Tuesday Tallies (on a Thursday)

Ooops! Bit late but better late than never. I seem to have been so busy this week and its not showing any signs of letting up. So any way this is my tally as of Tuesday evening. Please excuse rather dull picture. We are at 68 hexagons now. That's way more than I ever achieved with those knitted hexipuffs, I can tell you. I am a good knitter even if I am blowing my own trumpet but those things didn't seem to progress the way I would like, so I have donated them to my daughters bag full. Crochets hexagons are the hexies for me. I may not have many more to show next week as I have lots of other knitting and sewing that has priority over my own projects. Never mind. it is good to be busy.

I do like to show off my floral exploits too (sorry) and with the nasty days of weather imminent, I rescued a few roses from the garden that would have been obliterated by the rain and have a small arrangement on the kitchen table. I really love the way the flowers are different all through the year.

Tuesday Tallies

I thought this week I would take the photos in the afternoon when the sun is actually out. So, my tallies are now going to be what I have completed up to Monday evening. This does show the colours a bit better. I realised my dark taupey brown was not all that great in quantity so have rummaged in the stash and added another caramelly brown into the mix. Quite pleased with them so far.  So my current tally of complete hexagons is.......ta da da daaaa!
                                                      42
Plus 10 more middles. I like to do five a night if I can so got loads of middles done at the weekend.

So yesterday, I decided that it was high time the grass was cut. I havent done it for weeks. Its not my favourite gardening task so I put it off.  In the front garden, I managed to convince myself to trim back the manic bushes, grasses and have a general tidy up. I ended up with 4 more bin bags full of garden waste to take to the tip. This I can add to the four and a tv I hauled up there at the weekend following another impetuous tidying session behind the oil tank. I have been meaning to do that in so long it got to the point it looked like it couldn't be done. However with the wind in my sails on Sunday I have it licked in about an hour. Whilst I was manically clearing yesterday, I discovered a hypericum which is actually my neighbours, but such as the borders are on our properties, its more on mine. Cue, more flower arranging. A few stems of the delectable hypericum 'berries', three strong stems of sedum and the last remaining flowers of lady's mantle, made a delightful autmnal display.

Here are links to more Tuesday Tallies
Deb at 'A World Of Imagination'

Shelley at All4meggymoo

KnitKnatKnotUK

Wannabe Scrapbook Addict

Tangled SweetPea

A tale From Toadstool House

mareelovescolour

Ruffs Adventures

Big thanks to Carole at Gingerbread Girl who inspired me in the first place.

Yippee, The Summer Has Arrived

Its the 23rd of July and the great British summer was delayed until 2 days ago!  I frankly had lost hope.
There has been optimistic planting.

I have planted quick stuff. Cauliflowers, spring onions, radishes and beetroot and I have another of those planters to do some more in in a few weeks time. The egg shells work to some extent but I find searching the slugs out after dark the best defence. I need therapy I gotten rid of so many!  I hate doing it but they were rapidly destroying everything I put out. I wish I had room for hens.

There has been more flower arranging

Today, on my first official holiday, having waded through lots of laundry and some accounts (yuck to both), there has been some sitting outside with the little miss

I have lots of things to get on with in the craft department and it is Christmas in July tomorrow you know!

So, I am going to show off my little plot as its looking kinda ok right now. Yes I could tidy a bit more but life is too short I think. Its really not very big but it is my little slice of paradise. This record is very much for me too so I can look back in the winter and remember what was there when its all dormant, cold and grey. I often go putting things in an apparently empty spot and then find sleepy roots of something else. Hopefully this and the little plan I shall sketch will stop that from happening. So please allow me to indulge myself a bit here. xx

It has really evolved from when we first moved here and set it out. If you want to compare, I did a photo journey about it on my flickr page when I started. Much has been lost and/or changed with rubbish winters and other gardening pitfalls, but it feels really mature now. My OH would rather there were less plants out there I think, but I cant help it, I love plants!

Floral Decor

I do love flowers but I think they look best in the garden really.  I did pick these partially from the garden and partially from the hedgerow. They do not last long though do they?

I do however still like to have flowers in the house, so I collected these white jugs which almost match and then ordered some silk ones. This is how I did have them but the pink lisianthus were a bit brighter that I thought and jarred a bit with the raspberry tones in some of my accessories. So, after living with them for a few weeks, 

I splashed out on what I should have got in the first place, some ivory roses. So pleased I got these!  I love roses but they fade so quickly. These are quite believably realistic and I get to keep the natural ones where they belong - outside. Now contemplating one of those scents for faux flowers to really fool people.

On the subject of outside. Am I the only one to be really disappointed with the fact that it is mid July and all I have to show produce wise is this pitiful harvest?  This time last year, I had less raspberry plants and had picked oodles by now. All this rain and those pesky slugs! Euwww!

I Think It Might Be Summer Today

I hope its not only today!  I was determined to get a post in that wasn't shop of the week this week. I will of course do that tomorrow. I am really enjoying the coverage of The Chelsea Flower Show on TV. Obviously I would love to go one day, but for now I can be content with watching at home.  The sun actually remembered its purpose today and gave me a bit of long awaited renewed vigour. As well as potting on a few seedlings in my teeny tiny greenhouse, I picked some stuff from the garden and the verge outside and have put together an arrangement that I am proud of.  My artificial ones were nice but very wintery and I was a bit tired of looking at them. These are so evocative of spring and early summer and what's more, they didn't cost me a bean. To think I had to sit on my hands yesterday to stop me ordering a delicious silk display from QVC.  What do you think of my floral handiwork?

Flowers

Short and sweet post today. I week or 2 ago I was lucky enough to receive a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I actually forgot to take a photo of them believe it or not. On their demise, I realised i really liked having fresh flowers in the house so went on  a hunt in the garden to come up with a replacement. This is what I came up with. I think I shall add some cutting type flowers to the garden this year as I am loving the whole floristry thing at the mo, even if I am not up to professional standards.  I do have one tip. Apologies if you know this. Years ago a friend did floristry and passed onto me that to replace that little sachet of feed when you either change the water or pick your own. Add a tiniest drop of bleach to the water to guard against smelly water and a bit (about half a teaspoon or so depending on your vase) of sugar to feed the flowers. It does seem to work.