Notes from my garden

To use a phrase I first heard from the lips of Saint Jamie Oliver, I'm really into herbage, and really quite dedicated to making useful things incorporating the power of plants.


So just because:

• Chelsea Flower Show week, where we were being regaled by weird and very wonderful garden designs has just finished
• Whoosh, summer is here and all my recent efforts are bursting forth

I thought it was time to take you on a quick tour of my garden and check out how my powerful plants are coming along.

We inherited this slightly shady, brick-edged bed and it's the perfect place for many herbs as well as this mini Bacchus statue. Check out the alchemilla mollis, various mints, marjoram, the alliums and chives.

We love to lounge around in our garden. A gap in a bed was bench-shaped so in it went. Last week I was clearing out an old shed in preparation for a new potting shed this autumn and I found this mirror which I hung on the silver birch behind it. 


When we had those lousy winters, I thought I had lost all the cordyline Australis - but no -  they started springing up at the bases so I chopped the dead tops off and on this one glued an old candle lantern.


There was always a strange circle in our lawn when we cut the grass, until I started to dig and found what I maybe whimsically now describe as a filled-in well.Some cobbles and an ever-changing planted pot and it's a bit of a feature nowadays.

For the Mediterranean herbs of course I needed a really dry, sunny spot. At the moment we're having sage with everything because of the success of this one.

Finally, for so many reasons we had to have a pond. It's full of newts although we had hoped for frogs to eat the slugs ... great how nature always makes its own mind up!
A fantastic spot for a bout of gentle contemplation.

More notes from my garden coming soon, please drop by again!

Scraps

You know that feeling when you know exactly what you want to do next but are not sure how to go about it?

It happens to me a lot and I sort of relish it, wallowing in the creative confusion for a few days until ...WHAM the methodology comes whooshing in and I'm so beside myself I'm not sure how to start.

Determined to use up every scrap of my old pair of jeans, I am left, as you see, with a heap of oddments. But as I must say, 20 zillion times a day, something always comes up just as you need it and the special Wedding magazine in the latest issue of Mollie Makes mag has persuaded me that I simply have to have a back at making fabric flowers with the rest.

I particularly adore these utterly breathtaking bouquets which were featured and which will provide my inspiration as I begin and if I get stuck.

Now I don't think it's cheating to raid my supplies of ribbons, buttons, lace, fabrics and beads, do you, to add interest?

Agreed ... then off I go!

Do you need a sleep angel?

 

Yawn, mutter, mutter.


It could be because my sleep has been pretty poor again recently that I find myself drawn to gorgeous, sleep-inducing chamomile and lavender. Not in a sleep pillow this time but in a denim doll which I made from an old pair of jeans.


As I was making the snuffly bunny I though to myself, 'Hang on a minute, the world is your oyster here. There are so many gentle, beneficial herbs which could be stuffed into objects!' A sleep angel could be attached to the side of a cot, Moses basket or pram, not as a toy, but as an eye-catching object which at the same time would help a baby nod off to sleep.


As usual I found myself getting carried away with the stitching. Here's the collar and face detail:

And here's the pattern on the dress:

I made the hair using a lovely technique I have adapted many times before which I first read about in my treasured book, Homemade: Gorgeous things to make with love by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson.


I'm glad that her limbs are flexible enough to arranger her into various sleeping poses
Here's the sleep angel having her afternoon nap...

                           

... and with all these soporific herbs wafting about, plus a few sleepless nights, I may just join her....

More, err, 'jeanius' ideas

So who'd have thought an old pair of jeans had so many possibilities?
  Determined now to complete this challenge and use up every single scrap of denim from these charity shop jeans, I have been somewhat busy in the last week. 
  Always on a quest to keep things useful, here goes:


1 The coaster

I stuffed this with some fabric from an old oven glove to protect any surface I should select.
  The possibilities are endless with this one but I stuck to a good old floral cup of tea motif this time. A quick and easy make for Mother's Day and birthdays or when you just want to jolly somebody along!






2 The pincushion

Inspired by a design in a back issue of Mollie Makes, this pear pincushion used up some odd scraps of denim which were starting to accumulate. I improvised the stalk with another odd shape of fabric and created the leaf by embellishing a leaf design (just the perfect scale!) taken from a small scrap of vintage fabric I found in the loft. 
  Already in use - you can never have too many pincushions!






3 The address book cover

Call me old fashioned but I cannot bring myself to digitise all my contacts and have a fondness for my Cath Kidson address book which, through use was starting to look more shabby than chic and most excessively 'vintage'. Too lazy to buy a new one and enter in all those details and besides, wanting to be thrifty here, I decided to revamp the well used book I have before it's too late. 
   I cut out some denim about 10cm wider and taller than the book, cut away at the spine and folded over at the sides and then sewed on some lazy daisy and chain stitches randomly along the spine and appliqued an old fashioned telephone motif in to the cover. Then I blanket stitched all the way round through two layers of fabric and the card cover to hold it all together.
 What's more, now that it's protected by this tough fabric I hope my trusty address book now has a few more years of wear!


