When I was 10

I heard someone say once that the things that you like to do when you were ten years old are the things that would be your dream job.

I grew up in a household where the aim was to be as self sufficient as possible, my mum and dad were often called 'Tom and Barbara' I remember endless weekends going to chop huge trees with my mum and dad for our Rayburn, our house was decorated with my mums paintings, and home made furnishings, my mum is a bit of a designer I have to say, so it always looked amazing, as she has an amazing eye for colour, and can pretty much make anything she wants too. One Christmas I had a huge dolls house made for me, which was the envy of all my friends, it had everything in it, and the whole thing had been made by mum. I think alot of it was because money was tight, but I never knew any different.

I would like to share here a small ice cream anecdote, my mum told me and my brother that the reason we couldn't have icecreams from the icecream van was because it had anti-freeze in it, I have never to this day been able to eat a Mr Whippy, lol, I'm sure she only told us that because she couldn't afford them, but it worked!!!!

Anyway, back to the point, when I was ten well all my childhood really, um, actually, its not really changed, I would spend endless hours creating little gardens and planting seeds, weeds mostly I expect, and sewing clothes, they never fitted of course, and making shoes, I spent endless holidays making shoes, he he. I even remember going to a corn field when I was about 8, got lots of ears of corn and  ground my own flour, I also used to get up on sunday mornings every september about 6am and go on my own roaming throug the fields mushroom picking, hmm, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking that I was quite an odd child.

I was pondering this thought this morning in bed, mainly because I lost my switch card about a week ago, I knew it was at home, but I decided to see how long I could last without it, I had about 10 pounds in cash so it was going to be a bit of a challenge, (especially seeing as most of that would go on Sophie guapita's food and milk), but to be honest it wasn't too bad at all, I cooked lots of yummy things, and had to be inventive, made a tonne of pesto with all my basil plants, made myself sandwiches for work ( half of which contained pesto), which were a million times better than the ones from the cafe, I even found some old goats cheese in the back of my fridge and made wonderful grilled portabello mushrooms, with roasted peppers , pesto topped with goats cheese, obviously my veges are not quite ready yet but they will be, but it got me thinking about all the things I plan to make in the summer. like some cheese and wine. I have lots of 'how to make cheese' books and a cheese press so I think its about time, I'll start with soft cheeses like ricotta and then mozzarella and then go from there, and I promise I'll document it all here on my blog.

I ran out of petrol so I've been walking a little more than normal, but I'm loving it, even in the rain, even though I insist on wearing sandals.

So what made me chuckle was that I ran out of soap, and then I remembered the soap I made last year, which contained lavender from my garden, and some which I bought on my honeymoon, but we won't go there or I'll probably cry, anyway, so I cut a huge chunk off it and its fabulous, not quite as bubbly as normal soap, but it does the job wonderfully. I thought I'd take a pic for you;

As I was washing with my hand made soap this morning and planning my first batch of award winning cheeses and the blends I was going to spin into yarn for a self striping cardigan, I chuckled to myself thinking about how much like my mum and dad I am and how if I was ten years old I would be doing exactly the same thing, and unlike when I was a child, where it was a nessesity to grow our own veges etc, I can now drive 10 minutes not even think twice about buying all my treats from Sainsbury's, but damn, it doens't seem half as exciting as when you make it, knit it, sew it, brew it, grow it yourself does it?  he he.

Quick garden update, this is roughly what my vine looked like three weeks ago;

 

and now looks like this, how exciting would it be if I got some grapes this year?

Silk

So I have 2 new additions to the hand dyed silk range which is a soft scrummy silk yarn, its in the same vein as the lace weight, one which is doule the thickness of the laceweight in 50gm hanks, and then double the thickness again, resulting in roughly a  4 ply weight in 100gm hanks.

I have lots, but saving it for wonderwool, but I have put a small update in the new arrivals just incase you love silk and you are not coming to wonderwool.

and of course some lace weight wool;

I think you'll aggree, my pics are getting alot better. hehe, actually I'm actually getting quite addicted to this picture lark.

Wonderwool

Thanks for all the comments I've been getting recently, its lovely to recieve them and know what people think about all the things I blog about. In addition, I just got an emial from my little bro, I say little, but actually he is 6ft 4, and built like a brick shed, he is little in the sense he is 14 months younger than me, but anyway back to the point, he just read my blog and told me it was soooo cool! Out of all the people that like my blog, I think that his approval probably means the most to me, it made me blush, and grin stupidly.

So Wonderwool is approaching, and as usual, I'm still dyeing and packaging and stuff, and probably will be up until the night before, but I Have a few special things to take which are new to the shop, some super soft silk yarns, which I dyed up at the weekend, which I will probably put in the new arrivals later, obviously the superwash merino dk, which is cashmere soft, and some cashmere fibres, which I will sell undyed and dyed, its not arrived yet, but I find it so hard to go to work when I know there are lovely fibres arriving which I neeeeeeeed to dye, for me  for my lovely customers, and there is a lovely garden which I need to be in. My sink/kitchen overlooks the garden, and I can say that I now actually wash up, just so I can look out the window at it. hehe.

Its nearly there.

So end of of a hard working weekend, I now have muscles i never knew I had, and I still can't seem to stop finding sand every where, hehe.

So so there is a little more trellis to be built, but in the mean time, mum and dad took me shopping to blooms for plants for the new garden, and we got lots of lovely things including 2 more vines and alot of climbing plants, a sweet climbing rose, a passion flower, and a pretty clematis, plus lots of hanging baskets, oh and of course a couple more vege plants. So here it is at the stage this evening.

So I have some beautiful flowers and plants, but things have to be functional, they either provide shade, colour or food, and I was I am so excited about the list of edible plants I now have in my garden, with only raised beds and pots, see, you don't need a huge garden to grow veges, so as follows;

Fruit;

Three varieties of grapes to climb up the wood, 1 white, two red, melons, morello cherry tree in pot, dwarf bramley apple in pot, fig tree in pot, and an odd variety of climbing kiwi fruit.

Veges;

Tonnes of rocket, in pots and mixed in hanging baskets, 3 varieties of tomatoes, in pots, coriander, basil, runner beans in pots, aubergines, 2 varieties of squash, courgettes, chilli's and peppers, hmm think thats all. not bad huh?

And I just wanted to say thanks to sweetie pie, who to be honest built most of it all himself, the garden came from a planning one sunny afternoon and I could never have believed it possible to do it all, he is very very clever. Thanks sweetie pie, he wouldn't let  me take a photo of him so this is all you get.

sunday progress.

Its sunday morning, the garden is starting to seriously look like its on its way now. The raised borders are being rendered today and trellis being built.

garden pics.

So this is what the garden kind of looked like at the beginning of this little project. The blue shed on the left has just been moved from infront of my kitchen window to make room for the tree trunks, yep tree trunks.

Then the tree trunks start going in, and the raised borders start taking shape.

Garden transformation

So over the next 4 days my garden is going to be transformed from a long peice of patio into a magic garden with a huge pagoda, raised borders and a new work area for my dyeing, and plenty of trellis.

I will take pics at the end of each day to document the progress, its soooooo exciting, currently my garden is full of huge tree trunks, concrete blocks and sand. Pics later!!!