Just another Tuesday ...chickens and crafting; sowing and sewing

Today has been a mixed sort of day, sunshine and showers, good bits and bad bits.

I got up and went outside to let out the hens, as usual despite me shutting the gate to try to persuade them to stay in the wood, they all ignored me and straight away flew over it into the garden. The attraction is the bird feeders, the chickens go and hang around there and eat the dropped seed.

Ho hum.   I collected the eggs (thank you girls!) and had a look in the polytunnel to see what we might have to eat for later. I wanted to know what fresh veg I might need to buy from the shops, also.

 
 We are getting towards the end of the Kales - the outdoor plants got smashed to bits by the heavy rain during the winter but I always have a few inside and they have been giving us a good crop - but are going to seed now.

 

Kale tips can be eaten like purple sprouting broccoli - I also had a few spears of that to cut so we will be eating fresh greens tonight. There are enough pickings left on the plants for a few more days so no need to buy any brassicas from the shops, although we have just finished the last of our stored potatos so now will have to buy some. We usually only have to do this from March to June, so not too bad. We still have fresh onions, squash and apples in store as well as loads of stored fruit and veg (in the freezer or dehydrated)

There are still salads left but again with the warmer weather they are begining to bolt, so I sowed more salad seeds to take their place. I also sowed a load more brassicas in modules. We still have lots of fresh herbs.

 Lots of herbaceous perennials waiting to be planted outside, as soon as the soil warms a little.

As well as some of the scented geraniums which live in pots on the patio ( The new patio! Which we will be able to sit on come the summer!)

After a quick cup of coffee mid morning, I hung out a load of wet washing and put some more on to wash, then we went to Hereford and did some shopping. We had lunch out and also went to a DIY store to look at stuff so we were gone for several hours.

This trip out took it out of me a bit as I have not been well lately and still find I get very tired, very quickly. So the rest of the afternoon involved sitting down with some computer work in the (still tidy) Study :) 

After our evening meal we sat and watched some "Big Bang Theory" which we all love and Compostman and Compostgirl then watched an episode of  "Blandings" I love the books but somehow can't get into the tv series so I went off to the study and did some more work on  my Hillarys Blinds competition entry. This involved experimenting with fabric paints and pens and gold paint on a scrap of the fabric, to see how it would look and how the fabric would behave.

I like the way the test piece is coming along.

I got some inspiration for what I want to do; I also worked out which techniques needed to be done in what order, so as not to ruin the previous work.

All of these paints came originally from the Scrapstore and live in the Cupboard of Doom - it is a good job I hoard stuff! It always comes in useful eventually. I love the idea that this project uses lots of salvaged/recycled materials to embellish and enhance the new fabric.

Later on still Compostman and I watched The Great British Sewing Bee -  I love this programme and think it is really good - better even (dare I say it) than Bake Off ? I had to stay off the computer while in the study,  as we watched it a little later than it aired on tv and I did NOT want to read any spoilers about it in Twitter or Facebook!

I also mused on what I could make with the Hillarys fabic which involved sewing. I have plans ( but not a blouse, coat or anything involving a suit!)

So all in all, a more productive day than I have had in the last few weeks,

Anyone else enjoying watching  The Great British Sewing Bee?

Blinded by the light - on being woken up earlier than I would like, and how to stop it.

At the moment we are sleeping in a bedroom which has one large window, facing East.  I recently noticed that I am being woken up, earlier than I want, by the early morning sun streaming in and hitting me in the face. We have lined curtains, but obviously not lined with thick enough material to block out sunlight.
 

Thinking about "covers for windows" and how well they work has become a higher priority for me because the Pink Bedroom, which Compostman is currently refurbishing, has not one but two large windows, one facing North and the other facing, yes you guessed it, East. So when we move into this room (soon!) we will have the same issue with early morning sunlight in our faces and an additional window letting in light. We can't turn our bed around, so we don't look at a window, as the shape of the room precludes that.
 
We always planned to move into this room when it was completed (only waited 16 years!) As we are now fast approaching the "choosing paint and fabric" stage of the works I need to find a solution to the problem now.

What I have done in other upstairs rooms is use blinds; to me they seem to block light without shutting it out altogether. Thinking about it, we actually have blinds in all the upstairs bedrooms except ours and the Pink Bedroom. Compostgirl has blinds and curtains in her (South facing) room and all the South and West facing windows downstairs have blinds. It is only the sitting room and dining room which have curtains.