4 The sunffly bunny

There was enough fabric on one of the jean legs to design a very simple rabbit shape. With wrong sides together, I cut two out and improvised some embroidery to embellish the ears, eyes, mouth and nose as well as the pads of the 'hands' and feet.
  I also worked out an easy way to stitch on some whiskers and couldn't resist a quick pom-pom for the bunny tail (as you can see in the pic below of the rabbit face down and 'asleep' with a 'friend')

 Always wanting to stay away from cheesy, cute and cliche as far as I can,  I love their quirkiness but my daughter insists the green eyes give him a sinister edge so the next version will have to look more 'cuddly'. Nevertheless, this bunny definitely most definitely has a benevolent side. He's mainly stuffed with lovely soft and eco wool waste but I also included in the middle of his tummy a muslin pouch containing eucalyptus leaves. This makes him interestingly scrunchy as well as nice to cuddle when you have a cold as the oil released by the leaves will give off a congestion clearing perfume to sort out the sniffles. 
  The idea of simple toys has given me the idea of incorporating small amounts of safe and gentle herbs and plants into stuffings for interest ..... hmmm!


  I reakon I can just about manage one of those and then I'm going to need some serious inspiration to tackle the mini mountain of tiny scraps which is all that now remains of the jeans!

A pause for inspiration

They say that where your identity lies and where you feel most 'at home' is not necessarily where you were born or even where you have spent most of your life.
  Blonde and blue eyed and without the teeniest drop of Welsh blood in my body, right now I'm at my happiest in Wales, at least 2 hours away from south-east England where I have been based for nearly 30 years.
  Admittedly between the ages of 4 and 12 years Wales was where I was, with my family in a quiet village in Ceredigion, immersed in the language, culture and scenery. Formative years, evidently, as they say.

  Of course we all move on in life and I lost my fluency in the language and thought Wales was well behind me until my daughter went to university there about three years ago and gradually I started reconnecting very powerfully. I was planning prolonged weekends there, starting in Cardiff where my daughter is based, and slowly venturing deeper and deeper back towards a more familiar landscape away from the bright lights. 
  Right now I'm totally fixated with Camarthenshire. It has everything I'm craving - the gentle, rolling, green mountains, the sense of local identity, the vast beaches, the gentle air, yes, even the soft rain. The whole family now refers to Wales as 'the homeland', much to the consternation of many of our long-lasting acquaintances.

Last weekend I managed another precious fix. In the glorious sunshine, I breathed in the markets, the lush gardens, the shorelines, the flowering hedgerows and tasted the local produce. I'm back now with a sense of longing or hiraeth for my next visit but also a brain brimming with inspiration for my current and future projects.

  And I'm not alone, I'm noticing the work of artists and crafters based there and don't get me started on the poets and writers who keep me connected when I'm away ....

A fabric bowl

Yonks ago, I saw a (jeanius!) design for a bowl made out of fabric in a library book and before I returned it, I made some scrappy notes for 'when I had the time' to try one out, half thinking, probably that it would never happen.


Now let me tell you, over the last few days I have had cause to curse my poor record keeping, not to mention my lack of faith, as I have struggled to get a good shape to my bowl, fiddled with embellishments and experimented with an old straw hat. By yesterday though, I was wondering how on earth I managed before I made my denim bowl, handy as it is for carrying all the bits and bobs I'm using on a particular project as I move from my studio to other parts of the house. It's squishiness turns out to be a bit of a bonus as it can fit into all kinds of spaces on shelves and seems to reshape itself pretty well.


It's not sturdy enough as an actual fruit bowl (which was my optimistic hope when I opted for the apple design), although it could probably manage the weight of one apple, but as something knocked up from a charity pair of jeans I'm really quite happy with this as a first attempt! 


Can't wait to get started on more variations of the fabric bowl...

A herby heart

Had such fun making this yesterday afternoon. Sure, I could have left it plain but when I start to sew sometimes I find it hard to stop. 

  This herby heart is the second project made from one pair of jeans. There's something about a heart shape which (I'll admit right now) I'm a complete sucker for, but I was nevertheless determined to stay away soppy stitched messages or schmalzy pink, ribbons or lace so I stayed well away from pastels when it came to the embroidery thread.

   I then stuffed with lavender and decided to hand stitch around the outside a few times. A couple of hours later and it's all ready to pop into the knicker drawer!

  Not sure if it was the lovely lavender pong or the meditative stitching but I had such a great sleep last night!

The return of the bag lady

I can't begin to tell you the fun I have making this bag out of the bottom-covering part of an old pair of jeans! I'm way past the stage of cutting up jeans to make a nifty pair of shorts but none of us can have too many bags for stuff, can we? Especially when they cost next to nothing and making them up provides hours of fun.

  It always feels like when I'm after a certain something it pops up the second it's needed. In this case I was after some fabric which would somehow 'match' the style of the jeans,  to thread through the waistband to close the bag. Believe it or not I did walk away from this blue, black and white scarf initially when I spotted it in a local charity shop last week but something about it reminded me of France... I parted with my £2 and discovered that the label is Les Olivades - O la-la!
  The bag structure was complete in less than a day but of course I have spent more time that necessary embroidering denim flowers to embellish the bag.....

A few buttons to stitch onto the bag and it's all finished and will be put to good use sometime very soon!