Cold, cold June!

It has taken me 6 months to get back to blogging.  Not that I didn't want to, but there always seemed to be something missing.  I would look at the screen and nothing would pop into my head.  BUT, all the while things were happening around me!

The kitchen garden has flourished during summer and even well into this cold winter we are experiencing. Yesterday I still harvested some beans, small carrots and most probably, the last of the baby marrows.  I also picked the first two edible pea pods and shared with my granddaughter.  She just loves fresh goodies from the garden. The salad greens are going over the roof.  I must admit, I fed them plenty of worm tea.

On the crafts side, I have managed to make quite a few blankets.  Will take photo's and post soon.  Also lots of little bits and pieces.  We (my friend and I) attended a rural market last week and all went well with the selling of our goods.  Petrol is so expensive these days, you really have to budget well to make those trips. At the moment I am busy making some denim recycled bags and find that some days you just have more creative energy than others.  Hopefully mine will return in the next hour or so, because I need to get those bags done!!

Well, I am back and hopefully will keep on posting blogs for another while!

May your days be filled with lots of blessings:  big and small!

Marl
xox

December Odds and Ends

Well, it is the 26th today already, tomorrow is Friday and another month is almost gone.

December has been a busy month with markets at the beginning of the month, orders that needed finishing off and time to think up new ideas for the coming year.  Presents were bought and made and at last, I have taken a few pictures of goods made. Will post in January.  One more market on 29th and that will be that for 2013!

Weather wise, the heat has really decided to shoot to extremely hot with occasional cool days, but otherwise we are really frying! Garden work is now at a minimum, but I must confess, the veggies are looking very good.  We have picked a few times from our bean poles and I think especially the Blue Peter variety has done extremely well.  We have harvested a few pumpkins (a bit early, but they are frequently stung, so I pick them before they go bad) and the tomatoes of which we have 3 varieties growing, are looking gooood!

It is also cricket time in the Southern Hemisphere, so we are glued to the screen when it is on.  

Last, but not least, I do hope that everyone had a good Christmas yesterday and because I know I will not be blogging again until January, will have a fabulously 2014 and that all your weirdest wishes,dreams and hopes will come true!  I certainly know that mine will!

Until next time,

Marl

xoxo

Hi there!

Slowly, but surely, summer is fast approaching.  We've had a lot of rain recently, some wind to counter and the days are getting longer and warmer.  I am already sporting some sort of tan from being outdoors harvesting some of the veg that are ready.  A huge pile of spinach is waiting for me on the counter to process as soon as I am getting off the computer!

I will check, but I am almost certain that November is my blog's birthday??!!  As for new pictures, I am sure that I did take some, but have not downloaded yet.  Next time.  Thought I'll just pop in and say "Hi!".  Busy on lots of goodies for upcoming markets as well.  Will take pics soon.

Have a lovely week!

Marl
xox

Spring has sprung!

I just cannot believe that it is September already!  The last time I blogged, was in June.  Slowly, but surely, the weather has changed from biting cold to some slightly warmer days.  We have had this terrible cold wind coming from nowhere at times freezing your limbs off.

The kitchen garden has been 'tilled' so to say and we have used a completely different method this time to see if our crops could not be more lush and fruitful.  We have stuck to the individual built up beds, but have laid a bottom layer of  hay as compost, then a good layer of normal compost and soil, then sewn the seed covering them with another layer of hay.  I must say the beds are looking fantastic.  The cabbages and caulies are big and lush and the carrots must be about two feet tall already (ok, the carrots are smaller, but you get the drift)!  Something is definately working.  We are also using heritage seeds for the first time and have sewn quite a few new things, to us in any case.  Can't wait for the jelly melons and the arctic icicle radishes to mature. Will take photo's and post soon.

I have also been knitting and have a few photo's ready to share with you.  Hoping to bash my stash, I have knitted a jersey for my granddaughter as well as gathering all the bits of pieces I have crochet and knitted (squares, etc) and crochet them together to form a little blanket.  Very skew, but colourful, I was not going to have sleepless nights over the squareness of that one! Seems the camera (or operator) made a mess of that picture! I'll have it next time.

This is my granddaughter's jersey knitted from bits and pieces and at times using different patterns.  Soft and warm.

 Blanket no 1:  using knitted squares approx 18x18cm and trying to use a different pattern on each of them.  I must say, I knitted some amazing patterns. The names of the stitch patterns are also very quaint:  caterpillar stitch horizontal and vertical, bamboo stitch, sand stitch, double andalusian stitch, hurdle stitch, granite relief stitch, ant egg stitch, wheat germ stitch and my favourite, eye of the partridge stitch!!

This is blanket no 2:  Taken from an old Golden Hands book, these are just crochet squares in 3 colours.  There are 36 squares altogether and it would make a very nice and cozy knee blanket.

 Photo to show the edge of the first blanket where I have used a bicolour cable edging to finish the blanket off.  Looks quite snazzy!!

This bag started life intended to be a cushion cover, but I thought, what the heck, lets make it a bag!  So a bag it has become.  I must still do the inside lining and decide on the fastening.  Must also still strengthen the handles with some webbing.  It is knitted from pure cotton currently on our yarn shelves and has a nice sturdy and heavy feel to it.  

The knitting patterns I have found in an amazing book called the Mon Tricot knitting dictionary featuring 1030 stitches and patterns.  And (as it says on the front page) Knitting and Crochet ~ patchwork, jacquard, afghan, fork, loom, arans, furs, woven crochet, technics.  This was printed around the 70's, but is still very much usable.  Patterns are always the same, just the yarns and wools are different in this day and age.

