Sinterklaas gifts: Sackboy.

A while back, Arjan's brother and a couple of their friends came to stay, and whilst they were playing games, I was busy making the presents for Ellena's baby shower.

Dennis was so impressed with my (just learning) knitting skills, that he said "Oooh, cool, you could knit me a Sackboy!". Given how new I was to knitting, I said that was way beyond me.

But Sinterklaas approached and I went online and found that someone had of course created a knitting pattern for the cute character from Little Big Planet, and had made it freely available here.

Following the pattern was definitely beyond my skills when I started, given I'd never done purl, increase, decrease or turn - but Steve, the knitting expert from work was a great help in translating for me!

Definitely knitting fingers was the trickiest bit...

But eventually, he came together well!

And now he's part of Dennis' Christmas decorations.

Sinterklaas gifts: Wooden box.

Now that we've had a lovely weekend celebrating Sinterklaas, I can add posts about the two presents which were surprises. 

First up is the box which Arjan made for his Oma (grandmother). I found and adapted a pattern from the internet, which we drew onto a thin piece of plywood.

Arjan then began (very patiently) drilling and filing out the pattern.

And then more...

Until the entire pattern was done.

After that, the rest of the box was made, including comb joint corners.

Finally, it was varnished, before being filled with biscuits and wrapped with a ribbon!

Bed runner: Finished!

No posting didn't mean no crafting was going on!
I've been busy quilting and binding the runner, and have finally finished.

The quilting is maybe slightly easier to see when looking at the back.

But of course, when in the intended spot on the bed, it's all about the front!

Bed runner: quilting progress

I've started on the quilting, and have now completed 1/4-1/3 of the circles. Seems to be going well so far, although the chalk pencil pattern has mostly worn off, so I'm doing a lot of referring back to the photos in the previous post. All good though, at least I don't have to worry about leaving marks I can't get rid of!

Bed runner: quilting design

A little while ago I decided that my previous plan for quilting the runner wasn't a good one.

This was partly because I had the feeling that the pattern would annoy me with its imperfections, but mostly because saw this which I thought was awesome.

So today I used a soluble fabric pencil, along with my plate collection, to create my new pattern.

Now it just needs sewing...

Completed book ends!

The bookends are completed and have been delivered to Connie and Steef.

Before they were taken off to Holland by Arjan's parents, we took extensive photos of the result.

Front garden: before and after.

I'm slightly hesitant to post these photos, as I'm aware that in some ways the after looks much worse than the before - partly because the after was taken a few weeks later and the flowers were mostly gone, partly because of the angle... but mostly because of the brutal pruning that has taken place.

Anyway, here goes!

We've trimmed back everything at trellis level, and pulled the rose back against the fence. Above the trellis everything is cut back as far as our property goes.

Gardening Tutor

A while ago I decided that I liked the idea of a garden tutor; someone to show me, in the setting of our own garden, how best to control and improve it. I didn't want someone to just come in and do all the work, because that would leave us in the same situation next year. And I couldn't do my standard tactic of just research it on the internet, because when I identified and looked up the Clematis Montana, everything told me it didn't need pruning, when it obviously obviously does...

Finding a tutor seemed harder than I expected - I would have thought it would have been a great thing for a retired gardener to do, but when I tried to find one online it seemed otherwise. Eventually, I found someone who looked perfect: Alexese Katherine.

She arrived today, and spent a couple of hours touring the garden, identifying our plants for me, and suggesting how to control those we have, and what we could add in the future to make it better.

Front Garden:

Neither the Pyracantha or the Wisteria originate in our garden, but have grown through the fence and over the framework of the Clematis and Honeysuckle that we never really knew we had. This combination has made a climber triffid, which has grown a couple of feet off the wall in all directions - it's huge. It's also leaving the plants beneath it sun starved, and encouraging them to grow out in further over the drive and into the path of the garage door. 

The answer is to go brutal. It might mean that the next year doesn't get quite as many flowers from the wisteria, but at least we'll discover our own plants, the non-climbers will get some sun and we might not need to trim the rose in front of the garage so often. I have ordered shears...

