Amaryllis watch

These are the last of the Amaryllis flowers for this winter. Double Red Dragon. We had a second stalk of the Double Dancing Queen which finished last week and this the the second of the stalks for the red ones. The other doubles all had 3 flowers, but this had 4.  Dancing Queen was slightly frilly and a few were triple flowers. Red Dragon was fairly straight and also had a few triple flowers.

Like it really matters! But I like them

Plaid dress finish!

This week has been a bit of upheaval because we had some windows replaced.
However, I did finish a project last week.
At the start of January, while I was still recovering from being poorly, I decided to start a winter dress from this pink plaid.  However, my brain wasn’t quite up to snuff. I must have had some idea of some interesting thing going on with a front opening, because I cut the back on the fold. And not remembering what the idea was, the front ended up with a seam.

😩 as hard as I tried, the lines would not match up on the front seam! So, what to do?
I wanted the fabric to be the focus, so I didn’t want lace or trim or even some sort of embroidery down the front. Then I remembered that the selvedge edge had a bit of fringe.
And so, I cobbled the two edges together and voila!

Still about the fabric, yet a slight textural interest if it is noticed. So a somewhat pinafore look winter dress.😁

And how interesting? It seems too big! But I hadn’t prewashed the fabric, so I will see what happens before I take it in. At least there is plenty of room for some layers underneath.
I want to make a plain dark teal dress like it, but I am dithering now because I am not sure I like the fit. Any thoughts?

Amaryllis days

You might remember when I took photos of my amaryllis as they flowered last year. This year we started with the 4 saved ones.  Two were badly damaged by slugs, one more than the other. We had to throw it away. So my husband bought one.  Lion Red...we had one, but last year it only had leaves.
Here is the new one now! It grew very fast and was the first to flower.

After he bought that one, I went to the shops and bought a few more. I knew I didn’t have white or one called Apple Blossom. I also bought Happy Memory, in case the one we had before grew only leaves.
And the same day, he came back with two more! These are meant to have double petals...I think.
So most of the new ones have been growing. I can’t tell yet if we will get any repeat flowers on the old ones.
However, Apple Blossom is flowering finely. Two flower stems and each with 4 flowers!

It didn’t grow as tall as most of the others have.

I do love these flowers! They are overwhelmingly beautiful...and they haven’t got a scent. This is good for me because I cannot breathe when flowers like lilies bloom.

This week’s project

Our church is collecting in shoe boxes, soon, for the Operation Christmas Child appeal. So I have been making some warm scarves for our boxes.

I had fleece left from workshops I did at the Birch Hill library, rediscovered in recent sorting.

These are for the girls

Layer two scarf size pieces and stitch ribbon and trims down the centre. Then cut from edge to the centre about 1in/2cm intervals to make the frilly edge. Be sure not to catch the ribbons in the centre.

And these are for the boys.

I didn’t think they would appreciate frilly scarves, though it is a bit of fun. So I remembered I had a scalloped edge rotary cutter blade. It was too hard to get the layers of fleece cut with a straight edge blade as it somehow ended up raggedy. But I wanted something to finish it nicely. And the scallops work well without being girly.

I Like Thankful Thursday

I like being In...

when this is Out.

I like changing the calendar. I like that March is in like a lion because it means it will go out like a lamb.

I especially like the Maine calendar when it has a sunrise or sunset.

And I like that the second stem of the white amaryllis has finally opened. Just one flower left to open.

I like the challenge LeeAnna has about looking for the things you like, and then to post about them. Lately I haven't got much sewing done, so this is helpful to keep the blog from drying up! and also to make me think about something besides how much my feet/legs/knees/fill-in-the-blank hurts.
Thanks!
To see what the others like today, go to LeeAnna's blog for the links.

I like Thankful Thursday

This week, I am again Very Thankful I live in England. And especially for flowers in the winter.

I took these photos in my garden on New Year's eve. The variegated holly is a welcoming sight.

And the birds like the berries.

These cyclamen are meant to be indoor kind. But I generally just stick them in the ground after their indoor life. and I am amazed at the weather they can cope with! A few there have gone by, but more keep coming.

You can just see that the rose in front is sending up a shoot. But if it comes to anything, it will probably be small and tight.

Snowdrops bravely come, even if the weather has been colder.

I wrote a poem about them a few years ago.

Polyanthus seem to have the ability to have flowers that grow even in winter.

