A Stitch in Time

I finished sewing Plot 7 (pun intended).

I found it very satisfying. I haven’t done any embroidery for decades so I needed to look up how to do new stitches every step of the way. Thank goodness for My sister’s book of stitches and Pinterest!

I like the little bees in the pic above and the blue hoops definitely make it look like an allotment :-) I had to un-pick and re-sow a few parts - the sunflowers looked rather like deep-sea divers for a while, so I re-did them.

I would have liked a frog in the pond, but that was beyond my beginner skills so I just beaded it for a water feature. And the bench is definitely a major feature of our plot which is missing!

So, that’s my Covid embroidery project complete. It doesn’t look anything like the embroidery that inspired me, but it does look a bit like Plot 7, with a bit of creative licence.

Here’s the quick creation from start to finish.

The song title is by Smashing Pumpkins.

Something to Talk About

We had a visit to the plot at lunchtime today - to see if the windy weekend had done any damage. There isn't much to be damaged and it appeared to be ok. I spotted this excellent Mullein moth caterpillar - one of my favourites, they're just so photogenic!

I didn't do a blogpost at the weekend, last week was very dull. Even I couldn't think of something that was worth writing down, with just one meal that looked quite pretty - a lovely broad bean and roasted pepper salad.

Well, I have been concentrating on my embroidery. I won't do updates every week, but I thought I'd drop this photo in as I'm rather proud of my sweetcorn - they took me about 20minutes to sow each cob <it's so tricky> I don't think I'll embroider too many of them!

I'm finding myself noticing textures more and when I saw the flowers on our leeks (which have well and truly, and rather beautifully, gone to seed) I found that I was thinking 'I could sew those, with french knots and a bit of back-stitch' - Oh I've changed!

I was very pleased to see flowers on our runner beans and they're climbing now.

Not climbing quite so well are the Gigantes that Jamie sowed for me, but I think they'll latch on quite soon - if the windy weather stops blowing them away from the canes. I think only 3 of the plants will survive, but hopefully that'll produce enough beans for a few tasty meals.

A couple of the squash plants look happy, but the other two are being eaten by slugs so we'll see whether they survive... Ivan gave us a punnet of whitecurrants today - not as pretty as the red ones but they seem to taste a little sweeter - they're rather insect egg-like aren't they (and I'm pretty sure I could embroider that punnet) 😏.

Here's a picture of the frog - I'm sure there are two in our pond, this is the bigger one. That duckweed is a pain to get rid of but he doesn't mind, as it offers protection from the heat.

So, I've managed a blogpost and the title song is provided by Badly Drawn Boy.

Wow

I took Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday off work, specifically because of the forecast heatwave and it was right. Phew, what a sweltering few days; over 30° in Hungerford and sunny. Lovely!

We spent some time at the allotment - it was so hot that there was only Jamie and me there much of the time. Us and the birds - just listen to that! What a joy to be back on the plot.

Neal said that we could have some of his lettuce seedlings. I chose the two red varieties - the green ones (Lobjoits Green cos) have all been nibbled - looks like by pigeons - whereas the red appear to be untouched (it's not that obvious in the photo, but trust me!)

I also planted the squash plants that Liz gave us (a patty pan and a spaghetti squash, I think) plus a courgette plant from Ivan - to replace one of ours that the slugs decimated. Jamie cleared some weeds from Plot3 and trimmed the long grass round the edges of Plot7, in the hope that it’ll keep the slugs away from our few plants - we don’t have enough to share this year! Unlike Ivan who always needs a wheelbarrow for his huge harvests - that’s the last of his strawberries.

He gave us a punnet of strawberries and a punnet of redcurrants. They were a colourful addition to my breakfast.

And I cooked the remaining redcurrants with sugar - they weren't as tart as I'd expected and only needed a couple of teaspoons of sugar.

I sieved the sauce - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall reckons you don't have to, but I wouldn't fancy eating all those seeds and skins.

It was delicious on ice cream and with scotch pancakes.

There were lots of butterflies on site, but they weren't in the mood for posing for photos unfortunately. I definitely saw some ringlets, tortoiseshells and peacocks among the usual whites. This Scarlet Tiger moth was easier to photograph as it came into our sitting room - dragging me away from my work :-)

As I write this we're in the middle of a hailstorm - the weather has changed: it's dazzling sunshine one moment then dark clouds covering the sky the next as the wind builds up - our poor plants, I wonder how they're doing. I hope to visit again during a lunchtime next week.

Jamie’s excited about my new project (NOT!). I saw this amazing embroidery of an allotment site (twitter.com/sewnbycollette) and was inspired, so immediately bought a selection of threads from Amazon.

Now, I haven’t embroidered for about 40 years, so mine is more, err, primitive, we’ll see how it goes... My sister kindly gave me some fabric and has lent me her old book. It’s our plot, as I’m sure you can see 😏 Well, I only started in yesterday {I wonder if it will ever be seen again on this blog :-D}

The ‘Wow’ of the title refers to various things from this week. I’m so glad that plot neighbour, Kate, told me about the stunning fields of white poppies which we could walk to from the allotment.

I didn’t expect to see so many fields of them - how beautiful! Having not walked far for weeks it was quite exhausting walking the slight incline, especially in the heat, but so worth it.

Shops and some restaurants are beginning to open up in England. Some people definitely seem to think that the time is right to get back to normal life, but I'm happy with just the occasional trip out and am not missing (non-internet) shopping one bit! Even the Government isn't suggesting a return to work for the likes of me yet - thank goodness! Great song from Kate Bush, obviously - sing along, or maybe just do the moves ;-)