Dark side of the bloom

* I was invited to this year’s Gardeners’ World Live preview and provided with a pair of tickets for the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

This is a garden for music lovers, and was designed by Antony Massie who admitted to once being ‘a moody teenager with smudged eyeliner, a guitar in hard and dreams of becoming a global rock star, not a gardener.” He also said that his 18 year old self on hearing that he’d fall in love with plants would probably turn up the volume, and laugh.

But his younger self’s loss is our gain as this garden is fabulous, using deep purples and moody foliage (and at least one of those was another band wasn’t it?) and a winding path in the shape of a bass clef are more nods to the music the designer loves.

His garden reimagines the pace he might have designed as an aspiring rock star - dark, dramatic and full of creative energy. Enjoy!

Isn’t it a delightful space?

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for once again inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was another great show! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to this year’s show throughout the year - I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Beautiful buttons at the Newark Wool Show

I’ve shared my purchases from the Newark Wool Show, which I was pleased mostly were on the list I’d mentally made before the show, even taking more wool with me (for colour matching purposes) than I bought at the show! A first I’m sure, and not one that I will repeat too often, there was so much nice wooly-ness there that while it’s good it’s coming back next year, it will also be quite dangerous and I need to up my wool game in the meantime.

That aside one of the stalls that I spent a fair time perusing but not making any purchases at (well yet anyway) was Jo Hunter’s Wearable Art. I was mesmerised by the buttons, and no doubt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice - but without a project needing buttons anywhere near in sight I took a few pictures to remind myself of their beauty, and resolved to match them to a not yet started project.

They’re not cheap - and nor should they be as each is handcrafted, but I was (and still am) seriously in love with Jo’s polymer clay buttons - and it’s true, each one really is a mini piece of art, don’t you agree?

Post Comment Love 16 - 18 October

Hello there, welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they may be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

It’s been an unusually, but much needed, quiet week here. We’ve caught up on jobs here, unboxed what we think could be the last few boxes from our house move in the garage (I know!) and generally getting the space more organised and ready to store our garden furniture over the winter. The grass has been cut - thankfully not by me! - and we’ve enjoyed the unexpected warm temperatures, though not the wind so much.

There’s been much tidying and cleaning, and I’ve given my craft room a bit of a reset and reorganised the desktops a little, as I realised I was avoiding using my overlocker because it was too much of a faff to pull out. So that’s back out again, but not too prominently, and I’ll see if this position works better for it and me. The reset has given me a longer run of space, which could come in useful as I’ve finally talked myself into finishing the block of the month quilt from last year - it’s large so needs some extra space.

All this also means I’ve taken very few pictures, but one of the ones I do have is of the pig garland for my crochet group’s upcoming tree dressing event. I spent some time working out how to add the snout and ears (using crochet and knitting respectively), and I think it works. Though of course when do googly eyes not work!

Have a great week.

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