Category: garden stuff

crafts & knitting · garden stuff · general stuff · summer

summery snippets

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)37 Comments

Some moments from the first two weeks of our school break…

  • Amy’s summer hair, dip-dyed blue (which will hopefully wash out before she goes back to school or it will be time to get the scissors out!)
  • Days of absolutely torrential rain fall (with some local flooding) and others full of sun and red skies at dusk, all of which make for a lovely lush garden.
  • we’re having a good harvest of peas, lettuce and broccoli but the french beans have been rubbish thanks to the slugs back in spring. I’m rather excited about my kuri squash plant which is growing like stink and the squash themselves are like little balloons which get bigger each time I look at them. I’m looking forward to making squash soup if we get enough of them.
  • Toby is enjoying the garden too, kicking back in his swing with his lego and occasionally having a burst of energy on the trampoline. We’ve also been swimming a few times and had lots of walks in the cool woods which have been lovely on the hottest of days (no pictures yet as Toby doesn’t like me to stop – he likes to keep moving when we’re out walking.)
  • There’s even been a little knitting. This was taken at 10.15pm this evening when I was cowl knitting by candlelight in support of the #LightsOut campaign commemorating the start of the first world war 100 years ago. #LightsOut’s inspiration stems from the then foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey’s famous remark on the eve of the outbreak of the war. He said: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our life-time”. Britain declared war on Germany at 11pm on 4 August 1914.

So with that sobering thought, I’m off to bed feeling grateful that those dark days of 1914-18 are long distant and hoping that we don’t see the like of them again.

crafts & knitting · garden stuff · summer

longest day

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)35 Comments

Can you believe the longest day of this year has already been and gone?

My Summer solstice was a quiet one with Toby in respite for the day, Amy out with friends and H off cycling. I made the most of the peace by settling myself in the shady spot at the end of the garden with my knitting, notes and computer and I worked on getting the seasonal sweaters pattern finished.

It’s pretty much done but later today I need to take a cover photo and give it all a final check through and then it should be ready to share. I’ll tell you more about what is in the collection later in the week.

Being outside feels so good and the weekend weather gave plenty of opportunity to do just that. There were some pretty interesting skies too, with perfect conditions for contrails which took ages to disperse, the sky above our house soon becoming criss-crossed with them.

Yesterday was also a garden day. Toby had lots of fun on the trampoline while H and I pottered around, tidying up some of the shrubs that have become overgrown and weeding out the chicken run. A few months back we lost Butterscotch, the last of our 3 original chickens to a mystery illness and we thought we’d wait a while before getting ourselves a new flock – just incase there were still some germs lurking around. I think enough time has passed now so we’ve tidied up the run and I’m hoping we’ll have some new clucky friends very soon.

The garden is very green and fresh looking at the moment. We’ve not had intense summer heat yet and although there’s not been much rain of late the water butts are still quite full and I’ve been diligently watering each night. I love all of the different shades of green in the various corners of the garden…

Well, I’m off to get everyone ready for their respective day and then I’m going to try and take that cover photo for the sweaters pattern. I hope to be back later in the week with news of that, so until then have a good week x

garden stuff · general stuff · spring

planting, tick

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)15 Comments

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re traveling through life on an escalator going the wrong way and although you’re working pretty hard you are just not making any progress? I’m sure you do as there can’t be many of us who escape feeling swamped from time to time. I’ve certainly been feeling that way lately – for every bit of paperwork I fill in another drops through the letter box, for every blog post I catch up with another 2 appear in my blog reader, for every email I answer another 3 pop into my inbox… you get the picture I’m sure.

Not a lot was ticked off my to do list this weekend either. In fact the only tick was vegetable planting with help from Toby and we spent a lot of lovely time in the garden together yesterday (hence the pictures of the chives which were planted last year and are now in full and glorious bloom and attracting a lot of bees).

So far this year I’ve not sown as much as I had planned to. I did have grand vegetable planting plans but they’ve been scaled back to more manageable proportions and this weekend Toby and I just planted some beans and peas (a little late in the year but hopefully not too late to get a harvest).

We’ve also got earlier plantings of garlic, broccoli and lettuce which are coming up nicely.

There are a few little seedlings too which should be ready to plant out soon and with any luck will give us some delicious onion squash in the autumn. Courgette and squash seeds are my favourite to grow. They look just like a childs drawing of a little sprout and they are pretty robust – which is a good thing when Toby is involved in the planting out!

So that’s the news from the garden at the moment. In knitting news there is lots going on with pattern writing but nothing yet finished, just a big old tangle of sample bits – the result of testing out different yarns and tweaking bits and pieces. If you’ve emailed me for an E.T.A on the next pattern I’m afraid I can’t give one yet but I am working on the sweaters, the sneakers and all of the other animals, so they are on the way.

This week is the week of Toby’s annual school play so he goes to school from 4pm – 9.30pm which throws everything out of kilter in a big way. And hot on the heels of this week is the school half term break, so I won’t be getting on top of my to do list anytime soon and my email backlog is already of embarrassing proportions – I really am sorry if you’re waiting for a reply from me.

A couple of people emailed to ask about how I constructed the cushion cover – by the way thanks so much for all of the kind comments about the bench in the previous post. Here is a picture of the back.

The crochet top extends a little way underneath where I’ve sewn it to a rectangular piece of fabric and left one side open (held in place by saftey pins) incase I need to take the cover off to wash it. In terms of advice for fitting the crochet top I can’t give much other than to make a top piece the same size as your foam pad and then make side pieces, checking the fit as you go. It was all a bit make-it-up-as-you-go-along but it seems to work and so far it is standing up well to daily Toby use.

Hope you have a good week, see you soon x