Nearly ready for take off

Our Scheepjes Flight of Fancy Crochet-A-Long wraps are nearly ready for flight. Above shows all my motifs prior to joining together along with what's left of the 603 Linen Soft (she just has to get in on ALL the pics!)

The last week and a half evenings have been spent joining them all together, I got finished on that yesterday but have found a couple of oopsies ...

To join the motifs together, there are two rounds of chain, double crochet (UK), slip stitches and picots. As the black circle indicates, I've forgotten one of my picots when joining this motif. I'd joined the rest of that row and nearly all of the following one before I spotted it. Since seeing that one, I've found another as well, that's the trouble with watching TV at the same time as crocheting!

I have figured out a way of fixing this fairly easily (ie without having to remove all the motifs I joined after the one with the error). So I continued on and finished all the joining. That's this evening's task. I'm painting a wall in the garden today so we can get the greenhouse delivered and put up in time for the Autumn.

All that's left to do on our lovely Flight of Fancy wraps is the final border. The pattern will be released on the Scheepjes Spring-to-Summer CAL 2015 group Facebook page later on this week. Then the whole thing will be blocked to open out the joining rounds and then I'll be able to wear it.

Am so looking forward to Wednesday morning!

The Whispering Beadmaker

I'm not talking much today, MTM and I went to see Rival Sons again last night in Sheffield with fellow rock fans Steve and Gary. Brilliant night, support act were the Graveltones, wow, they get a great sound with only two musicians. The guitarist is a one-man orchestra!

Due to shouting and hollering my approval after every track of both acts, I am rather hoarse today and so forgive me for not doing much talking about the concert or these new lampwork beads I'm showing you.

They're very similar to my Glitter on the Highway beads which I made some time ago but this time in a blue colourway using bluestone instead of goldstone. I had to come up with another name and as they're blue which suggests water ... I therefore present to you, Lustre on the Babbling Brook beads available in my Etsy shop now.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Steampunks and mushrooms in Cambridge

I've been meaning to get back to Cambridge for a day out for ages. Last time as we whizzed by in the car, I spotted these unusual mushrooms sprouting out of wrought iron railings outside a school on Trumpington Road. This time, I had to stop for some pics; aren't they just amazing?!

The perfect opportunity for this came last Saturday, my sister, Sharon and her partner, Martin were arranging one of their Steampunk events at the Cambridge Museum of Technology.

Steampunks are an eccentric bunch, they like dressing up, have tea duals, drink gin and eat cake ...

They're especially fond of their hats, mustn't forget the hats, they even motorise them and have races ... a strange lot! :-)

The museum is brilliant, great staff and most importantly is dog friendly and so Missy was able to come along with us and on the way back into town, we stumbled upon a pub with river views ...

It would be rude not to stop really! 

Have half of shandy and boat watch.

Must go back soon, Cambridge is lovely, sometimes I miss trading there on Saturdays!

Five a day vegetable seeds

Yesterday, I sowed some vegetable seeds for the first time since 2007!

The topsoil has been shovelled into the new raised beds, a joint effort by MTM and myself though I have to say, he did do more than I. I gave it a week to settle down. Really it should have some organic matter like compost or well rotted stable manure dug in, however the time for that is Autumn through Winter.

But I'm in a hurry, I want to grow something now! It's already too late this year me to grow crops that need a long growing season like onions, parsnips and leeks. So, to increase fertility I'm relying on chemicals, albeit organic ones, a dressing of dried fish, blood and bone has been hoed into the surface and then fast maturing root crops seeds have been planted into shallow pre-watered drills, yesterday it was carrots, beetroot, radishes, turnips and kohlrabi.

Today, I'm doing peas, and three varieties of lettuce, I like to start these off in pots and then plant them out to grow on. I'm also sowing coriander micro leaves; I've only grown conventional coriander before so am interested to see how that works out.

Mustn't hang around, like I said I'm in a hurry!

Vegetable gardening begins ... almost!

The top soil arrived for my vegetable garden today! Here it is being delivered by Len Kirk in big heaps over the low fence into the back garden.

All we've got to do now is shovel it into the newly built raised beds.

It's MTM's birthday tomorrow, I'm sure he'd like nothing better than to spend it dealing with his piles (of soil that is)!

(Click on any picture to get a closer view of MTM's piles).