preparations....

after several days of really yucky weather with torrential rain, storms and frost at night today is a quiet sunday. earlier the sun peeped out for a bit, but we have more rain in the forecast for tomorrow and the clouds are already gathering... never mind, the weather after tomorrow is supposed to be "picking up"! hope dies last:) of course a few days of nice weather and the daffs think it must be spring. they are blooming everywhere and all nearly at the same time - and I think there'll be none left to flower around easter as it is so late this year (they are called "easter bells" translated from german - but over here they're usually gone by then!).

I love all the spring flowers, but in contrast to tulips, which only flower really strongly in the first year (unless you dig them out and replant them) daffodils increase without me doing anything about it - perfect for lazy gardeners:) pity that the muscari aren't flowering yet, the "swedish" look with yellow and blue gives the flower beds a real boost! the only downside to the long-stemmed daffs is that they break easily in our strong winds. I just spent a nice 15 minute break in the garden, collecting all the broken ones to put into a big bunch inside! they are so cheerful - even a hole in the flower from a greedy slug can't change that!  

I am also doing other flowers, the "grandmother's flower garden" kind! I checked through my stash to dig out fabric for a larger project - and couldn't resist making two smaller mug rugs first. of course eedjit me sent the finished ones off before taking a photo. I made them "egg-shaped" with a bias-taped edge in green....  I bought thermolam as wadding for potholders last year, but it worked nicely for mug rugs, too. it's heat resistant, denser than normal wadding and not too thick - I did all the sewing by hand and it was very easy to work with.

 

 this is the first step for the bigger project! I am going to need about 1100 of those for my idea! couldn't get the 0.75 "easily as pre-cut, so I took thicker paper and copied 25 pages of them... a lot of cutting involved, but luckily I don't need all of them before I can start! we have our craft meeting next saturday and I plan to have enough hexies prepared to do some sewing. I don't want to make a very orderly flower garden, I'll include some partial flowers and a lot of different greens in between (have to order more fabric for that of course....:) to make a square table cloth out of it. the first 300 are cut!

 

I also finished the baby booties - as usual knitting the base was done in an evening - fiddling about with the dogs took ages... to make them stand up nicely - I filled them with kiwi fruit:)

the green is much more yellow in reality though.... 

 ... this comes closer, esp. the upper skein. I am just spinning the last bit of the fibres, two skeins are ready to go for the baby cardie. I think I won't double the yarn up as I did for the booties though - or the sweet pea pods will look like broad beans:)

 

I didn't finish the baby alpaca cardie yet, so the sweet peas have to wait a little while longer until it's finished. no pix yet, don't want to spoil the surprise for the future owner:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 on one of the rainy days last week I finally used up my own lemon "harvest" - I made jelly out of my 7 lemons. I gave one each of the irish bio lemons to mother and mil (as proof that there are home grown lemons available in ireland:) - and used the rest with a little bit of "help" (aka lemon juice) from 3 shop bought ones. I cut the peel into very fine strips and simmered it with a bit of water for a while. it turned a very deep yellow! then I used the peels, all the juice and slices of the smallest fruit with jam sugar to make the jelly. it's very tasty - not really very sweet, but full of aroma! perfect on a fresh buttered roll - yum!

 

and now I better get started - I have to iron a gazillion of little fabric pieces to start the patchwork! and finally get out the order for more fabric, esp. in greens....