Giveaway Winners!

Using a random number generator, the winners of the seeds are comment 1 and 5 -tyarastarchild and Greenpixey!  Congratulations!  Drop me an email or ravelry message with your details, and I'll get them in the post to you both :)  Big thanks to those begged to come over from Ravelry to enter ;)

Despite the weather forecaster's threats, it is beautiful and sunny here again today which makes it all the more annoying that I'm about to go off to work.  

I'm also working on a couple more patterns to share, the first of which makes Douwe Egberts coffee jars woolly....

Edited to add that I've sent messages to tyarastarchild through her blog and on ravelry, but had no response from her.  I've hung on for two weeks, but as these seeds do need to be sown soon for this year's harvest, I've returned to the random number generator to pick another winner.   Congratulations to Psychedelic Elephants - message on its way!

Spring Crafting

Few crafty projects to share :)  Fancied doing something with a needle and thread for a change, so I revisited my old love of cross stitching to make a rabbity lavender sachet.  Was rather difficult to get a decent photo of it as the thread colour matches the aida, but here it is!

For my crochet fix, I chose a flower to hook from Bonita patterns.  It's her Croco Flower available for free.  It looks like a big yarny mess when you've finished hooking it, but once the petals have been smoothed down, it's sooo pretty!  I edged each stitch with 2 single crochet stitches in embroidery thread to make the rainbow effect.  I think it would look gorgeous with a charcoal yarn as the main colour, so a future project in store!

Lastly, I've been working a rather daft knitting project for a few days, which helps satisfy my need to cover everything with yarn!  Lucy over at Attic24 handily published a free heart pattern this week which was just what I needed to complete this project!

I used the pattern to make leaves - don't they make perfect plump ones?  And this is what I attached them to.....

A clock!  It's a modern reproduction of a 1940s kitchen clock, but it had enamelled sides in a really odd cream colour - it was a cold cream, rather than warm and just didn't look right against the magnolia walls.

I covered the clock with a k3, p1 ribbed sleeve, with an eyelet edge, hooked some strawberry flowers and knitted lots of strawberries to decorate it with.  It's been up on the wall for a couple of days, leafless and without the strawberry "seeds" until I finally worked out what was missing!  Seeds are embroidery thread french knots - lots of them.

I'm really pleased with how this has turned out and a good way to mark 200 projects on Ravelry!

How are you celebrating the change of Seasons?

Free Seeds Giveaway!

It's been such a gorgeous day here - Spring is well and truly arriving :)  I've been pottering around outside and planted up loads more seeds ready for this season's harvest of pretties and noms.  I've been happily flicking through seed packets seeing which are ready to be sown now, and which ones I need to be patient with for a little longer.  There is something magical about seed packets with their glorious pictures of "when I grow up" on the front.

Anyway, amongst them I found some I'm not going to plant - either because I already have a zillion packets (rocket) or because I've already planted a different variety (tomatoes) or because I really don't like the finished veg enough to grant it precious soil space (sprouts!).  They came with the seed potatoes last year, need sowing by the end of April and are good until 2012.

The seeds are: Wild Rocket, Tomato (Moneymaker), Tomato (Gardener's Delight) and Brussel Sprouts (Falstaff - a purple variety).

Um.  I took a picture of them for you.  But my mind was still thinking "must plant more" instead of "clean table up a bit, remove coffee mug which I was unable to carry from kitchen to garden without spilling before taking pictures".  Sorry.  It's my favourite coffee mug too, and very apt ;)

(ooooh, Blogger has finally altered photo-shoving-in tool to shove them in where cursor is rather than dumping them all at the top of the blog!  Wooo!)

I have two sets of each of the 4 packets of seeds to give away.  As they're seeds, you need to be in the UK to enter.  Just leave a comment and I'll do a random drawing at the end of the week.  Make sure you leave some way of letting me contact you.

I feel a bit nervous doing this - not sure if anyone apart from the lovely Anita stops by here on a regular basis!

Right, back to the garden to clean up after myself!

Edited to add - thank you to the Ravelers who've come to my rescue on this one!