More felt!

Above is my most recent felt piece (made yesterday, in fact), and hopefully destined for my colleague at work as part of her commissioned pieces, (if she likes it, of course!) It is made from merino wool with pre-felted circles applied onto the top surface and then the whole lot is felted. Again, it is about A4 size.

Open gardens

I went to an Open Gardens on Saturday, to Navenby, near Lincoln. I love looking at other people's gardens - for ideas, to be nosey and to discover new planting combinations and new plants. Below was my favourite garden, tucked away but with lots of cottage garden plants. I particularly liked the different areas in the garden and the fact that you couldn't see everything at once.

This clematis was in the same garden and was amazing, both for its colour and number of flowers. It was happily growing up an apple tree.

This was the view across the fields (plus sheep) and a lovely old stone wall encrusted with moss. The weather was reasonable but my hands got cold. There were 9 different gardens, ranging from acres to back yards, but all with dedicated gardeners tending them. The tea and cakes in the church hall were very welcome, and the cakes themselves were absolutely delicious. A great way to spend a Saturday!

Second new piece

This is the second new piece I have been working on. Again, it is bigger than I usually make and I used Merino wool and hand blended all the colours to match (well, nearly) the natural colours of the Texel cross Black Welsh wool. It took me two hours to make, but felted well and has a smooth texture, which contrasts well with the slightly more coarse Texel cross Black Welsh. I am going to make another one, probably using the natural wool with the blue silk threads running vertically through the cream strips. Should be interesting...

New felt piece

Here is my latest felt piece, using the natural coloured wool from my sister's sheep and a little navy blue silk thread. It is slightly bigger than I usually make, about A4 size. I am going to make a similar piece in merino wool to compare the results.
I spent Saturday afternoon making this piece. I had the TV on for company, and it took the whole of the film 'Death on the Nile' to complete! The Texel cross Black Welsh wool requires a lot of carding as all the pieces of twigs, grasses and other oddments have to be removed as you go along and the actual felting takes about 45 minutes too. The wool does make a really solid, tactile felt though, so all the hard work is worth it.

Seven followers!

I am thrilled to see I now have seven followers! Hooray! I thought I would add this photo of a felt piece I made, based on tractor tyre patterns in the mud. It is always interesting to see what provides inspiration.
I have received a commission for two, possibly three, pieces of felt from a colleague at work, which is very encouraging. I am hoping to get started tomorrow. I also have some small sample pieces to make, experimenting with silk threads...and gardening and sewing my quilt and starting a patchwork quilt and... if only I had more hours in a day!

Home Baking

I really enjoy baking cakes and biscuits and recently found this simple but very tasty oat biscuit recipe. It makes thin, crunchy biscuits which are not too sweet, so you can pretend they are good for you! I make them pretty much every week as Chris and I take them to work for break times. Delicious!

Clematis

Three of the beautiful clematis flowering in my garden at the moment. Above is 'Ice Blue', then 'Kingfisher' and the red one is 'Rebecca'. They are great plants for adding height and I grow several of them in pots (only because I don't have any more room in the borders!)

Doddington Hall, Lincoln

Yesterday, I went to Doddington Hall, Lincoln, (http://www.doddingtonhall.com) with my friend Angie and enjoyed a very nice lunch in the Farm shop and Cafe, before heading out to enjoy the gardens. Doddington is known for its irises, and although some had gone over, some were still beautiful. The above photo was taken in the woodland area, looking across the fields to a barn.

The irises looking gorgeous in the formal garden.

The vibrant colours of the rhododendrons and azaleas which greeted us. We spotted lots of others on our walk round the gardens. I think they look best in a woodland area - they seem to 'belong' there. It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

A new project

I have been having the most enormous clear out of the bedroom (something that has been needed for ages!) and after removing eight bags of bits and pieces and donating them to the charity shop, I am feeling very virtuous. The room looks twice as big as it used to and it is a huge improvement. While going through some of the accumulated stuff, I came across this Laura Ashley double duvet cover. I bought it on a whim from a vintage-type shop because I loved the colours and the floral pattern. However, that was when I had a duvet! I now have blankets and quilts, because I like the layers. So, reluctantly, I was going to put it on Ebay. I then had a real lightbulb moment and decided to turn it into a quilt, with a wadding filling and stitching to hold the layers in place. Brilliant - I can be a bit creative as well as making something that I can use and enjoy. It will also be a gentle introduction to quilting as I do want to have a go at a patchwork quilt at some point. I'll let you know how I get on.

Knock, knock!

I saw the spade shaped door knocker in the June edition of Gardeners' World magazine and loved it, so on an impulse, decided to order it. (I got it from crocus.co.uk for £5.99 with postage of £5.99 too(!), but other suppliers such as the National Trust catalogues were also suggested.) Chris suggested it could go on the shed, but I think I'm going to save it for the back door on our next house (ever hopeful!) It's made of cast iron and has a loud knock. The quirky, hand made look really appeals to me.

