rubykittyruby

I've discovered frozen yoghurt, eleventy million years later than everyone else, but it's the ideal low calorie snack, isn't it?  Fat free strawberry yoghurt and fresh strawberries/raspberries.  Lush!  It also took me forever to catch on to the idea of overnight oats, but I love those too.  I especially like the idea of making your breakfast the evening before.  So when you're waking up, all bleary eyed and yawning, all you have to do is take a bowl out of the fridge and grab a spoon.   Speaking of being bleary eyed, I woke up stupidly early today and couldn't for the life of me get back to sleep.  Ended up doing laundry at about 5.30am and hanging it out on the line before the rest of the neighbourhood had even opened their curtains.  A good job too as by mid morning the heavens opened and we had thunder, lightning and a drenching downpour.  All needed for the garden, so can't complain.   This afternoon I was watching old epis...

It's been a sunshine and showers kind of a morning, and mostly spent indoors.  Cutting up & sewing together lots of clashing colours and prints to make lengths of scrappy binding.  I've bound one side of this lap sized quilt, and have made enough binding to complete the rest.  Hopefully the quilt will be all done & dusted by the weekend.   Things have got messy.   Anyway, I'm going to tidy things away and get some lunch now ...  ... It's later in the day, and the binding is waiting to be ironed and neatly rolled up.  I pottered about on the allotment this afternoon, picked more raspberries, admired the stripy caterpillars still munching away, then deadheaded flowers.  Home to much needed chocolate and reading more of my current book, Maggie O'Farrell 'Hamnet'.  It's a change of pace from the last book I read, that was Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) 'Troubled Blood'.  Loved that.  A real page turner.  'Hamnet'...

This isn't the best photo, but can you make out some of the dozen or more stripy caterpillars that were demolishing this once flourishing weed?  One day they'll hopefully, almost magically, turn into beautiful Cinnabar Moths.  Which is proof that you shouldn't be too tidy when it comes to your garden or allotment.  Within reason, let the weeds grow, and rewards will come.   The Marjoram's flowering, a real bee magnet.  They love it.   Same goes for the Borage.  Bees love it, and apparently it constantly refills with nectar, so if a pollinator feeds, within minutes the Borage has replenished its supply.  I may need to learn how to cook gooseberries.  Perhaps in a fruit crumble?  Mmmm, crumble and custard, that sounds good.  The blackcurrants are enjoying the sunshine, and ripening up nicely.   Hollyhocks are a classic cottage garden plant, aren't they?  They've tended to succumb to disfiguring rust on the all...

Okay, let's start with some prettiness.  Growing on the allotment are these pink Californian poppies.   Calendula, lots of 'em.   I intend to gather up handfuls of petals and make some calendula oil.  Have been googling how to do it.   This photo doesn't quite capture the intensity of colour with these Catananche.  Grow them if you can, they're lovely.   After trundling along to the allotment, taking pictures of flowers and picking raspberries - mmmm! fresh raspberries, delicious- I came home and made a little fabric fox.   As with the leopard's head I made, I was influenced by the work of Instagrammer ievate.  It was only after I'd finished that I realised my fox has the look of a shocked kangaroo ... Doesn't matter, I like him anyway. He's hanging around with the leopard, the bee, a felt picture of a winter's scene and a crumpled postcard of Edith Sitwell.   Honestly, I wonder at my sanity sometimes! ...

  It's been a mixed kind of day, from a crafty perspective.  I'd seen on Instagram the collages of Clare Youngs.  Including a length of bunting, several paper birds strung together, all vivid colours and eye catching shapes.  I'll have a go at that, I thought, but in fabric rather than paper and card.  Hmmm, didn't quite work.  I cut out my simplified bird, trying to get it as close to the original design as I could.  Added applique details for the wings, beak and eyes, and backed with green felt.  But it didn't look right.  I've not got the overall shape right after all.  The whole thing doesn't 'read' as a bird in flight. Oh well, you try these things and some succeed, some fail.  Never mind, it's only fabric and sewing thread after all.  Having put aside my avian misfortune, I finished off a smaller version of the dragonfly slow stitching piece I made recently.  Here are the two for a comparison in size.   I w...

After not having any homegrown strawberries so far this year, and pretty much giving up on them, the recent heavy rainfall along with lots of sunshine has had berries ripening like crazy.  I've been starting every day with fresh fruit for breakfast, which is a lovely treat.   This last week's been oddly enjoyable.  The house is looking much better after it's ever-so-late-spring-clean, and hopefully I can keep it this way.  Out in the garden everything's windswept and there're lots of plants leaning drunkenly over, me neglecting to stake them.   I made a couple of little changes to the angel fabric collage, not having been entirely satisfied with her face.   I outlined the eyes with thread and added a faint indication of a nose! This textile piece ended up being about 21 x 23cm, and it occurred to me that I might make a smaller version and use it to decorate a Christmas card.  (Sorry to mention the 'Ch' word in June, but you have to think...

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.  It's been sunny and warm, an oddly enjoyable kind of Wednesday given that I spent a fair amount of it cleaning.  I'm not a natural 'housewife'.  If the sun's shining or there's a chance of going outdoors I'd rather do that.  But do you ever have those moments where you look around your home - maybe the sun's beaming through the windows, illuminating every corner - and you suddenly realise how dusty that shelf is.  How there are smudged fingermarks on the door.  A cobweb in the top corner of the room.  The carpet could do with a really thorough brush and vacuum.  In short, everything needs sprucing up.  So, I spent the morning cleaning the hallway and stairs, washing down the paintwork and suchlike.  Not the most fun in the world, but it looks much better now it's done.  I'll have a good go at the front room tomorrow, and start on the conservatory after that.  It might ...