Winter Gardening plan

Here's the current known plan (it will be edited).....

February

• Sow LEEK seeds
• Chit POTATOES - give them 6 weeks before planting out
• Plant hedging
• Prune grapevine
• Cut back clematis
• Cut back existing hedges

March

• Plant ONIONS, GARLIC (to April)
• Start successive sowing of PEAS and CARROTS
• Sow BRUSSELS seeds  (to April) - plant out after 5/6 weeks
• Sow BROCCOLI seeds  (to June)  - plant out after 5/6 weeks
• Sow TOMATOES, LETTUCE
• Cut back dogwood

April

• Start successive sowing of BEANS in pots
• Sow PUMPKIN, SQUASH, ROCKET, CHARD

Highland dress!

Take one jacket, one kilt and one kilt extension piece:

Then join the extension to the back of the kilt with glue or Sellotape with about an inch overlap (need the extension as the kilt made from an A4 sheet of card isn't quite long enough to go around the 2ltr bottle):

Attach the kilt to the bottom of the jacket (glue or tape) with about a half inch overlap, making sure that the jacket is centered over the main patterned part of the kilt:

Join the jacket top around the bottle using the cut slits:

Fasten the back of the kilt closed tightly around the bottle, and there you go:

Hedging prep....

Now we're into the New Year, I'm finding that I'm more inspired to get out in the garden. Last weekend I started my planning for what is going where in the vegetable beds - it's pretty much sorted now, and luckily I've got enough seeds from last year (open and unopened packets) that I don't actually need to buy much. Back in the summer, T&M had a 20% off sale so I ordered my potatoes (Foremost - 1st, Maris Piper - main), red and white onions, and garlic. I'm just waiting for those to arrive now....

So the plan is, for the four beds nearest the house:

1. Potatoes Foremost
2. Legumes - peas, dwarf beans, mangetout
3. Tender - squash/pumpkin, Swiss chard
4. Brassicas - sprouts, broccoli

For the four beds behind the shed, two of which need prepping/rebuilding:

1. Potatoes - Maris Piper
2. Onion - Alpha (white), Red Emperor
3. Soft fruit - raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb - all already planted
4. Carrots and leeks

Today, we've removed the turf and loosened the soil for the trench where the new hedge will go.  This is to create a new vegetable garden area behind the copse and on the bottom half of the slope.  The hedging will be mixed evergreen and shaped to no more than 5' (in quite a few years time!), and create an enclosed area which will house the poly-tunnel and the new veg beds.  Once this is all in we'll probably get rid of some of the beds in other areas of the garden.

I've also finally finished clearing/weeding the left flower bed by the steps and spread the extra soil around. I'm still not convinced that it's deep enough because of the concrete slab base for the wall - there's only 9 rows of bricks on the wall and on the far end of the bed, the soil is only 2 rows deep.

Design edit...

I love everything about my new bag, the only thing being that the big pocket on the outside back.... I think it gapes open a bit. I was thinking about putting a bit of velcro in the pocket so that it doesn't gape, but then I thought putting a button on would look nicer, so I need to put a button hole in the middle of the pocket fabric - watch this space!

Turned out well in the end...

So following the instructions from Heart of Mary's blog that I linked to in an earlier post, I've made my little messenger bag.

1/2 metre of the flowery fabric from 'The Internet' and a metre of the black fabric from Simon Boyd in Gresford.  Zips and interfacing from Calico Laine, and the magnetic snap from eBay.

I edited slightly from the instructions and added some stitching to create pen pockets on the front of the bag. I also added in loops inside for key fobs.

I did think about making the strap adjustable but decided against it in the end. If I make a larger one, I'll add adjustable straps.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The stitching looks OK, even though I was worried about my sewing of the corners and around the inside zip!

How to make a new bag....

While I really love my North Face small messenger bag, it's a bit outdoorsy for general work purposes so I've decided I'd like to make something that fulfills the same purposes but looks a bit more girlie. I've been scouring the internet for patterns for messenger bags an have come across the following tutorials:

A messenger bag with zipped pockets, a magnetic closure, and I'll change it a bit to add an adjustable strap:
http://pinoyinoz.blogspot.com/2008/07/tutorial-messenger-bag-with-zip-top.html

How to add an internal zipped pocket and a magnetic closure: http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/2007/07/tutorial-zippered-and-slip-pocket-tutorial/

And I found this tutorial for a bag that's a little less practical and a little more girlie:
http://creativelittledaisy.typepad.com/creative_little_daisy/2006/01/basic_purse_tut.html

More crafty crafts

First attempt at quilting went well I think.....

I took the Beginners guides for the Christmas table runner from http://www.ludlowquiltandsew.co.uk/ and bought a pack of 4'' patchwork Christmas squares on EBay.  The pattern on the website used 4.5'' squares, so I increased the number of squares in the rows from three to four so that the runner was a bit bigger.

4oz polyester wadding was used for the quilting, and I sewed in the valley between the squares.

Bunting!

Look at what I made!

I bought 4 different types of Christmas fabric in 1/2metre lengths from the Hulu online fabric shop, and a length of white binding from EBay, and then followed the instructions on this excellent tutorial:

http://www.myhomemadehappy.com/?p=54

I've used drawing pins to attach them into the beams in the Dining room and they look fantastic! I think I might have to make some non-Christmas ones now.... Even my SO thinks they look brilliant!

Dog training, lesson one

So we tried our first training session today. Started off with a run down from the house and up Chapel Lane and then Dark lane. The main road was more hard work with Rosie pulling lots, but loving when we ran - especially the sprint to the lights. Once we were on the back roads she calmed down a bit and was pulling less. I just had to be careful with her nose following running style as she has a tendency to dart in front of me... Once we'd got to the end of Dark Lane we started walking to do some training - she was getting tired from the running at this point and had calmed down quite a lot.

All I did with the training was stop. When she pulled on the lead. Just stop. Not say anything. Then when she slacked the lead/turned or looked towards me, I'd start walking again and praise her. As soon as the lead went taunt again, I stopped. By the time we got to the crossroads, she was starting to understand what she was supposed to do and was definitely pulling less.

Baby christmas cakes

So this is the first attempt at making Christmas Cakes and these are to go into the Christmas hampers. I've used the recipe from the Good Housekeeping Baking Book, and put it into 6 baby tins (4.5'' ). There was a fair bit of cake mixture left over so I put the remainder in my smallest loaf tin.

I wasn't sure how long these would bake for as the recipe says 4 hours for a 9'' round tin. So I did them for 2 hours, making sure that I turned them and rotated them between the two shelves every half hour or so. I was paranoid about burning the sides so they had double layers of baking parchment on the sides and bottom, and a double layer of brown paper around the outside of the tins. All look good, tho a bit fragile as they're not very deep. The larger one in the loaf tin I cooked for about 2 1/2 hours.