Hello Sunshine!

What a difference two days of sunshine make! Finally, we could enjoy the garden again. Cucumbers have been planted, clothes dried on the line, salad seeds scattered, grass has been cut. (Is it just me, or does everyone feel the house is tidier if the grass is short?)

Our wild-rabbits-and-stray-chickens-in-the-kitchen-garden problem has been solved. I hope. We used a strip of the chicken’s electric fence to go round the main area. The children spent a couple of hours, on and off, digging it over ready for planting. Broad bean plants are planted out and sweetcorn are in the soil, so we’ll wait to see if they survive.

I made the most of time outside and carded more wool. This is the white part of the jacob’s fleece, that I’ve been working with. Buttons were being made in the workshop this weekend, by father and son. TF is a dab hand with the hand drill and just loves to show everyone what he can do.

TF was also very concerned about a new type of marauding dinosaur that he has spotted in the garden. There were (stone and chalk) paw prints as evident of their existence. He insisted that I carried a trident of teasels around as protection from these wild beasts.

Fortunately I didn’t encounter any of these trouble makers, as I had no instructions on what to do with the teasels. Maybe tickle them into submission.

Apart from gardening, there has been some making. Last week, TF declared he needed a purse. Like the girls. How about a wallet like Daddy? OK. I grabbed my bag of wool roving and a bit of plastic for resist and began his wallet. Only noticed afterwards that I had chosen a perfect carrot combination. I’m adding a needlefelt picture onto the front. Maybe a tractor or a rabbit. TF would like a shield and sword or a dinosaur. He showed me a drawing of a pretty good sword. He has obviously studied pictures of swords in great detail. It was good. It’s just I don’t think my needle felting skills are up to a convincing sword. We’ll see.

Finally in the spirit of Stash Busting Monday, two projects. I spent some time in the evenings sewing my patchwork knitted blanket. It takes a surprisingly long time to sew together and lose the ends. Almost there!

I’m guessing everyone has their own definition of stash busting. Mine is a little fuzzy. Time languishing, intent of use and quantity used all seem to be part of it. The wallet probably counts as it uses existing supplies. This weekend, I also dug out a work in progress. It is BL’s unfinished school summer dress from last year. It was put on hold while I looked for lining for the bodice and then the end of term happened and the need for the dress had gone.

Now we are back in the summer school term  again, so yesterday, I turned my fabric stash upside down and found just enough green lining to finish it. I’m on a roll again and the lining must count as stash busting. The dress must qualify as languishing far too long.

So a weekend of gardening and stash busting. Pretty darn good! How about you?