Sunday 21 October 2012

More holes

While I was off visiting the folks last weekend and help out with Nan's flat, Malcolm was a good lad and did some tidying up in the polytunnel - the chillies and peppers in the small bed had been munched (and they didn't really like being in there anyway) so they got composted.  He must have done some digging outside as well as more soil appeared in the left bed!


And here's what was dug! The small drainage ditch than ran under the path never really worked and a pond appeared over the path every time it rained, so he's dug a new deeper one and put a drainage pipe in.  I helped with carting the gravel through this weekend to fill in the ditch.  As well as that, I got around to doing a bit of tidying out the front and bought some winter plants/bedding for the window boxes.  It's all looking a bit more presentable now!                                                    

As well as all that, I found something to do with the cucumbers - Cucumber and Apple Chutney

I have to say the smell of cooking cucumber is a little weird, but the taste test was pretty good and it'll be even better after the 3 month maturing period

Monday 8 October 2012

New project begins

Firstly I have to appologise for the poor quality of the photos - the iPhone really doesn't like taking pictures in artifitial light, I really should use a proper camera.

So here we are starting another new adventure.  Mum thought it would be a lovely idea for me to make a quilted bedspread for Nan in her new home, so I thought I'd better get some practise in and start off with something slightly smaller....

I bought a fat quarter pack from someone on the internet (I can't remember the source, I could look it up I suppose) and then started the excellent Quilting 101 class from the Chasing Cottons blog (http://chasingcottons.blogspot.co.uk/p/quilt-class-101.html).

Eventually my fat quarters turned into a big stack of 5'' x 5'' squares, and then it was time to start sewing them together: