Blossoms, Vegies, Yarn.

We have some blossom action happening in my garden at the moment. The Peach that I'm going to espalier has 6 or 7 little blossoms. I still haven't had the heart to give it a first proper espalier- prune because of these sweet little pink flowers.

The Apricot tree is now about 3 years old and has lots more blossoms than last year. And they smell faintly apricoty!

And below this lovely white thing is a Mariposa Plum. I gave it a vase- like hair cut a month ago. Now it's exploding!

 

I haven't seen many bees around to help pollinate the blossoms. 

They gotta have the flower sex to make the fruit, right?

So I decided to go around with a cotton tip and do it myself, but I felt like I was being inappropriate with the poor little flowers so I decided to leave it to the bees.

The Cumquat (aka the world's most useless fruit tree) has 4 cumquats. I dont eat marmalade so can't use it for that. They're too bitter to eat straight. Any suggestions?

 

I have a batch of different tomato varieties waiting until the soil warms. Black and red ones, pear shaped ones, yellow ones.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I bought these cute, yummy capsicums from the supermarket. They're sweet and delicious! 

I kept the seeds, dried them on the windowsill, and planted them in some toilet rolls from my bathroom (the empty rolls from the kids toilet always seem to have wee splashes INSIDE them. How the heck does that happen???). When they sprout and are big enough I can stick the whole thing in the ground as the rolls are cardboard.

 

The spinach continues to grow unmolested by snails and slugs thanks to copious amounts of crushed egg shells, coffee grounds and a teensy bit of snail bait.

 

The shallots are doing well too.

 

I am totally in love with the bulbs that have sprung up.

And now for your veiwing pleasure, some unadulterated flower porn...

 

I can't show you my front yard. It's just an abomination. It kills my soul to look at it! 

It's mostly gravel. There is an attempt at garden beds which I planted things into last spring, but the soil is so clayish and the wind blows through making everything look withered and sad.

The Bear promised me the first weekend in October for a landscaping blitz to buy fresh soil, remove the gravel, set down proper garden beds etc. So I dusted off my rusty landscape design skills, poured myself a nice, long gin & elderflower cocktail and drew this little sketch.

 

 

I do have a general idea of what is going to be planted in, but haven't written them down in a key yet. I'm thinking the pink tree shapes will be flowering cherries. The big tree thing on the left is a Jacaranda which is a little ambitious as it's a small yard. A sweet osmanthus hedge along the front, an assortment of marguerites and pelargoniums (which are already there) and some other small trees such as crepe myrtles and something evergreen, and a nice bit of grass. 

Maybe a random assortment of hellebores and other perennials throughout.

The idea is that it will be like a garden room. Not completely closed off to the street, but a little bit private. What do you think? I'm open to suggestions!

So the yarn. I have three projects on the go at the moment!

This is my 'watching movies/ bingeing on Netflix' project:

A friend of mine is expecting a baby. She's a lovely lady who I met at Sonofagun No.2s swimming class. She and her family moved here from Pakistan and she doesn't have many friends here yet. She already has two gorgeous boys and every Saturday morning we chat about how our kids are going at school, she tells me how to make her delicious curries and I tell her that she needs to give her hubby a kick up the ass so he helps a bit more (because I'm an opinionated lady who likes to tell other women to give their husbands a kick up the ass because my fella is so awesome and I want their fellas to be awesome too but I really should shut up and mind my own business.)

So I'm making a cot blanket for her little one who is due in November.

 

I finished a pair of socks that I started in JANUARY. Yes, I know. Very poor form. But it was put aside a few times. The yarn is a nice, cosy sock yarn called Schachenmayr Regia which I bought at Morris & Sons in the city. I'm still using the Winwick Mum Sockalong tutorial to make my socks. Christines' tutorial is so easy to follow!

This is my train commute project:

Another pair of socks! Although I'm a little frustrated because I keep stuffing up one sock by dropping 1 stitch, then noticing the dropped stitch 5 rows later and having to frog it back. Twice so far.  Frogging knitting is the worst! 
This yarn is called Opal 'Colors In Love'.

 

And this is my Wednesday project:  My little bird pattern.
I'm continuing to work on my new little birds but I'm still not happy with the body shape.

This little one was 'prototype No.3'.

I love the colours but not the beak or the body. I'm trying to make him more parrot like!

 

Because it's Spring, I decided to Spring clean. And because #priorities I started with the yarn shelves.

 

The blue buckets are filled with neatly rolled remnant balls and craft supplies. All my cottons are in that wooden case I showed you a couple of weeks ago.

Don't they look pretty and neat? Then I decided that Spring Cleaning the rest of the house was too much effort. The yarn is tidy but the rest of the house is a dogs breakfast. 

 

And can you believe that exactly one year ago today I was jetting off to New York? I watch a tv show with Sonofagun No.1 called Person of Interest which was filmed all over New York. 

