New to my craft room in June

This month there’s more to share than in previous months, maybe there’s more around or I’m more susceptible to a nice bit of fabric at this time of year, who knows. The past month has also spawned ideas for two new projects - one inspired by a sewing magazine, and the other by this gorgeous new fabric from Liberty.

FAT QUARTERS FROM LIBERTY’S NEW GIFTS FROM THE GARDEN RANGE, TOPPED OFF WITH A TULA PINK FREESPIRIT CHARM PACK

The main pile of fat quarters is the new ‘Gifts from the Garden’ range from Liberty and they’re full of ‘cheerful florals, fruity prints, orchard charm’ and the email where I fell in love with them optimistically suggested they’d be great for my next project. Well they will be a project and used together at some point, but I suspect it won’t be my next one!

Not only do I love the fabrics - and surprise, surprise I couldn’t choose between the colourways - I also love their names. The pinks are called Jam Jar, the yellows Lemonade Stand. Then the blues are Orchard Breeze, with the orange selection as Marmalade Market. I know that the quilt that these make with be filled with zing and colour.

In the photo they’re topped off by a charm pack of Tula Pink’s Freespirit fabrics and I’ll use these 5 inch squares for the applique project I spoke about last month. I’m still planning how to make that happen, but ideas are percolating.

I’ve also added to my scraps and reuse piles this month with nets from the many lemons and limes we seem to be using at the moment, plus there’s a red onion net there too for a different colour. The squares are from our trip to France, they were at the napkins at breakfast at our last hotel and I was intrigued by them, so brought them home. I thought perhaps some embroidery, but then MOH used them for a wine bottle mat, drips and all so at least I now know they can withstand water!

Towards the end of the month I’d booked myself on a workshop to find out how I could make a pattern from clothes I already have. It was a useful day, and I took along a much loved jersey dress which has faded through wear and washing and is now one of those pieces of clothing that you only wear at home.

The tutor helped to make the pattern pieces of the top half, which is the bit that’s the most tricky - the skirt is just straight, so even I can manage that I hope, even though it does have pockets inserted into the seam. And so now I have to try it out - or make a toile - at home. A while back I’d bought some material from the market stall in Newark who was closing down, but I don’t want to go straight to that so my plan is to use the grey and orange striped material in the image below.

This whole pile of fabric came from the Gedling Play Forum a not-for-profit community scrapstore, fabric room and play forum, which for us is on the way to Nottingham, and who had organised the pattern drafting workshop. By joining I could access their scrapstore and fabric room (there’s a very reasonably priced craft shop on the site for non-members) and left with this pile of fabric, which including annual membership cost me £16.

Of course I have plans for it, well all apart from the ribbon which just called my name! The orange and grey striped fabric I’ll use to test out the top half of my new hand drawn pattern, and all going well I could end up with a new top! The two blue patterned bundles and the blue herringbone design, along with the roll of continuous zip and the luminous thread I’ll use to make zippered storage bags for our garden cushions so that they can be stored in the garage over the winter, and in the summer when they’re not in use.

Then the gold/bronze geometric fabric, which is quite soft and drapey, I’m thinking that I’d like a dress out of this - which is a bit random, and probably will be the only one of its kind, but it was too gorgeous to leave behind.

The workshop, and subsequent scrapstore visit, inspired these next additions. The dot and cross paper for further pattern creating ventures, the curved rules to help with shaping arm/shoulder pieces and of course necklines.

I think I now also have a lifetime supply of zipper pulls, as even by adding two to each storage bag for a double zippered effect, I’ll still have plenty left. I like the bright colours of these, and have no qualms about them not matching the zip - I mean, look at the thread I’ve chosen for these! My thinking was it’ll be easy to see if I need to rip it out if I go wrong!!

A friend from my sewing group has recently opened a stall at Newark market, and so I went along to be supportive - and did well to leave with just two additions to my fabric pile. The black - an unusual choice for me - is for another potential project, the one I saw in a sewing magazine, and will ultimately be for my greenhouse, bear with me on that one!

And the other? Well once again, text printed on fabric got me - I’ve no plans for this one but will be happy to admire it for a while!

Talking of sewing group, there were more items in their donation/de-stash pile which came home for me for a donation. I’m currently thinking that the gold flowered design might work with the geometric material above, but I need to check that out. Then the pink will be good for some more charity village quilts, and the final two smaller flowered pieces will come in handy at some point, I’m sure.

There was also a bag of patchworking pre-cut and some pre-sewn pieces. I didn’t want to leave someone else’s work behind so these also came home with me. The cut squares were quite an eclectic mix, but could mostly work together - and I’m sure I can do something with these, at some point!

So that’s another month in my craft room, check out my previous updates for earlier additions, and remember to let me know below what you’ve added to your craft supplies this month.

