Falling for Tula Pink's Parisville Deja Vu

It’s been a while since I’ve started on a brand new craft project, I’ve been trying (and mostly failing) to finish some of the ones I already have on the go. And then I packed up all my craft stuff before my carpal tunnel surgery in June, we moved house and while I’m getting there sorting out my new craft room, I haven’t really done anything new, until now.

I was really taken with the English Paper Piecing (EPP) patchwork I saw at the Stitch Festival back in Spring, but the thing that stopped me buying a kit then was the concern that my hands would misbehave and go numb while I was sewing, which had happened a fair bit with my cross stitch - and was probably the thing that tipped me into going to the doctors to get them seen to.

I remember making, or attempting to make a hexie patchwork throw when I was a teenager, shortly after we moved house, for my new bedroom. The colours were pale pinks and greys to match my newly decorated room. You’ll not be surprised to learn that it took me a while, and I’m not sure it ever got finished, or what happened to it - I wish I’d kept it now though!

But anyway many years later, another house move and after successful carpal tunnel surgery, I found myself browsing through the Tula Pink materials and kits. I’ve been influenced by my SIL on the Tula Pink front, which I’m thankful for, and I love the bright colours. No surprises there.

So that’s how I found myself the proud owner of a couple of the Tula Pink Parisville Deja Vu Hexy kits. Two because I had no plan, and so I wanted to make sure I had enough, for my no plans, and to avoid another set of shipping costs if I needed more at any point in the future.

AREN’T THEY GORGEOUS?

I was hoping a plan would present itself. And it did.

As I was sorting through and getting straighter in my craft room I realised my sewing box and the pigeon shelves could do with a bit of a revamp. Back in 2016 they were both painted a grey-green colour which was great for our last house, but not so much for our new one.

Our new house has much less colour in it - all the walls are white, which surprisingly I really like, and the other dominant colours are charcoal grey and oak. That means there’s plenty of scope to add colour in our furnishings, which is where my plan started to develop.

I plan to paint both the sewing box and shelves a dark grey - I’ve not found one I like enough yet, but I’m still looking (loosely) and I know it’s out there. As before, I want the insides of my sewing box to contrast with the outside, and I’ve got bright yellow and bright pink in my mind.

I’ll need to recover the top too, and a pop of colour is just what is needed. And one that I’ve put together myself from my new hexy kits, will be just the thing, especially if I actually get it finished!

To paraphrase the A Team, I love it when my no plans come together!

Maximising my shipping costs

While I was browsing, and to make the USA shipping costs truly efficient I also ordered a couple of project bags - in truth I could have ordered a whole lot more and they are just as gorgeous. Yes I know there are Tula Pink resellers in the UK, but they didn’t have the items I wanted, so it made sense to maximise those costs. Let’s be clear though, I’m under no illusion that there won’t be future purchases.

The project bags will be really handy - I’m already using the spotty racoon A4 sized one for an embroidery project which is to repair and upcycle a t-shirt of mine. I’ll share more on that soon as it’s nearly done - I finished my original plan, and liked it so much I’ve carried on!

I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before I find the perfect use for the larger of the project bags either - I couldn’t choose between the two designs, proving once again choice is a dangerous thing!

Eight cards making me smile

I’m continuing my quarterly The Card Boys subscription and I’ve even managed to update my address so that the cards come directly to me. We have a post redirection set, and that’s now working as it should - there was a bit of a hiccup getting it set up, so it’s likely that we lost some of our post for three weeks after our move.

And when I say a bit of a hiccup I mean our local delivery office didn’t put the redirection in place, so that wasn’t great! It’s all working now though, and we’ve an additional three weeks tacked onto the end of our paid time period, but we’ll never know exactly what we missed - we know we probably missed some bills, and a car tax reminder - but as we knew to expect these we were able to make arrangements.

What we don’t know, is as always, what we don’t know. And it’s likely we never will. Our former neighbour did pop in to see if there was any abandoned post in our old house and forwarded a letter or two manually, which was good of him, but I’m guessing there can’t have been anything hugely important, or else we’d know by now.

