Happy & Sad in the Sunshine

We have been enjoying the most amazing week of sunshine and warmth and open doors and open windows and playing in water and playing in tents and garden picnics and ice cream and exposed arms and legs and feet.

The girls and I have hardly been inside all week.  This is the kind of weather I love.  Sunshine and fresh air on our skin.  Warm air, allowing doors and windows to be open right until we go to bed.  Curtains staying open to enjoy the late evening light.

Sleeping with windows open.  Sleeping under sheets (no duvets) and quilts.

Perfect...in every way.

The paeony had opened up.  Almost fully.  That colour!

Yesterday the wind picked up and Ava's tent started blowing around a little.  Next thing it was in the flower garden...where The Paeony lives.  In the blink of an eye, my beautiful paeony was de-capitated.

Petals thrown to the ground.

It must have been quite a fragile flower, because my initial thought was that I could put the broken flower in a bowl of water.  It wasn't to be, with petals strewn e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

If our neighbours hadn't been in their garden, I would have howled.

If the girls hadn't been with me, I would have cried.

Sigh...what a waste....

{Get your little person a similar pair of baby hot-pants that Chloe is wearing!  So soft and comfy and cool in this warm weather.  If you would prefer a different fabric or ruffles or appliqué on the butt, let's have a chat.  I have other fabric in my stash and would gladly send you a photo for you to choose from.}

A Little Dishcloth Crochet

It was my birthday recently...to give our Flower Daddy an easier time, I have a little crib-sheet in my Evernote...with a few things (mostly books!) that I have been drooling over.  Which he cleverly referred to.

Well, I was given Homespun Style and Poppy Treffry's book.  I still haven't had a proper chance to look through either of these.  Although, I have flicked through Homespun Style a number of times - goggling at the images...such pretty colours and textures and ideas, ideas, ideas!  In my head, my house decor looks like some of the featured houses.  In reality, it is a mess.  Toys, books, projects, clothing, DIY tools/materials, boxes of outgrown toys/clothes strewn everywhere.  If we were to have as much colour and pattern in our house, it would make me feel claustrophobic.  And make the house look like a Real Mess.

{What is the deal with little girls watching themselves wee (when on the toilet)?!  It makes the wee go EVERYWHERE!!!!}

Anyhow, I really would like a bit more colour injected into our house.  In little accessories here and there.  I keep thinking about the cute dishcloths and handtowels in the book.  The cute Crochet dishcloths and Crochet handtowels.  I mean, is that even practical??

Just look at that pile of pretty colours, textures and patterns.  Doesn't it give you the wanties...or is that just me?

I thought, maybe I should give it a go.  With a simple crochet pattern.  That makes a nice thick cotton fabric.

So, this is what I made.....it is a little rectangle of Rico Creative Cotton in turquoise (36).  I used a 4mm hook.

I made it like this (UK abbreviations):

Chain 35 (you need an uneven number of chains)

First row - dc in all the stitches, starting 1 ch from your hook (so, 34 stitches).  Turn
Following rows - ch1, dc in the same stitch, *tr in next stitch, dc in next stitch*.  Repeat *-* until the end of your row.  You should finish with a tr.  (34 stitches)  Turn.  Repeat until you are happy with your length.  [in your following rows, you dc in a tr and tr in a dc...make sense?  As long as you finish with a tr and start with a ch & dc, you are doing great!]
Final row - ch1, dc across.

Fasten off and weave in your ends.

The resulting fabric is quite dense and thick.  A little stiff, but not rigid, with decent 'drape'.

I think that it would make brilliant wash cloths - for faces or dishes...but also fantastic placemats!  Can you imagine a table full of pretty stripes or different coloured placemats under pretty coloured crockery?  Flower Daddy didn't think it was a great idea.  But then he does like grey and black and boring man colours...  Or coasters, or, or, or?!

So, here is the whole rectangle.  (My photo's really suck today)  A pretty little turquoise scrap of woven cotton.  Now, the question is: do I have the courage to use this for its intended grubby baby finger/mouth cleaning purpose?

There is one other page I keep returning to in Homespun Style.

I just love this indoor-outdoor space.  Do you see the plants (roses?) growing in the corners?  And the paving slab floor?  It really is just a glorified greenhouse.  I could definitely see myself using one of these.  A pretty and comfy and warm space for us to chill while the girls burn themselves out in the garden....sigh....

One question though: how do you keep the bugs out?!

Another Post About the Paeony

This is a little like waiting for paint to dry....the suspense is just about killing me...

It's been a week since I last posted paeony pictures and I have a sneaky idea that this might just become a regular until the paeony has been and gone - so, sorry in advance.

Something is finding the pretty pink petals a little too delicious.  "Pretty pink" really doesn't do the petal colour any justice.  The colour is deeper than fuschia pink.  Deep like maroon, only more pinky and brighter.  Better colour description anyone?