The leaves are quite strong...looks like slugs or something is trying them out.

They get a bit watermarked, but shake off the cold.

Their more fragile looking cousins the Primula, in pale yellow, are one of the harbingers of Spring in the countryside. But these are polyanthus in my garden.


But the main thing about flowers that has helped me in past years to look forward to Spring are that the daffodils poke up their leaves about Christmas!

Even if worse weather comes in Jan or Feb, you see there is a behind the scenes effort going on for Spring to return.

And this time, there were also promises of hyacinths already! They will probably stay like that till it is properly their time, but it is still encouraging.


So, much encouragement for Spring already!

If you want to see more of the I like posts from others, visit Lee Anna's blog.

Already 1 week!

My screen shots from last week.

I love the ones with the silhouettes of the tops of the buildings.

Warm gift

From a Certain Young Man

A piece of warm fleece for making a jumper, to rotate with the few I have, for being warm over the winter.

And a few more flowers in the neighbourhood

The other day I noticed that there were some little white flowers blossoming on one of the shrubs hanging over a fence in our neighbourhood. So, while I am recording what is flowering at the moment, I thought I would get a photo of those too.

I can't quite work out what they are. I know they have had a honeysuckle there in the past, but not that colour. Also they had a winter flowering jasmine, but the flowers for that are a lot smaller. I should have smelled them to get a better clue. Maybe tomorrow.

More flowers in January

Several Polyanthus flowers bravely showing their faces.

I love England...Spring gives hints beginning at Christmas! We even have tulip leaves up about 5 inches! So, now that it is cold this week, they will just bide their time. But they still give hope of better warmer days.

Where I grew up, you didn't even see them til about Easter if you were lucky or if it was late.

Blooming in January

Last week I discovered the heather was in bloom! I haven't checked to see if it is liking this cold snap.

And in the front garden...

Cyclamen!

I love cyclamen. It was the first flower my husband gave me.

I think they are amazing how they are at first all twisted and pointing down right up to when they are ready to open. and then within a matter of minutes the petals fling back and reveal the 'centre' at the bottom.

Here is a borrowed time lapse video.

Isn't it amazing!!

The leaves are a wonderful heart shape.

December days - 20

This morning a few of us from our church had our annual 'Mince Pies at the shops'. Just greeting people, saying hello and inviting them to come sing carols with us Sunday evening at our Candlelight Carol service.

Not so many children shopping with parents this time, but the balloons were still popular. Here Jackie and Eric are trying to work out a system to keep the balloons from tanging in the wind.

My husband manned the helium tanks, so well done to him tying the balloons in the cold. (The little nozzles for making it easy didn't seem to fit the balloons we had and they were loosing air too quickly. So we had to rely on hand tying.)

We have experienced some different types of weather over the years...Very Cold, Very Rainy, and so on. Today was Very Windy which seemed to hurry people along a bit more.

But we moved around to the Christmas music my husband set up and kept warm. Plus we were offered a wonderful cup of tea or coffee by the workers in the newsagents behind us.

These photos were taken on the sly, so I didn't manage to capture the little tree, plates of biscuits and mince pies.

Something on Saturday

Reasons to enjoy living where I do.

These photos were taken Christmas morning!

3 wonderful rose buds.

So wonderful I had to get photos from different angles.

Okay, then it got cold and they haven't fully opened yet, but they haven't died! and the daffodils are starting to stick their leaves above the soil. They may not come for some weeks yet, but it is the hope and the overlapping of seasons that gets me through the winter. I can even tolerate the wind and rain because we have been having some sunny days between.

Lovely, lovely Spring. Soon!

Snow Works

The green near the Cedar Tree on our road had a lot of activity on Monday. I guess the children were still off school.
There was a snow man with a really cute expression.

And some pretty complicated effort going into this fort.

Snow Dyeing

Since the snow has stayed a few days, I decided to have another go with snow dyeing. I put some failed fabric experiments into a few plastic boxes. (the original contents are in piles now!)

Then filled with snow and poured left over dyes on top. Now to wait and see!

while I was getting rid of dyes, I thought I would have another go at parfait dyeing.

A random choice of fabrics layered with dye.

For both of these experiments I have used dry fabrics this time. The dyes are old to start with and with the snow especially they don't need to be diluted further.

Cross fingers! Most of these weren't wonderful fabrics to start with, so maybe there will be an improvement.