Growing like topsy ...

I thought I'd start with a round-up of what's growing on the allotment and in the garden. These hollyhocks have suddenly bloomed, and isn't that a glorious pink? The leaves do tend to get rust spots, which is a shame when the flowers are so beautiful.

Also on the allotment are evening primrose, dotted around where they've self-seeded, growing here among a sea of seed pods.

The marjoram's flowering too, and will be a bee magnet. They love it.

I think these white flowers are mallows.

The apple tree's going to provide plenty of fruit.

Should be lots of blackberries too. I know I can gather them from the hedgerows, but cultivated ones tend to be more productive than their wild counterparts.

Redcurrants are ripening.

Blackcurrants too.

Gooseberries too, or goose-gogs as we always called them.

In my front garden the valerian is everywhere, another favourite with the bees.

Astrantia, also known as Hattie's pin cushion, mixing with the vivid purple of catananche.

These orange flowers are, I think, commonly called fox & cubs. I never planted them, so the birds must've bought the seeds in.

Mexican daisies are a cheerful addition, and great for covering the hard edges of stone walls or paths.

I don't know for sure, but possibly these purple spikes are a perennial called veronica. Love the slender stems.

Apart from pottering about outside I've been messing about indoors too ...

I made this simple boro-inspired bag a while ago, and it's been hanging around, waiting for me to find a suitable strap for it. Well, I had a lightbulb moment yesterday while I was cutting up a charity shopped shirt. Why not repurpose the strips of shirt material where the buttonholes and buttons are?

So that's what I'm doing. I'm leaving the buttons in place, and I think I'll have just about enough length to make a crossbody strap. I'll be a little rough & ready, but that's fine, it fits in with the rest of the bag. I'm rather chuffed with that nifty bit of upcycling. Sometimes I surprise myself!

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Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to. Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate. Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden. I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday. I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different. There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city. It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery. There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery. My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...

Another week's flown by ...

Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days. Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden. The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram. I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them. This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory. It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them. Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....

Folding a zine and an alternative use for a bank card

Hello again, and excuse me while I scratch my insect bites. I don't know what it is, but at this time of year I'm invariably itching like crazy because I've been bitten by bugs. It seems to coincide with blackberry-picking season, but whether that's purely coincidental I don't know. Whatever's biting me, I'm obviously a tasty morsel in their world! I might try using a highly scented oil like Tea Tree oil, see if that deters them. Anyway, let's get on to more pleasant matters - I'm having a go at making a zine style booklet. Because I didn't have any paper large enough, I joined together two A3 sheets of sketchpad paper, using torn pieces of book pages for the joining. I thought that'd look less noticeable than packing tape or similar. Having chosen my colour scheme I used acrylic paint and an unwanted plastic bank card to apply the paint. Plus a stencil, sponge and modelling paste. Applying paint with a ATM card wa...

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