

A patchwork lap quilt for Mr Milly - he might need it as the heating is now so low!

My first ever Christmas cake

Have you made any New Year Resolutions?

Alison x