New sofas and pondering paint colours

Back at the start of the year we had a flurry of house improvement type of activity, which included buying and installing the blue chandelier and some new sofas. We’d actually seen the new sofas when we stopped off in Bruton overnight in the December, whilst on the way to visit family in Devon.

Clearly they were meant to be.

MOH pointed the new sofas out in the window of a small showroom, and while he may not have fallen for them immediately, for me it was the sofa I didn’t know I was looking for. It took us a while to decide they were right for us, and after much measuring we took the plunge and ordered two rather expensive sofas.

We didn’t expect them to arrive until around Easter, so we thought we’d have plenty of time to consider our decor, and so the paint charts came out. I’d envisaged our lounge having dark green velvet sofas, and I wanted a relatively dark wall too.

But these sofas were not dark green, though they ticked the velvet box.

A rethink was needed.

I was still keen on green though, and the small show room in Bruton were really helpful pointing us towards greens that would work with the sofas we’d chosen. So we worked our way through various paint charts but mainly sticking to the Farrow & Ball colours which we had worked so well for us in our previous home.

Larger samples were ordered of the two that we thought would work best for us, and Farrow & Ball threw a spanner in the works by sending the samples in a green envelope - which was more like the green I’d had in mind originally.

Argh!

GREEN SMOKE, CALKE GREEN AND DIBBER

The Green Smoke was immediately dismissed for being too grey in our room - strangely adding it here confirms that it’s not for us. The Calke Green is still a favourite colour of ours, but not for the lounge so it’s likely that we’ll use that in another room, which leaves Dibber. On its own it isn’t a colour I’d choose, but with the sofa samples it changes from a drib muddy browny-green to something that gives me the darker colour I wanted, and goes brilliantly with our sofa samples.

The bigger challenge is choosing a white which goes with it as having these larger samples has shown that the builder’s bright white kills this colour, and it needs a softer white. The same goes for the Calke Green, builder’s bright white isn’t the match. And while on the Farrow & Ball site they give options for whites which match their colours, there isn’t a common white for both of the colours we think we’ll use in our downstairs decorating.

We don’t need - or want - three different colour whites in our downstairs, so the hunt for the white which doesn’t subdue the colours is still on. It’s harder than choosing the colours, I’m sure.

Our hunt was cut short by an earlier than expected sofa delivery, they arrived at the end of February taking us quite by surprise.

But looking good. So very good.

As you can see we still have the builder’s white on the walls, but life got in the way a bit and we will get the walls painted at some point, just as soon as we’ve found the white that works with both - and booked the decorator!

My garden in June

Gardens, or rather watering or lack of, is always a worry when I’m off on holiday, and I ended last month doing as much as I could to prepare my plants, especially those which hadn’t been planted out of their garden centre pots, for my time away. I don’t know if my plan of digging the pot half into the flower beds would work or not, but luckily for my plants it rained a fair bit while we were away, so when I got back everything looked quite healthy. Phew.

When I’m back from holiday I do like to have a walk around the garden and see how everything’s coped. I wasn’t disappointed, well apart from the weeds. Not only were there more weeds in my lawn (note it’s now my lawn since I’ve been tasked with cutting it!) but they had the audacity to flower!

The amaryllis with the hollowed out stem produced another flower, but still needed the wall for support. It’s amazing how battered and eaten it looks, but how it’s still programmed to flower. Hopefully I’ll have more luck with them next year, and less bugs.

The lavender throughout the garden, but especially in the outside border, really came into its own. Apart from the lavender bush that didn’t.

That’ll need dealing with, as no amount of positive thinking is going to bring that back!

The phormium, also in the outer border, was still flowering. These didn’t seem to open any further before dying back, so I think that’s what it does, apart from looking very dramatic and beautiful that is.

The tomatoes were all doing well, and there were signs of the teeny-tiniest fruits starting to form - I told you it had rained a fair bit, and while I was glad I’m sure most people weren’t.

The dahlias had also formed small flower buds, and I was looking forward to seeing what colours the four plants would bring - would they all be the same, or would I be lucky and get different colours. The colour reveal is coming later on in this post. The roses needed dead heading, and the bees continued to enjoy the lavender wherever they could find it.

The rhubarb which I planted last month was thriving, no doubt making the most of the rain and its shady spot. The plants in pots I’d dug in (some are visible above the rhubarb) also looked healthy, though the one on the right had greener leaves than when I’d left. They had previously been a dark purple, so I’m not sure if they need a sunnier spot to perform that trick - I’ll need to read the label again.

The dark flowered iris was just about hanging on, and as ever the lady’s mantle was looking glorious with its raindrops. I needn’t have worried, but I think it would have been a completely different story if the warm weather (let alone the heatwave) had continued while we were away. Typically the first few days we were home the weather wasn’t that great either, but I could see there was plenty to be done in the garden, but I was hopeful the rain would subside.

It did of course, and I managed to snap a couple of almost autumnal looking photos in the next few days, it was only the middle of June so I hoped autumn wasn’t closer than it should be.