So, problem solved - I will be getting some blinds for our new bedroom  - so the question is, what sort and what size? We want to measure and fit them ourselves rather than have someone do it for us, so after a quick Google search for bedroom blinds, I had a look at  Web-Blinds and found lots of helpful advice.  I had no idea there were so many different sorts of blind!

The Web-Blinds site also has lots of useful information on how to measure for a blind and a wide selection of different patterns and colourways. I also found easy to understand fitting instructions for all the different types of blind :-) And if you would rather someone measured and fitted them for you there is a link to their sister company, Hillarys.

In the other rooms I have simple roller blinds but I think for our bedroom I would like Roman blinds - although I am very tempted to get some roller blinds made using one of my own images (they call it a Digital blind on the Web-Blinds website)

Maybe something like this, from when I went to Garden Organic last year?

The bee garden at Ryton.

or this?

Marigold Hen

I think Compostman would prefer this, though!

The JCB

Hmm. Maybe just a nice, lightly floral pattern, instead?






Disclaimer - I am looking around for ideas to decorate the newly refurbished Pink Bedroom (may need a new name as it may not be pink much longer)  This post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from, in the future. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Monday washday

I had to wash the very old linen table cloth I mentioned yesterday. With much trepidation! When I opened it out it had a huge, old, tea stain right in the middle :-(

I was very careful and looked on various specialist pages to see what to do - but linen is very forgiving - we have some smaller pieces of the same age which I wash regularly so I know what to do but with any linen it is the ironing which puts me off, especially as it always seems to need ironing again when taken out of the drawer to be used!

After hanging the huge table cloth on the line in the sunshine the faint shadow of the stain finally faded - the power of sunshine! I am so pleased with how it has washed :-)

Continuing the conservation of fabric theme - we also "rediscovered" Compostman's Christening robe today - was also his Mothers and maybe further back ( but we can't find out, sadly, as everyone we might ask is now dead :-(  )

But it is at least 100 years old, if not more.

It had some terrible staining around the neck - apparently very common - spit up from babies which is not washed off totally and then, over time, discolours.

I have been treating it repeatedly during today and have the "washday hands" to prove it  - but the robe looks much better. .

Not sure if it will ever get used but I feel better for having restored a bit of family history to a better state. If I can get it really clean I will dry it, iron it and pack it away, using the method recommended by conservation experts. Compostgirl might want it in the future and it is a beautiful piece of hand made lace and thread work - a work of fabric art in its own right.

If I really can't get it to an acceptable standard I may well re purpose it into something which can become an "new" heirloom for our family.

Have also been planting into pots a lot of summer flowering bulbs and corms - too cold to plant them direct into the soil, and we have not quite decided where the new beds will be made, so into pots they will go for now. Thank goodness for our polytunnel to provide sheltered space to grow them on!

Hope today was good for you as well :-)

Sunday seed potato planting, and a hen invasion

Hello lovely people!

Today had been another lovely day here in Herefordshire :-)

I started the day with a mass break in of chickens!

Cassi Cat wanted to get past them, but they were not going to let her though, oh no.
in the end she gave up and went the other way :-)

I have done yet more washing, tidying up, Compostgirl cleaned out the Guinea Pigs, Compostman painted more window frames and we had a visit from Kev of An English Homestead

And...we planted stuff outside today :-)

50 chitted Nicola and Charlotte spuds into the outside raised beds.

Covered over with geotextile to keep them nice and snug against the cold :-)

 The wood daffodils look beautiful:-)

This is what the linen tablecloth I was talking about earlier today  looks like - not sure what the pattern is called - anyone know? it is 5 ft by 10 ft so for a large table. It was bought when Compostman's grandparents moved from the family "old" farmhouse into their "new" farmhouse, just before MiL was born (in 1910). That was in 1908 so the fabric is at least that age, possibly older - and it was bought because the new farmhouse had a bigger dining table than the old one, apparently :-)

You can just make out the threadwork here - such beautiful, intricate work!

I have been advised by various Fb friends that the linens may well be worth a bit of money so I shall NOT take them to the charity shop but instead will visit a specialist fabric seller for a valuation .

Hope you have all had a nice day :-)

Fabric from the Scrapstore

I laid the fabric I got from the Scrapstore out on our king sized bed, so you could see the size and colours of the various bits of material I acquired.



Oh how I wish there had been enough of the biggest bit to make a cover for the bed....I would LOVE a cover in this fabric! I am planning to redecorate the sitting room in these colours.

The cream and brown piece nearest to the camera is actually two bits, the other bit is underneath!

Ah well, perhaps I can make it the main fabric in a BIG quilt.....the one I WILL get around to making...one day...when I have more time....