Back Garden Left: 
The trees are Eucalyptus and Cherry Blossom. We also have Ivy, Rose, Fushia, Holly, Rosemary, Japonica, and our own Pyracanthus. There's a couple of other small bushes that I don't remember the names of, but might be Euonymus and Azalea.

The Ivy is quite out of control - whilst it's great for covering up the ugly fence, I can put my arm into the leaves and not reach the fence through it. Ivy being as resilient as it is, we can go for an excessive trim here too, trying to get some of the depth of our flower bed back.

The Rose needs to be half cut for winter, so that it doesn't get too blown about, as well looking for any misplaced stems (where they're rubbing against each other), and then a more drastic prune in spring.

The Holly is in a similar situation to the Ivy: it's doing far too well, it's grown out in all directions, and could do with a good chop.

The Rosemary is looking a bit woody, we've pulled it back up against the fence to try and improve its posture, but the real solution would be to cut it right back early next summer.

The other Rose needs a lot of dead wood removing, and to be cut back a bit as it's got a bit wispy and spread out.

The Fushia, Japonica and Pyracanthus are all doing fine and will just need pruning to keep them in shape.

Back Garden Right:
The only real ground cover is a couple of different types of Sedum. I like one of them, but the other is a little messy - in the fullness of time, I'd like to replace it. There's also some lavender which I added, which hasn't done that well in the hot weather.

The rest of the right side of the garden is ALL about the climbers. It's a little like the front garden in that there's a combination of mostly Clematis Montana, which is providing a cane framework for everything to grow ever outwards and upwards, blocking sun and flowering way above eye-level. At the far end, there's a rose that gets hardly any light, because it's overshadowed by the rather massive Jasmine (I think it's Humile). Also below and intwined through the Jasmine is a Honeysuckle (fairly standard yellow and pink flowers). Which then blends into the gigantic Clematis Montana which goes across the top of the rest of the fence.

Again, everything apart from the Rose, is doing far too well. At the far end the plan is to trim back the Jasmine to a slightly less ridiculous height and overhang, and then cut the Honeysuckle beneath it back extensively and train it to fill in the area beneath. This should also help the Rose to get some light and do better.

The Montana, whilst glorious in Spring, has become far too top heavy - building on the cane like framework left from it growing unchecked for a few years. It's so big, there's a bird's nest in there that we'd never even spotted! Again, a fairly extensive prune is the way forward, which may limit the flowering next Spring, but is required to stop it trying to make a break for it over the top of the conservatory.

So... in summary: Wisteria and Clematis at the front needs sorting first, then the Clematis/Jasmine/Honeysuckle at the back, and finally the Ivy and Holly (because it doesn't matter what time of year we do it).

Lastly, thoughts for improvement: 
Adding in less manic Clematis varieties on the trellis, plus some more dry soil resistant ground cover (because it's in smallish raised beds, it can dry out quite fast - as the lavender has proved), such as Vinca Minor, perhaps some other varieties of Sedum (there seem to be tons of them), and no doubt more when I've done more research.

I can have also raspberries, peas and beans along the trellis along side the conservatory, but only if I buy/get Arjan to build much bigger containers to counteract their tendency to dry out.

Before and after photos of my triffid collection will no doubt come along in time...

Birthday board kit

Connie and Steef's Sinterklaas present, finished bar a couple of coats of varnish on the board and a hook added per month.

Photo has made the colours look a bit darker than they are to the eye.

Kit will be made up of the board, 33 discs, a silver sharpie for writing on the discs and the jewellery hooks to put the entire thing together.

Bookends: Painted Tigger book back.

I've spent the evening painting the second book.

The only thing left is to assemble and varnish both bookends, and then we're done.

Bookends: Tigger & friends go on a journey

Still too hot, so progress is still slow... Also, I've been completely unsure about what to call the second book, and what to put on what will be a back cover.

Finally, after a trip to Waterstones this weekend, and checking out the children's book section for inspiration, I decided to do a horizontal stripe of the characters crossing the back of the book. But obviously with a couple of small additions...

This lead onto the book being named as "Tigger and friends go on a journey", and I've made up a short story description to go with it.

