The Gardeners Yard at Scampston Hall

I said in an earlier post in this series that there’s nothing better on a garden gate than a sign welcoming you in, especially when it’s an invite into a working part of the garden, which for me is just as interesting as the more public facing aspects of a garden.

So it was great to be so warmly welcomed into the Gardeners Yard and their polytunnel, which even though it was a proper working space still looked pretty with the pink flowers on the right growing up against the bend of the tunnel’s outer covering.

I’m always interested to see the compost area, and this one was pretty sizeable, as you’d expect for a larger garden. I like the open bay approach to these compost ‘bins’ but clearly I won’t need anywhere near as big in my own garden - and where to site that is a bit of a headache too.

At the far end of the Gardeners Yard was the Arid House and as you can see many of the plants were enjoying the sun when we visited, and with my own growing collection of succulents I was keen to see the leaf shapes, the sizes of pots used and how the pots were organised.

And also I thought to myself that I should keep an eye out for my own stone trough, as these look great in that don’t they?

The Arid House wasn’t actually open but I did my best to get a shot through the window and to imagine the temperature inside.

And as we left the Gardeners Yard behind us I was reminded just how much I love, and how beautiful, the aeoniums are. I need more of these, though I need to learn how to overwinter them properly as my single plant is looking decidedly sorry for itself. There’s always something to learn when we’re gardening though isn’t there?

Exploring the Walled Gardens at Scampston Hall

When we arrived at Scampston Hall we discovered that there are actually twelve gardens within the walled garden, which is way too many to share in one post so I’ll share some here, some later and some of them in individual posts, like I did earlier in the week with our look at the Potager.

The individual gardens also form a rough route around the garden, though we didn’t follow the gardens in number order as well structure is good, but gardens are best wandered through, right?

But let’s start with a wander down the Plantsman’s Walk which led us along the length of the garden, along an avenue of limes and plenty of flowers, colour and glorious sunlight - and it was a great way to introduce us to the garden.

The garden notes suggest there’s plenty to see in spring, summer and autumn - and that’s one of the joys of a well planted and thought out garden, and one of the worries I have for my own garden. Scampston looked great when we visited in the autumn and I’d be keen to visit again to see it at other times of the year.

As we turned the corner of the Plantsman’s Walk we got our first glimpse of the second garden I’m sharing in this post, the Drifts of Grass. There’s swathes of grasses which form the design of the garden, and when you’re centre on you can really appreciate the symmetry of the garden, and elegant though it was after the Plantsman’s Walk it did feel incredibly minimalist.

After enjoying the grasses, and admiring the wooden boxy chairs (you can just see in them in the bottom of the photo above) we headed around to the left and into the Cut Flower garden passing by with the greenhouse behind us.

The cut flower garden wasn’t as I expected, it had many circular flower beds stretching down its length, and on the edges were the most laden of fruit trees. I hadn’t expected it to be so, well park-like - I’d expected something much more functional, so I was pleasantly surprised.

It seems that Scampston too was enjoying a lot of fruit on their trees, it wasn’t just my little crab apple tree that was heavily laden, which was reassuring. As well as plenty of pears, there were damsons and apples galore - it was going to be quite a harvest, and quite a year for crumbles, jellies and jams I’m sure.

The dahlias were still out, and these dinner plate sized ones were just spectacular. I do really need to make sure I add some of these to my plant wish list, as every time I see them I’m smitten.

I told you we were lucky with the weather, and especially the sun - but how glorious does this Cosmos look bathed in the sunlight?

So there’s our first exploration of the walled gardens, though we’ve only covered three of the gardens today, four in total with the Potager - I thought we’d see more today, but don’t worry we will in a week or so. Until then, let’s hope we get similar sunlight (albeit spring sun) into our own gardens.

An impromptu Flying Geese tote

A couple of weekends ago I didn’t make it along to my patchwork group as planned - it’s a long story, but water in your heat pump isn’t a good thing as we discovered, and so our morning was a little disrupted trying to sort that out. It seems it was a morning for disruptions as there was also some confusion getting into the village hall for the patchwork group too, they did get in but I decided to stay home instead of arriving a fair bit later, and so I had my own ‘sew day’ - which was fabulous.