I annoy him by saying, "I've been there!" at least 3 times each episode. Although secretly between you and me, I think out of the 27 episodes we've watched so far, I had only been to 2 of the places shown. It's a mothers prerogative to mildly irritate her teenagers several times a day as payback for years of their annoying questions (are we there yet? what's for dinner? why are your boobs sooo much fatter than Harrys mums?), farts, dirty socks left everywhere, and pee on the toilet floor.
 

So that's the catch up! Thanks for stopping by. I'm soooo happy Spring is finally here!

xox

Louise

The Red Haired Amazona

I don't hate August anymore.

 

I normally ignore August.

It's still technically Winter. It has a grandiose sounding name (AUGUST!) but I spend so much time yearning for Spring which starts in September, that I don't really pay much attention to August. Poor August.

But the early blossoming trees are doing their funky thing.

So this year I stopped whinging about the sleety, cold rain and horrid winds that charge through our city and paid closer attention to August.
I realised August isn't really Winter. It's 'pre-Spring'.  It's just as fed up with Winter as us humans are, and is trying to shed the bad rap.

The days are trying to be a little bit longer at a rate of about 2 minutes per day. Sounds like a snails' pace but after losing sun at around 5-5.30pm, by the end of August, there will still be a lighter sky around 6.15-6.30! Reminding us that long Summer days aren't far away.

We have prepared the vegie garden for the summer crops. Turned in bags of horse poo and I set up a Snow Pea Teepee complete with fairy lights!

The Earlicheer Jonquil lives up to its' name with flower heads so fat, they keep falling over.

This rose had a nice sheltered spot through Winter, so kept flowering but needs a hard cutback as all its' flowers come out slightly fasciated.

After a couple of years of poor tulip performance, I kept this batch in the spare bar fridge for about 6 weeks before planting.

And they are looking beautiful!

I also planted Ranunculus in random spots throughout the garden and in some pots. It's been fun seeing where they have popped up because I usually forget where I plant bulbs.

I planted more shallots. We love them in salads and stir-fries!

 

I made a sweet Lalylala lady bird from a free pattern that was included in a magazine, I think it was Inside Crochet? All the good crochet and craft magazines come from the UK & the US but we get them 6 weeks after they are sold there. It feels very 1950s waiting such a long time for stuff like that when I can order something from the UK direct and get it in 7-10 days.

 

Like this!!!

I literally squealed at the courier when he arrived with these 2 big bundles. Like girlie/ psycho squealed. He looked kind of freaked out. A 40 something woman with her hair in a towel, no makeup (and not in one of those Instagram- worthy casual glam ways. But haggard, real life, 'where the f*** did my youth go' ways).

I was lucky enough to have a little tax refund after I lodged my return this year. I could have saved it. I could have put it towards bills. Sure! That would be the responsible, grown up thing to do. And because paying bills and saving are grown up, adulty things, I immediately spent it.
Deramores UK were having a nice sale of Stylecraft DK and Scheepjes cottons. With free postage on international orders over I think $75.

I thought to myself, "Hmm, it would be okay if I bought $75 worth of yarn!  That's a nice splurge."
I bloody blew that limit out of the water!
But here's the thing...
Our local craft stores have double knit acrylics but the colour range of Stylecraft is gorgeous. I prefer to use small local yarn shops but they tend to stock very expensive boutique yarns. Stylecraft yarns aren't sold in Australia and if someone does sell them here, they are horrifically expensive. So I bought a nice batch for super cheap from Deramores, but I could have bought 2 or 3 of every single colour and I think they have more than 80?

 

I also chose a pretty armful of cute little Scheepjes Catona. 

And these 7 skeins of Scheepjes Sweet Treats. Aren't they sooooo delicious!

Just before I received my lovely big bundles, the Mothership and the Fatherdom came to Melbourne for a visit and brought along a present for me.

This is a wooden suitcase which I made in woodwork class when I was 16. Nearly 30 years ago! For ages (probably nearly 30 years) the parentals have used it to store irrigation sprinklers in the back shed. They cleaned it up, painted it cream (it was plain pine) and vajazzled it.
Now it has a new job!

 

Holding all my old and new cottons!

The delicious colours of the Scheepjes Catona and Sweet Treat has inspired me to go back to making something that I used to love crocheting.

Birds...

This little sweet bird above was the first of a new type I am making. He is a kind of plain green here as this was Prototype No.1!  He isn't wonky, I placed his beak and eyes so it looks like he is looking to the side. Kind of being coy!
He has some way to go before I'm happy with the end design but he was made with the Scheepjes Sweet Treat colours.

I'm in the middle of making this one below using the same design but with Scheepjes Catona!

It has colourful pins for eyes and a beak at the moment while I sew the wings on. Then I have to make certain facial decisions!
Phew! There were a lot of photos in this post. Thanks for visiting!

xox

Louise

The Red Haired Amazona