Finished

Following on from my post yesterday - I have now finished the birthday bunting. I have discovered it is very difficult to take a photo of a length of bunting - I tried to take one with it hanging up - but not good - so have resorted to laying it down on my cutting board.

Have a good weekend.

On my sewing table at the moment...

Back in April when I was away visiting my friend J, I promised to make her some new birthday bunting as she said hers was looking a little sad. Of course on returning home I had lots of things to catch up on and the bunting was filed at the back of my mind! However, it suddenly came to the front of my mind again when I was looking through the calendar and was reminded that her daughter will be 21 soon so they will need bunting!

 I know that J's favourite colour is red, so I searched through my fabric and scraps to find what I had in red, then added in some blue as well.  I decided to make the lettering out of the patterned fabric and search again for solid colours for the flags. Discovering that I don't have many solid colours, but did have some nice neutral linen, I decided to make a more 'grown up' bunting - as her children are now grown up, and the colours would match well with her decor!

The flags are all made and the letters outlined, and I have just cut some bias binding....

....I had some wide ric rac, so now just need to put it all together and get it sent off to her.

 I have also been making up some cushions, from the material that I printed last term at my screen printing course. My plan was to make new cushions for the garden bench, just to make it a little more comfy when sitting out in the sun - and we have been lucky with the sun over the last week or so. The red cushion with the cotton reel is for my sewing chair.

The main fabric is linen, and the backing on the green is a cotton ticking and the red is a linen with a lovely tiny flower, and I made self coloured buttons.

I've got a few more printed squares to make, but need to match up some backing fabric.

Must get on and finish the bunting.......

Little and large socks!

What do you do with all those little bits of wool left over from knitting socks? I have quite a lot of bits and pieces in my knitting box. A friend has used her odd bits from socks and scarfs to make a blanket - but I don't have that much wool yet! I knitted this pair back in February, I didn't keep them for myself, but gave them to my niece for her birthday. Then a thought struck me that I could use the wool left over to make a matching pair for her baby daughter!!

I searched for a pattern and found one that I thought would fit the bill.  This pattern on Ravelry is free, see here - I went for this one as it has different sizes by age, and I wanted to knit for 6 - 9 months, as little M is now 7 months.

First one finished, along side a pair I was also knitting for C which I started back in March and now also finished. The baby socks are just so quick to do. I took them along to my knit and natter group, and everyone loved them, as they are kinda cute :-)

The pair are complete and have been given to baby M, and her mum has just sent me a few photo's of her wearing them (and sitting on the play mat I made for her when she was born)......

.... also a picture of the little and large socks together!

View from my window - May

Hurrah for May! The trees are now in full leaf - although at the beginning of the month the leaves were still not quite here. It was really quite a cold month, so nature has taken its time, but now at the beginning of June the sun is shinning - long may it last. The last couple of weeks have been quite busy here, M and C have both been home - but not at the same time - both have had exams so have been working hard towards those. I have been busy cooking lots of treats to keep them going, and have also managed to fit in some knitting, sewing and screen printing and will record what I have been up to another time.

Here the evening sun is just catching on the hill, this photo was taken towards the middle of the month.

Just in the last few days, the much anticipated bluebells are now showing on the hillside - you can just make out the bluebell field above the wood.  It is almost to the day that I mentioned them last year in my blog - see here

The blue colour is getting stronger each day, and spreading to cover the whole field. It truly is a delight!

The wood, on one of my dog walking routes is also full of bluebells. It is so pretty, with the stream and the sunlight filtering down through the leaves. I just love this time of the year.

Today has been sunny and warm and I have been working in the garden, mainly in the vegetable patch. I'm a bit late getting my seeds in - but the ground has only just dried out and become warm up here. I have a few seedlings that I started in the greenhouse and will put those out soon, and just hope we don't get a late frost.

As the the garden catches the evening sun, we thought we would light up the BBQ for the first time this year and cook our supper. All very yummy, with a greek salad and couscous - and a well deserved glass of wine!

 We sat in the warm and looked up to that magnificent view on the hillside.