We’ve actually been pretty good at changing our addresses in the many, many places that you discover you need to when you move. I’d written a list (no surprise there!) ahead of our move, and it’s been quite satisfying ticking things off it. Though it wasn’t helped in that some organisations didn’t have the up to date postcode file, so didn’t have our address listed. Even the Royal Mail redirection to start with - that was a bit of a face-plant moment I can tell you!

I’m sharing these summer cards on a drizzly end of August day, a day which feels far from summer - but hopefully it isn’t the end of summer yet, and September will come good with its warm sunny days.

As usual there’s eight cards in the box, and the cards celebrate talented artists. The first for this month definitely has a ‘back to school’ feel doesn’t it? Though it’d also be good for friends who like a spot of mindful colouring.

ARTIST: ARIANA MARTIN

The second impressionist-like image is growing on me. The more I look at the floral border and tree branches, the clearer it becomes and the more I see - it’s definitely one to lose yourself in, and would carry a thoughtful message well.

ARTIST: LAURA BROWN

The cheery elephants on this next card can’t fail to make me smile. I can feel the warmth radiating from the image, and the coolness of the water as it’s splashed around - how a picture can conjure up those feelings always amazes me.

ARTIST: LAURA BARNES

ARTIST: ARIANA MARTIN

The next two are both colourful - a flower covered ditsy image and a cheery musical note wishing a happy birthday. I know I’ll use these, but in the meantime they’ll join my card stash waiting their turn.

ARTIST: GRACE CHILTON

ARTIST: ALICE HUMPHREYS

I like both of the flower in vases designs - and it’s quite a mainstay of these boxes, which is good for me. I find the cards can be used for many occasions, and are really quite flexible - as well as beautiful. It’s hard to let them go at times.

ARTIST: CLARA BOOTH

This month this birthday cake card is my favourite. I’m imagining it’s pink blancmange, wibble-wobbling on the plate! Again it’s another one that’s evoking feelings and making me smile. I’m not even sure blancmange is still a thing, it’s probably now called posset or mousse or something, who knows?

ARTIST: ARIANA MARTIN

So another box of great cards. I saw on The Card Boys Instagram page that they’re hosting a giveaway for a box of cards, which is open until 4 September, so if you want to be in with a chance pop over there and enter - good luck!

My (new) garden in July

The subtitle for this post could be, and now for something entirely different!

If you follow me on social media, or have read posts here recently then you’ll know that at the start of July we moved house. It’s been a long time coming, but that’s for another post, and it’s also meant a brand new garden. And brand new is a pretty good description of it too. Our new house is a new build, and so the garden is very different from that of our old house:

• Here we have some very young trees, rather than the well established trees we had before.

• Similarly where our garden was long and narrow, here it’s much wider but not as deep though it is still a good size. MOH says that every time he looked at the garden when we were viewing the house, it got bigger! And there is much more lawn for him to cut here.

• We do have a rather nice wall at the rear boundary of our garden, we have one wooden fence (rather than the many panels we had before) and there’s another brick wall to the front.

I’m sure there’s more differences too - I mean, I don’t even know what soil type we have yet - but no doubt it won’t be too long before I discover more. But let’s start at the beginning with move day.

I was quite clear which plants and pots I wanted to bring with me, and I don’t think it was as many as perhaps MOH thought. I was also clear which I was bringing for the plants, and which for the pots and in some cases both. I’d planned ahead (and in some cases well ahead) by putting plants into pots. The peonies were potted up into pots at the end of last summer, and the dogwoods went straight into pots never actually making it into the soil at our previous garden. The rhubarb had remained in a pot since we brought it back from the allotment, and with no space for it it was doing its best to survive.

At one point when the move got tricky and more complicated than either of us ever contemplated, I emptied some pots which had bedding plants from the year before in. Solely because empty pots would cope better with a period in storage if it came to it, and if I needed to make temporary arrangements for the pots with live plants then it would be easier to do. In the end it didn’t come to that, but it was really close, and with my right hand out of action I was glad I’d made some advance provision just in case.