That's all for now!

Marl
xox

Market Day

There are many festivals and markets, at times combined, in our country.  I suppose it says something of an ever changing economy.  The minute unemployment hits a certain mark, craft markets emerge as people are trying to make a living.  Not all markets bring in the money as I can attest, but you meet new people and listening to them always make you feel like you do not have it so bad!  That is the strangest thing!!

Over the last weekend I attended a market sharing with a lady I met at another market.  This is in farmers' territory and fresh produce could also be bought there.  The stalls were expensive to start with and although I had a few sales, I expected a bit more as there were lots of people moving through.

Here are a few photo's I took of our stall and just around where we were situated.

Our stall from a slight distance.

The 'Rox' lady across the isle from us.  She paints the most beautiful designs on rocks of all sizes. Her email address is: avheimerl@live.com and she also paints animal portraits (and lots more!).

A close-up of our stall.  My frilly summer scarves are hanging nearest to the camera.

This lady sold millions of shawls - all manner of them.  Her moneybag was swinging very low to the ground!

Always a tea garden with good eats, strawberries and cream and, very importantly, a good cup of tea!

These giant poly balls got a lot of attention and there were always people waiting for their turn.

We slept over at a friend's house on a farm.  Lovely old house and so big!  I slept in a huge bedroom with the most lovely crochet blanket on.  All hand made!  Very colourful indeed!

Beautiful and colourful!

This is all for today!  Hope that you will have a lovely sunny day, whether it is winter or summer!

xox

Marl

At Last, another blog post!

Time is flying by so quickly that before you know it, the new month has gone and so it goes month after month.  Every time I thought to blog, I would remember that the camera's batteries were flat and need to be recharged and then I never get to blogging. 

Anyway, this morning I have decided to just sit down and write, pictures or no pictures!  I have had quite a busy few months with making new goods for my market stall and looking after my grandson.  Who, by the way, is more than a handful!  Sitting down to knit/crochet or sew would be for the few precious moments the little darling closes those beautiful eyes (more often than not, for only an hour or so, but what the heck)!  

The weather is definitely turning colder as winter is fast approaching the back door.  I have planted a few lovely winter flowering annuals and can't wait for all the colour.  Violets that were planted about 2 months ago, are flowering and the view from my bedroom window is stunning! Also planted some cauliflowers and salad greens and a few spinach plants.  Hopefully they will survive the chickens scratching around them, over them and out with them (the general thing) and I desperately trying to rescue the wilted plants. Chicken no 1 is sitting on 9 unfertised eggs again while no 2 and 3 are scratching and pooing and generally doing their bit to mess all over the show.  But, we still love them.  Granddaughter has also acquired two rats as a birthday present.  We'll see how that goes!

I am itching to start sewing up a bag, not just any old bag, but a nice one like the Dutch Sisters like to make.  Mine will NOT look as lovely as theirs, but I'll have to start somewhere.  The knitted bags are great, but totally slow sellers.  And I need to sell after I have spent my precious pension money on materials.  I have also started a new baby blanket and have been knitting dolls clothing.  Besides that, I have two totally uncompleted (W.I.P.) blankets that I am trying to finish.  The one needs a few more blocks as I have just sorted through my stash and took all the blocks that I have been knitting, etc and started to crochet them together for a truly patched blanket.  The other is an exercise in ripple crocheting that ended up with a totally skew side.  Ag, does not matter, I will see what I can do there, because I AM NOT PULLING OUT all that work!

Next time hopefully a few photos of the finished articles.  At least the written word has triumphed here!!!

xox

Marl

Inspiration

There's no stopping the hours and days from flying into the distance.  It is almost the end of February, the second month of the new year almost gone. I must confess that although I have been busy, I most probably could have done more.  My excuse is the heat:  it has been so hot every single day and although I love the warmth, I cannot bear the heat anymore.  Old age brings more niggs to the table than not!  I love the autumn, so lovely and warm, but also cool and lovely.  You sleep better, you can actually get into the garden and start planting and tidying up the flower beds before winter starts in all its glory.

The feeling of laziness is slowly creeping into my being.  I want to sit and read or listen to the chickens talking and just generally not do anything.  Not that I can afford to do that, I have heaps to do.  My list of to-do's is continuously growing and I better get going!  I have started on a new crochet blanket, knitted a few blocks that might also turn into a blanket or maybe I will figure out a cardi for one of my grandchildren using the blocks (as in patchwork).  I remember doing something similar oodles of years ago for my daughter, using nice pastels, and as I remember, people stopped her in the streets to ask about the shop she has bought it from.  Ha Ha!  Really looked nice!  I have some sewing alterations to do for a customer.  More dresses to sew for my granddaughter and I must think of something nice to do for the grandson.  I am also finishing off a woolly vest for my granddaughter.  I am utterly bored with making things for the market days as at the moment nothing seems to sell.  I know the economy is bad, but after spending time and money to make stuff, you would like to see something sell!

I have subscribed to a daily inspiration this morning and was totally surprised to read stuff that I know, but somehow you forget the wisdom of  these little nuggets.  To read them again and again and understand the simple concept of the message, is something I'll have to learn all over again.  If you are interested, you can find them at 'Inspire me Today.com'.  It is really worth your time.

OK, wanted to load a nice picture, but I really do not know what has happened on this site since the previous uploads, as suddenly I cannot access my photo's.  Well, I'll just blame Google!  

Have a great week, full of surprises and wonderful thoughts!

Marl
xoxo