I’d already decided to test out my Flying Geese rulers to see if this method worked better for me, and I stuck with that. I’d made some Flying Geese way back for my first charity quilt, and while on the whole that method worked, it wasn’t foolproof and some of my geese had an extra piece of fabric at their point. As I’m planning to make a larger quilt full of these blocks I wanted to perfect my approach.

A first attempt, then progress

I’d pulled some fabrics from my stash which included the leftover fabric from the first vinyl fronted pouches I made and some plains: the blue from one of MOH’s old work shirts (and my Stars and Spots charity quilt) and the grey from an old duvet cover which I’ve used in multiple charity quilts already.

My first attempt wasn’t so good!

I misinterpreted the instructions, and so I went again. This time with a lot more success, thankfully or else it would have been a long and frustrating day!

And then I couldn’t stop. Geese of almost every size appeared alongside those first attempts, which I think have a certain charm, and which I was also keen to keep, and use somehow. Having accomplished my plan of successfully using my Flying Geese rulers, and sooner than I expected I needed a new plan before I became overrun with geese.

A new plan

I could have started on my long awaited Teal Flying Geese quilt, but I was keen to avoid abandoning my test geese. With a flash of inspiration I boldly decided to make a small tote bag, like you do.

With the layouts decided, and an extra strip here and there and a few more geese summonsed to the fray, I had a sort-of plan and some potential bag shaped pieces. At this point my sewing got even more experimental when I decided to sew strips of the fabric together to make patchwork effect geese (look at the two end geese on the long piece above to see how they worked).

I think my favourite one is where I’ve incorporated the selvedge with the fabric’s name, but also an important message re saving bees.

Those wonky geese still make me smile!

And so does the very 1970s lilac material I chose for the bag’s lining. I’m sure we had duvet covers that were similar back then, most likely yellow, orange, blue and pink variants, but not lilac. This material I picked up at a stash sale became it reminded me of those long ago duvet covers, and it’s perfect for this project too.

At this point I was just hoping that my very rough plan for assembling the bag would work. I’d used ‘soft and stable’ bag lining for the longest piece - I bought it for another project which I haven’t got to yet, but thankfully have enough for this as well - and leftover quilt wadding for the bag’s sides.

Using plenty of clips I proved my construction theory - the bag stands on its own thanks to the soft and stable, and the insert piece was the right size. I really do love it when a plan, and an impromptu one at that, comes together!

I’d even thought to add an internal pocket, and impressed myself by not actually quilting it in place. Instead adding it after the quilting, hand sewing it in place. It’s a big pocket though and to avoid it gaping I added a popper, lilac on the inside and blue on the outside.

Two needles down

Having tested out quilting and sewing together scraps of the bag lining, I was ready to actually construct the bag. First piece joined successfully, the second piece less so.

Clunk. Broken needle.

After much searching I cleared the broken needle, including some that remained in the bag’s seams. I was ready to go again, with my new needle.

Clunk. Broken needle. Again.

This time I was back up and running much quicker, but decided to skip the bit that was giving me trouble, which was thankfully right at the bottom of the bag (I hand stitched the inch I skipped later), and then the second piece was joined and I had the body of my bag.

New needles were ordered, and two straps were made. Instinctively I used interfacing on the bag’s straps before sewing them into tubes and turning them through, and I caught myself smiling when I realised how far I’d come since my bag making course. Back then I wouldn’t have thought to use interfacing, let alone know which to use or be able to identify fusible interfacing from the sew in type.

(FYI fusible interfacing has small bobbles or glue dots on one side, make sure that’s on your fabric, not your iron!)

Straps made, and thankfully both still the same length, they were attached to the body, and my bag was made. It took me longer than a day to complete, even allowing for dithering.

I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out, and while it’s not huge it’s perfect for what I wanted. And that ‘save the bees’ selvedge, well that worked out pretty well too.

With those ‘Flying Geese’ rulers mastered, there’s a very strong chance that my Teal Flying Geese quilt could be up next!