The plants (and empty pots) which came with us were lined up along the main planted area of our new garden. And most haven’t moved very far from there since. We’re starting to get out into the garden now, but as with any move, there’s always a lot to do and most of that is naturally in the house.

When I said our garden couldn’t be more different, this is what I meant:

Yes, quite different isn’t it? It’s not quite as stark as that though!

MOH thought I’d reject this house based solely on the garden, but he hadn’t realised how big the planted bed by the vehicle entrance was, or the appeal and challenge of starting a garden from scratch. So it was far from being rejected, it will take a little time to decide what to do, and to make it all work. But already we both think the move was worth it.

The planted bed, which is both inside and outside of the brick wall is quite large and it’s here that will keep me busy for a little while as the plants have enjoyed growing freeform for a year or so. Some have failed completely, and some have thrived. I recognise some, can name others and will need to observe some more to see what they do, as that will help identify them - and of course there’s always the plant identifier apps should I need them.

In June’s garden update I said how the hares appeared to be edging ever closer to the house curious and anxious about the move, well they are still enjoying pride of place on the edge of the new patio. I’m used to seeing them there now, but for the first week or so we both kept doing double takes thinking there was an animal out there looking for food.

This is the view from the kitchen/living area of the hares and the garden beyond. It really is quite calming, though I’m not totally sure the hares are enjoying their more exposed position given the wind, rain and sun they’ve experienced since arriving.

The removal team moved a few of the larger pots straight into position for me which was really helpful. The acer was definitely in the plant and pot category, and is now enjoying pride of place outside our back (front) door. I say back (front) door, the door is at the back, but it’s used like a front door. See, it didn’t take me that long to go ‘all country’ did it? Our actual front door, which is as tradition dictates on the front of the house, is used primarily for post and deliveries.

The olive tree, which was previously up against a fence and in front of the mock orange, now has access to 360 degrees of sunlight and it’s thriving. In fact even more so since I took this photo. I’d given it a small trim ahead of the move to remove any branches which look potentially vulnerable and to give it a (slightly) more uniform shape - well as uniform as it could be with the back so bald. This one was definitely in the plant not pot category, the shape is good but the paintwork has been peeling for a good few years, but now it’s here it’s growing on me.

A visit to mum and dad’s meant we left with the plant that dad had been growing for me. We think it’s a nectarine, which dad planted the stone from. This is it after eighteen months, so it’s given a good return on the care vested in it. Now it was here, all I needed to do was the same, the only thing was we hadn’t even started opening greenhouse or shed boxes, so my first job was to find my gardening tools.

I found them eventually, they were in one of the last few boxes we opened. Typically. But thankfully everything was all together - we made use of the packing service available and some things have ‘jumped rooms’ as we’ve unpacked boxes, so it’s been quite a discovery at times. (Though generally it was worth it, and nowhere near as expensive as I imagined it to be - especially when looked at as a percentage of the removal costs in general, and with there being a relatively short period to pack everything, and to do that without a right hand made the whole decision a no brainer for us).

With my tools and a bonus trug found instead of getting this into a pot I left it in a trug of water overnight for a long soak. It was - and still is - temporarily lodged within the trellis area to give it some protection from the winds, which have been quite un-July-like (as has the weather generally).

But finally it was in the largest pot I had, with new (newly bought) compost, a new stake and its branches untied. I’ve also taken off some of the intermediary branches, as I have an idea that training it espalier-like will be a good idea, and if I’m lucking planting it in front of the wall. I didn’t bring any of the tall 6ft canes with me, so I’ll need to get some of those, but my plan is to make it a frame similar to those you can see on the left in the photo below (those trees aren’t mine, sadly).

I’ve no idea what the soil is like in the garden, and especially in front of the wall - and at some point I will discover whether it’s a typical new build or if it’s farm heritage will stand me in at least some stead, or not. But that’s definitely for another day, and it’s likely this may need potting on into a larger pot in the interim too.