Since we’ve been back from France I’ve been surprised by my pink jasmine, which we brought with us from London. It was originally a very small plant that I’d ordered from the Gardeners’ World Magazine way before I’d even thought about visiting a Gardeners’ World Show, let alone run competitions for them.

For the first time since we moved, it flowered. It’s been in a pot for a while, even for a while when we were in London, so I’ve really no idea why it was grumpy following our move, but it seems to have come to terms with Nottinghamshire life and has treated us to the prettiest pink jasmine flowers. I haven’t quite told it yet that at some point it might move out of its pot…

Both of our olive trees were also in flower this month, and they’re not shy about it either. Neither of them, perhaps MOH will be able to think about his olive oil production after all?!

After spending time nosing about gardens both in France and in the UK since we’d returned I got an urge to sow some seeds, which I haven’t had for quite a while. I don’t have a greenhouse space but I quickly realised that our old garden table could provide just the space I was after. And so far it’s worked pretty well, with an adjustment or two.

The first dahlia flowered and it was the most gorgeous cerise pink, what joy. That flower died back, only to be replaced with two more blooms from the same plant. The others look like they will flower soon, so now I’m putting my money on them all being this gorgeous colour, but I may be wrong.

I’d noticed that the hellebore was self-seeding into the gravel, and I wanted to keep as many of these as I could. MOH was banned from weeding this section of the gravel, and I could see him itching to tidy it up, so one afternoon I set myself up with a kneeler, a seed tray and had an enjoyable afternoon transplanting these small plants. Not all of them made it into a seed tray, as not all of them had what I deemed sufficient roots when I pulled them up, but I’m hoping those that I did will provide plenty of free plants. What’s not to like?

I also filled another seed tray with some self seeded lady’s mantle and a few lavender plants which were also happily growing away in the gravel. The weather warmed up again and I realised that my makeshift seed table also came with a built in shade provider so when the weather was at its warmest - thanks heatwave number two of the year - the seeds and the transplanted plants spent their time underneath the table.

One of my succulents has been enjoying the hotter weather more than me and has treated us to a pale yellow flower, which is both delicate and peculiar at the same time. It’s also grown out of the mother plant by about six inches so struggles to keep itself up, so you have to duck down to see its flower.

Our peace lily houseplant, which was a moving in gift from one of our new neighbours, was looking rather sorry for itself so I decided to repot it. Then once it was out of the pot, I decided to cut it in half and make it into two plants. The roots were really dense, and it’s the first time I’ve needed to saw a rootball to split it. Both halves seem to be doing well, and let’s face it they have a lot more soil than they’ve probably ever had, so hopefully in a month or so they’ll be back to their best.

This smoke bush has made us smile many times this month. It’s just a large ball of fluff, which from certain angles looks like it really could be one of those poodles with the fancy clippings.

The buddleia has grown and grown and is almost back to the height it was when I trimmed (/hacked) it back a month or so ago. It’ll need another cut before the end of the summer, but not right now as it’s bringing all the butterflies into the garden. As is I’m sure my two beautiful dahlias!

It’s amazed me to see just how much the newly planted rhubarb has grown in a month - this is it mid June, and since then it’s got proper blush rhubarb stalks on it. Sadly we won’t be eating those this year, we’ll let them die back naturally so that the plant can retain its strength, but next year will be crumbletastic.

We’ve got the promise of a strawberry or two on the new plants which I picked up at the Newark Garden Show back in April, whether or not they’ll come to anything who knows, but the promise of future strawberries is good enough for me right now.

Every so often this month I’ve poked my head into the small crab apple tree to check on progress, and there are apples so that’s good. There’s also a lot of growth from it’s hard trim, so I think I may need to give it a trim every year, just not as much, rather than leaving it to alternate years.

Oh, and that lavender bush that needed dealing with? We dealt with it. Most of it was very dead, some of the stems at the base were rotting and others snapped as they were so dry, so it really wasn’t happy. It’s odd as part of the bush had managed to do its thing, and the centre part I left hopeful that it will survive.

There were two other sections which while it looked dead in the centre had flowers and fresh growth. They looked a bit daft left on, so we cut those off too and quite a lot of the flowers ended up in a vase in the kitchen, and some more will hopefully provide even more free plants.

I’m also hoping that the free plants from the gravel, whether that’s the hellebores or lady’s mantle, or even some of the lavender will grow on enough to help fill in some of the gap above - though they have a bit of growing to do yet.

And if I had a greenhouse I could do more pottering, seed sowing and bring more cuttings on - and so I’ve taken the plunge and ordered a small greenhouse. I’ve pondered over it for quite a while, and while its ordered it’s on a six month delay which quite honestly suits me just fine.

I’ll leave you with this top down image of one of the sea holly’s which I hope will flower soon. Hopefully there’ll be an update on what it does in next month’s update, but before then no doubt I’ve got some weeding to do.