Attack of the Earth Mother!

So, it's lovely, warm and sunny, the garden is growing like a jungle and I discovered an elderflower tree on a walk with Miss Peach Pudding.  Having had a moment of earth-motherliness and back-to-nature-thriftiness earlier in the week (more in a minute) I filled my bag with elderflower heads.  The tree was on no-one's property, by the way.  I do try to keep to the Country Code!

I already had the lemons and sugar so free Elderflower Cordial was the order of the day.  Having perused a number of recipes on the tinterweb it appeared to be a free for all regarding the number of flower heads to lemons ratio so I did my usual - made it up as I went along.  I couldn't get citric acid anywhere so braved it without.  I believe it's only for clarity and longevity but I was quite happy with cloudy and anyway, it's not fated to last long at our house!

Ta-daaaa....!

Delish with chilled white wine, but certainly good enough with icy water on a hot day.

Cooking our home-grown beetroot I was reminded of my natural dyeing escapades last year.  I saved the beetroot water, strained it and added alum to half and ferrous oxide to the other.  I then dyed some white craft cotton.  They both ended up a similar soft grey-green, not the prettiest shade.  To compensate I finished the craft cotton off in cranberry tea (pinkish) and rooibos tea (orange-ish).  They're not stunning shades but do have a certain natural pleasant look.

 Once dried to paler shades I had a play with them while watching a very exciting Men's Semi-finals Day at Wimbledon and drinking freshly-brewed coffee.  

Ah, this is the life!

Knitting for Victory!

Armed Forces Day dawned bright and sunny - Hurrah!

Our yarn shop, A Good Yarn, took part in a wonderful event to celebrate the day.  Sea View Street, Cleethorpes is a fantastic little shopping area with individual specialist shops and cafes and the yarn shop is just around the corner.  All the stores took part with the street decorated to the hilt, plus vintage stalls,ice cream van and music.

 

There were also wartime vehicles and lovely men in uniforms!

 The street was divided into three sectors - Britain, France and America.  The lovely ladies at Tilletts (fab clothes shop!) were Land Girls

La Flotte (shoes to die for) were Can Can Girls

and we were French ladies "Knitting for Victory"!

 

The event was packed and the weather beautiful.  Even many spectators dressed the part.  

During the afternoon there was a magnificent air show, including Tornadoes, Vulcans, the new Euro Fighter and WWII vintage bombers.  As the area is right next to the beach we saw (or mostly heard!) the whole thing.   

A great day - and yes, there will be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover!

(Tomorrow, just you wait and see)

 

Holida-ay...Celebra-ate...

Thank you, Madonna, for this post title.  

We have just had a lovely holiday and also a special birthday to celebrate.

We didn't get a break at all last year, so made up for it with ten days in Ibiza this month.  Our favourite resort is Santa Eulalia - not quite the foam party capital of the island but lovely and restful for our old bones (I'm not past a good boogie session but we really did need a bit of peace after a bad year!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a fantastic night in Ibiza Town drinking San Miguel, listening to loud music and watching the parade of tourists, drag queens and generally wild and wonderful people wandering about.  Other than this it was chilling, swimming, making full use of the hotel spa and ...

 

  ... eating!

Not to mention lots of knitting...

... this was my packing!

The celebration, by the way, was Miss Peach Pudding's 2nd birthday.  How time flies!

Happy Birthday, Sweetie! xxx

Bittersweet...

Hello, I'm back from my hols and will regale you with (brief) tales and photos soon but ...

... just today I hope you don't mind my wallowing in a little gloom.

One year ago today my beautiful Mum left us.

Greta Kerridge: born 13 June 1925, died 26 June 2012

She was a truly lovely person, inside and out.  One of those people about whom no-one has a bad word.  She lived for 87 years, most of them happy with my Dad but he left us seven years ago and some of her world went with him.  The last couple of years Mum had many health problems but was very brave about them all.  At the last she had to go into a home to be looked after.  She spent four weeks there, being cared for wonderfully well but she was ready to leave us and her spirit soared away into a beautiful sunrise early on a Tuesday morning with us by her side.

I hope many of you still have mums who you treasure and who treasure you.  Give them a hug for me.

A Frocky Sort of Update...

Just couldn't let this £4.99 charity shop duvet set slip through my fingers.

Ta-daaa!

Frocks!

It's Only Frock and Roll but I Like It!

The lovely Little Blue Mouse asked if I had made the patterns myself for my recent tea dress and little girls dress on a previous post.  Well...
... sort of.

Here are the dresses again

The yellow and blue tea dress is made from old curtains and the little dress from a pair of pillow cases.  The girl's pattern is taken from "Homemade" by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson.  The tea dress, however, has a shoulder fastening design from "Simple Modern Sewing" by Shufu To Seikatsu Sha but the rest of it is my pattern.
This is the simple fastening, which requires no zip or buttons...

The pointed shoulder edges overlap and are stitched together on the sleeve side.

The little girl dress has a mama dress to look after it now, and I'm currently making more.

You can't beat a bit of reloving!

Soothing Sachets

The Girl Genius, now four and a half, has always suffered from ezcema.  When I was given a bundle of out of date comfrey leaf packs from the local value-for-money shop I didn't know what to do with them.  I know the jury is out regarding internal use but, reading up in my herbal companion, I found that this herb is very good for wound healing and other conditions including ezcema.

Having turned The Girl Genius into The Girl Guinea Pig, we found that it IS quite soothing and helpful, so I made the sachets below.  She loves the golden-green colour that the water goes, and if she believes it helps then it just might...