I’ve long known buddleias to be attractive to bees and butterflies, but boy, it’s not something I’d experienced first hand. Until now. they love this bush, which while on the other side of our wall is still our garden. I think it’s a self-seeded bush though which gives me a dilemma - it’s great for wildlife, but is growing so close to one of the young trees and is already close to swamping it. There’s no other buddleias in the planted areas, and many of the other plants are duplicated, which leads me to believe it’s self-seeded, but as I said, it’s been full of butterflies and bees. So much so that we often see ‘drunk’ butterflies having a snooze in the gravel, so losing it would be a big loss.

My plan is to wait until the flowers die off, then to cut it back with the intention of repotting it - aiming to save it and bring it onto this side of the wall so that it can continue to service the wildlife. And if it doesn’t survive, then I’ve the offer of other self-seeded plants to try, and failing that I’m sure I could source one in a local garden centre.

Now that my gardening tools had been unearthed (pun intended) I was keen to get among the planted area to see what was there exactly and to restore some kind of order. Not much, admittedly but I’ve started on the inner bed to bring some exuberant plants back under control and to stop them dominating those close by.

We have plants that have enjoyed the freedom to grow wherever, and some which haven’t enjoyed being grown over quite so much. Some have failed completely, which is no surprise given the extremes of temperatures we’ve had over the past year, and some like these elephant ears are just about hanging on.

There are another couple of clumps in this area, so they’re clearly fine with the garden generally, but for whatever reason this clump wasn’t so successful. But wouldn’t you know it, the elephant ears are the only plant I brought with me which were already planted here - what were the chances of that? So this clump will soon be making friends with those from London.

MOH has started to think about cutting the grass now, it’s very much his domain and I’m more than happy for it to be. One morning though we spotted some white/beige things on the grass, thinking initially they were leaves but realising we don’t have the trees we had before, and nor are there any that close by where these could have come from. And even if they could, they wouldn’t be brown just yet. Closer inspection identified them as mushrooms, we’re not knowledgeable enough to know if they’re edible or not, and without expert knowledge it’s not something I’d try either.

The one small tree that we have in the lawned area of the garden is this small crab apple. I think dad’s disappointed it’s not a proper apple tree, but crab apples can be useful too. We had one before on the allotment, that one was large, old and quite out of control but it produced a good crop. I’m hoping as this one is so young - and currently laden with fruits - that we’ll be able to make use of them, and control how it grows. Crab apple jelly goes with most things right?!

The largest pot I brought was the rhubarb. It had been in this pot since we brought it back from the allotment, and it didn’t have a great position in our last garden and so it didn’t thrive. Here though, it’s another of our plants which is doing really well, the stems are the thickest they’ve been for years, and so many more of them too. We may even get to eat a few this year, they’re that good.

I plan to plant this into the border into one of the spots which had a failed plant, but I’m just working out which one and if it’s large enough. It’s not the right time to move this now, so I’ve some time yet though once it’s moved it may mean a year of not pulling the stems, but one more year won’t make that much of a difference.

We also don’t have a greenhouse here. I have plans for a very small greenhouse at some point, but not yet as we want to see what the garden brings, and work out the best place for what I have in mind and even if we can incorporate a space for growing vegetables - I’ve a space in mind, which is small but could work though I need to work out if the practice matches up with the theory!

However just the small amount of gardening I’ve done this month has made me realise just how much I enjoy, and how good it is to potter, so I’ve set up my greenhouse staging in the garage for some impromptu ‘greenhousing’ - and while there’s clearly not the light there, the warmth of the sun through the garage doors will be ideal for helping seeds to germinate ahead of something more permanent.

But that’s what gardens give you right? The incentive to plan, grow and change - and to enjoy both the fruits (and vegetables and flowers) of your labour, and the headspace being in nature brings. So far from being a garden that disincentivised me, it’s one that’s opened so many possibilities, and many more plans!

But neither are something to be rushed, and that’s ok.