Hipstamatic love

tardy

2 months......2 months!

Don't get me wrong, there has been many a time when I have had something that I've wanted to blog about:

My birthday (which, indecently, was the day after my last post back in April), Thrifty finds galore, garden love, Hipstamatic appreciation, bargain floral high street finds and my lambswool CK Fair Isle Blanket to name a just a few.

But possibly the most exciting is my new chickadees. Bought with some of my birthday money, I finally took the plunge and they came to live with us exactly one month ago.

Meet the girls................

(from left to right) Bluebell- a Bluebelle, Primrose - a Heritage Skyline , Violet - a Maran Cou Cou and Snowdrop a - Bovans Silver.

They came from the lovely Kirsty at Hens 4 Homes and were only 16 weeks old when we got them, so I knew we might be in for a bit of a wait before we collected our first eggs.

So imagine my joy when I discovered this small but perfectly formed and gorgeous coloured egg two weeks after they arrived.

Laid by my favourite, Primrose (Skylines are a Cream Legbar cross and can lay either blue, green or pink eggs depending on the hen) I'm so pleased she is a greeny-blue egg layer! She is laying an egg a day now.....

.....and Violet laid her first little speckled egg yesterday and another today, so we are finally starting reap the rewards of all that feeding and fence building.

I have to say that I'm in love with them, I have managed to waste a good hour a day just watching them scratch about after I've let them out of the run when Ella and I get back from school. Ella loves them too, and she has scooping them up for a cuddle down to a fine art!

I shall leave you with some photos of my little patch of cottage garden, the Peony blooms (Sarah Bernhardt) have fully opened since I took this photo and I've had so many this year that I've cut some to enjoy indoors. I so love their raspberry ripple pom-pomness.

Pick Me Up

Rob Ryan timelapse at Pick Me Up gallery, Somerset House

from karl sadler on Vimeo.

Look out for my sister in the black and white stripy top cutting about 1 minute in, and at the end holding a cardboard cut out of hazel. (proud sister moment!) You can see it in much better detail if you right click and view in full screen mode.

Blooming gorgeous

I'm enjoying the sunshine here in Essex, and so are these beauties.

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Going round in circles...

This week I have been mostly...............

............hooking

Haiku

Little viola -
Faces turned toward the sun
Sweet, pretty, dainty






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Let there be light!

Finally we have some springy weather!

I am just recovering from what has been a rather sicky weekend, first Ella was sick in her bed, and then for the rest of saturday night, then I came a cropper on sunday night, then Danny on monday, Yuck!
I missed the first day of blue skies and sun on monday as I was curled up in bed, but today I felt the strength to climb out from under the covers and get some washing on the line.

I've made some vegetable soup for dinner from some leftovers languishing in our very naked fridge, potted up a few primulas I bought last week, and got the camera out to take some photos.

new Rowan yarn in ice-cream colours from colourway- now I can finally make a start on a granny blanket.

last weeks bargain, which I found whilst wandering round a antiques centre with my mum and dad. A super soft 'comfy' quilt, a little worst for wear on the outer edges, and not normally my colours but for £9.75 I just couldn't leave it.

Now I have a dilemma.

Do I......

A) As my mum suggested, use it as a base for a new quilt.

B) Sew a band of fabric round the edges to cover over the damage.

C) Cut off the outer border, leaving the middle as a smaller quilt and bind the edges, and use any of the the undamaged bits of the border for smaller projects.

D) Any other ideas?

Ho Hum, Back to work tomorrow.

R is for..............

....Ranunculus.






You don't get much for 39p now-a-days, but whilst in Tescos last monday - shopping for a few essentials (milk, bread and Battenberg cake) for my elderly grandparents, I spied these beauties, reduced from £5. There was a couple of broken stems, but I could see their potential

......and Rob Ryan



My lovely limited edition laser-cut (my blurry photo doesn't do it justice) . Rob designed these especially for valentines day, and I managed to get my hands on one before they all sold out. My sister Libby introduced me to Rob Ryan's work a couple of years ago, and last year started doing some work experience with him. Since then she has started working for him a couple of days a week, and loves it, lucky girl!

doodle bug

For christmas Ella received what I think must be one of the best colouring books about, fabulous doodles. I love her first attempts at filling it in, I especially liked the flower she drew on the bottom photo to the right.