Obviously it's still got to be painted, but painting is easier than the underlying inspiration!

Bookends: Pooh and Brother Bear

Recently it seems to have been far too hot for doing much of anything, but this evening I finally got my arse in gear and painted the picture on the front of one of the fake books that will become the uprights of the book end stands.

I was going to try and replicate one of Arjan's real t-shirts, but I think that might be unnecessarily complex, and likely to go wrong - so it'll probably just stay like this.

Booties in use

I've just been sent a picture of my friend's baby wearing the booties I made for her. They look ridiculously cute, and I am correspondingly ridiculously pleased.

Does baking count?

My entry into the work "Bake off" charity event. It's not actually a competition, just please donate cake which people can donate money to eat.

Bookend stands

Now that both Pooh and Tigger have been painted on both sides they've also been treated to a coat of spray varnish and put to one side.

And so we've started thinking about the stands for them. What we've decided we'd like to do is make the uprights look like books; one by Arjan, one by me.

Arjan's taking Pooh's side, and the book will have the title "Pooh and Brother Bear".

I've combined some images, and traced them onto the front, hopefully it'll all work out when it comes to painting it!

Birthday board - finished!

Everything has been varnished and assembled, so whilst the birthday board is not hung, it is completed.

Bookend Tigger

Hopefully, it'll be almost impossible to tell these Tigger pics apart from the last ones, except that he's facing in the other direction...

So, Tigger's paintwork is complete. Now just have to varnish and he'll be totally done!

Birthday board II

Birthday board II in more ways than one, because there are indeed now two of them!
Our first requested item, since all this crafting and blogging about it began, and it's for a birthday board for Sinterklaas.

Ours has obviously also received its paint job, in the colours to go with our kitchen. Only varnish, and adding the hook per month to go!

Bookends again!

Since the last post on the subject, it's been all about Pooh.

He's been painted, first on the top...

And then the sides.

Tomorrow, both Pooh and Tigger will get their first coat of spray varnish on the top, to protect the paintwork while the other side is painted.

Garden

So, gardening is new to me, but I'm hoping that I'm not messing it up too much...

One of the things that I both love and hate about the garden that came with the house is the most amazing Clematis (montana, if my internet research has steered me right).

It looks absolutely glorious in late spring/early summer, but over winter it turns into a jumbled collection of sticks. Also, it's grown across the top of the fence, leaving areas of bare trellis. My solution is honeysuckle and jasmine - I'm all about the fragrance!

I've done more of the internet research and have decided on star jasmine and delavay honeysuckle. Both are evergreeen, with the jasmine flowering early to mid summer, and the honeysuckle flowering late summer. Ordered a while ago, then delivered and given a chance to recover a bit before planting. Which I finally got around to doing today.

I have also been trying to grow some plants from seeds - my most successful so far have been peas and beans. Or at least they were until the snails got hold of them, they absolutely devoured two of my pea shoots down to the stem! I have now resorted to Ferric Phosphate pellets - supposedly organic, healthy for everything except slugs and snails, and even plant food. Hence the blue dots everywhere.

The conservatory is also still full of seedlings which are lagging behind a bit - mostly intended to become my herb garden.

Other bits of the garden are doing well. My new bay tree (planted in a pot so that it doesn't grow to 12ft high, and the rose bushes where the only influence I've had is a bit of pruning and aphid spray.

And just after all the planting and photos, the skies opened and watered all my new plants for me.

And some more bookends

I've added the black to the front (or is it the back, could be either I guess). And also spotted I'd missed some yellow on Tigger's face.

And then started filling in the sides with orange, and then black edging. Not quite sure why I chose to take a picture of him upside down though.

And finally, adding one sides worth of stripes!

More on the bookends

Firstly, Arjan cut Tigger out.

Then both Pooh and Tigger got a coat of primer, a quick sanding, followed by another coat of primer. And the full design traced out onto one side.

And then the painting began. With Tigger, because it's way more intricate and more of a challenge.

I have to admit, at this point my hand was shaking, and my love for Tigger was waning a bit.

Okay, the love is back, because even though I say so myself, this looks pretty awesome. Adding the black will be a job for tomorrow!