Speaking of Chelsea...

Although I didn't visit the Chelsea Flower Show, I have been enjoying the BBC coverage and I thought I would share some of my favourite gardens with you. The Bee Friendly garden incorporated some lovely lilac and purple planting, and the ubiquitous alliums, of course!

Music of the Moors was a tranquil space and the willow window tracery worked particularly well. The designer said it was supposed to be as though you were looking out of a church window onto the moors. The planting was very evocative - no wonder it won best small garden category.

My absolute favourite was the one above, the M and G garden. I am just a traditional cottage gardener at heart and the romantic planting with the oak pergola and building really appealed to me.

The Rhubarb and Custard garden made me smile. It was good to see a garden with a sense of humour! It won the RHS viewers vote for best small garden, so must have appealed to others too. The spoon seat is especially gorgeous.

Christian before Dior was another designed cottage garden, albeit a little more formal. Although I did like aspects of some of the more contemporary gardens, I'm just a traditionalist at heart.

Chelsea week - has to be alliums!

Well, Chelsea week is over again and it always coincides with alliums. These are 'Purple Sensation' and they have lived up to their name this year. I had forgotten I'd planted them because they didn't come up last year, but this year, they have dotted themselves through the border and look fabulous. The bees really love them too.

Clematis and wallflowers

These photos are of plants from my own garden. The combination of colours was a bit unexpected (and I have to admit, not necessarily planned by me, as I didn't know what colour the wallflower would be when I planted it!) but I think it works. The wallflowers were bought at the local market, in the traditional way, wrapped in newspaper. I planted them last autumn and only two survived the cold winter, both of which were this deep red.

I have lots of clematis in my garden - Piilu, Asao, Arabella, Princess Diana, Kingfisher, Ice Blue, Rebecca, to name but a few. However, for flowering at this time of year, it's hard to beat the alpina and macropetala cultivars. This clematis macropetala has flowered beautifully this year and the pale lilac-blue compliments the spring flowering bulbs and early hardy geraniums very well.

Felted and ready...

Here they are after felting, ready for the embroidery.

Latest Felt

I made two pieces of felt the other day, as I mentioned, and above they can be seen in their pre-felted state. I am going to add grasses and cow parsley in embroidery to the green one, which already has silk fibres, yarns and tweed fibres added to it. To enhance the sky colours in the other one, I am going to add stitching in satin and cotton thread. Now all I need to do is get on with it!

My favourite thinking place

This is my favourite place to sit and think, or sit and look at the trees, or just sit when I am at Barnsdale. I always try to make time to sit and listen to the birds when I visit, which I find so relaxing. Sometimes the things that are free in this life are the things we take so much for granted - to look at the sky, listen to the birds or notice the changing seasons.

Tulips

This was one of the small courtyard gardens at Barnsdale which I particularly liked. I do like formality in a garden to a certain extent, but the planting inside the formality needs to be 'floofy' (one of my technical terms meaning informal and exuberant).

This is a close up of the gorgeous tulips. The colour contrast of the tulips against the green topiary was striking.

The blue of the forget-me-nots seems to cool the tulips down, but this was in a shadier part of the gardens. The colour combination still works really well.

Five followers...

This is great because I now have five people following my blog. (I'll have to start making more of an effort to put things on here!) I have been really busy with work and my garden just recently and have lots of little seeds ready to be potted on - Zaluzianskya, Echium, Poached Egg plant, Oriental Poppy and Verbena Bonariensis, to name but a few.

I have been working on a couple of felt pieces which I want to embellish with some embroidery and I have also signed up to an initiative that partners you up with another Felter somewhere in the world. The idea is to promote and celebrate International Day of Peace on September 21st 2010 by having thousands of felt creations crossing the continents. I really like the thought of that - how exciting to have something sent to you and to send something you have made out to someone else. Who knows what will turn up in the post, but I'm looking forward to it. Please click on the link to find out more.

Blossom everywhere!

I went to Barnsdale again last weekend and it was fantastic. The sky was blue, the birds were singing and everywhere was covered in blossom.

I took lots of photos and some of them remind me of Van Gogh's or Monet's paintings of blossom against a blue sky. Beautiful!

I really liked the weeping apple tree and took photos from under the branches as well as peeping through them.

Magnolia and Lilac

I was in the garden yesterday morning, enjoying the sunshine and hanging the washing out when I noticed the colours of the magnolia (liliflora Susan) and lilac (old tree, unknown variety) against the blue sky. It really was beautiful. The magnolia has been flowering for a couple of weeks and has a lovely scent and the lilac is just coming into flower. I love this time of year.