The bud is still tightly wadded...I am so looking foward to seeing how big and full and frilly this flower is.

I have been stalking our plants - checking all the paeonies (we have 5 baby paeony trees), checking the camellia trees (3 of those!), checking the rose bushes (2) - to see if there are any other flower buds tucked under a leaf somewhere.  The only other flower buds are on the new rose bush, and they are still so teeny, teeny tiny....won't be long until we see those gorgeous pink frilly flowers now!  That one is the Harlow Carr and is a 'Fragrant English Rose'...I only know this because I potted the label with the plant...

Have a fantasmatic Sunday!

Sunshine & a Paeony Bud

Yippppeeeeeeeeeeee....hoppity...hoppity....hoppity hop!

Our paeony bud is opening!  Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!

Last year, the bud stayed a bud, this year, it looks like we are going to be Lucky!

I am so excited {figured you hadn't noticed}.  Want to see it again?

It is going to be a really lovely deep pink.  I just can't wait to see all its beautiful and unfolded and frothy and frilly petals!

...and on other gardening news, after all this lousy rainy weather we have had, it was nice to venture into the chilly sunshine and schmooze around our garden...

Some spinach seeds planted a few weeks ago are growing nicely.  I will soon need to find them a bigger home.

This is the spinach that I planted ages ago.  It now has some beautiful baby leaves.  I am holding out for lovely beeeg spinachy leaves.  You can also see my rosemary, parsley and mint here.  The mint is starting to go nuts - yay for Pimms and lemonade and crushed mint!

The sunflower seeds that I planted are flourishing in this pot.  I think that we may need to find little stakes for them soon.  I also need to figure out what is finding the sunflower leaves so tasty...and find something else for them to snack on...  Those pretty purple flowers are Honesty.  It was a mixed pack of seeds that I planted last summer.  They never flowered last year.  So nice to have them pretty-ing up the box this year.

Well, it is a gorgeous day here again today.  I best go get dressed, as there is sunshine to enjoy and time is a-ticking!

Have a great Sunday...

Happy Sunshiny Day

Yesterday was a wonderful and almost lazy day.  The first time in a VERY long time that I have had the space for a teensy bit of laziness.  Ava was at nursery and Chloe was having just a simply, happy, contented, easy baby day.  And what a gorgeous sunny day it was for a bit of garden lounger loafing.

I introduced Chloe to Ava's water table...she spent AGES splish splashing in there, then eating compost from the dangerously close, potted rose bush!  Allowing me a bit of Mummy time to crack open my 1st book in far too long.  This book was a freebie at last weeks Country Living Fair.  A few pages in and I am hooked already.

I took a little wander to go check out garden progress.  We started digging up the grass in this spot last April - I was heavily pregnant and it was darn cold and miserable and wet.  Last week I added a few plants to fill in blank/dead spots.  I think that we need to re-plant the Red Robin, she has a bit of a Leaning Tower of Pisa thing going on there.

We have a mish mash of all sorts of plants - mostly evergreen types that should hopefully last for ages and ages and fill out to gives us some decent bushy screening between us and our neighbours.  Amongst other plants there are: 3 camellias trees, lots of lavender, lots of hebe varieties (which we have had good - easy maintenance and not-so-easy-to-die - experience with in the past), paeony trees, viburnum burkwood whose flowers have a yummy jasmine fragrance, red robin standard, a rose bush.  I am aiming for an easy maintenance sort of country garden - hopefully it doesn't grow into a big mess!

The clustered pink buds and white flowers on the viburnum burkwood - I could dangle these from my ears, just so the lovely fragrance was with me all day.

One of the Paeony trees has a bud!!!  We had a bud last year, but it stayed as a bud....maybe we will be lucky to see a Paeony flower this year.  

Hoooooboy!  Fingers crossed!

Here is Buzzy the garden protector.

The young Red Robin leaves - all bright, shiny and red.  We rescued this chappy from the garden centre last year.  Her leaves were all covered in black spots.  Some spots still remain, but she is looking very happy otherwise.

And who do we see there? 

It's our friendly little Orange Breasted Robin.

Lately, she always comes to chat to me when I am out there.  She follows me from one side of the garden to the other, chirping all the time.  She get's quite close too, often less than a metre away from me.  I think she needs a name - what do you think?

A little further back there is a baby baby Silver Birch.  This little guy has been in the ground for maybe a year  and a half?  He is probably only about 70cm tall, if that.  We got him via a Country Living offer - pay for postage and they send you a tiny plant.  I don't think he had any leaves last year, so I was super excited to see his little leafy buds opening to show off some greenery for the first time.

And here is Daisy sunning herself...

Today is meant to be another lovely day - getting cooler from tomorrow.  Best we go and enjoy it while it lasts!  I need to go and make some Cloud Dough - 1 cup of baby oil with 5 cups of flour all mixed together - and clear out a bucket for it all to go inside.  Hopefully that will allow me some more sunny book reading time.

Enjoy!