Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain

Yes, it is raining.



We went to my sisters today to finish off the wallpapering in her upstairs sitting room and painting the last wall in her stairwell. We've been very busy since Monday but now it is done! Or so we thought. Sister did mention yesterday that it would be nice as well if we painted the actual staircase as well since it is in horrid yellow pine which makes me cringe and isn't my sisters favourite either by the looks of it. So tomorrow we are going back to start sanding it so we can paint it in a light grey. But I don't mind, sister pays me to do all this and she is truly generous since she doesn't have to do it all herself. I still have a few days of my holiday left so why not. Besides it is always nice to visit sister and her bf. We get very nice meals as well.... if we ask politely...

Bread

I am baking a bit of bread today. I've found a most excellent Swedish book about bread making which contains really really nice recipes. What is a bit annoying is that there are some typos in the ingridients list which makes for some very runny dough or very hard dough depending on what they've missed. First time I found out one of the recipes was a bit odd was when I had added half the stated amount of flour and the dough was made alread. You know, the stage when it's gone all nice and soft and has just the right texture and there I was trying to figure out how to put the rest of the flour in. I didnt in the end otherwise it wouldn't have been bread, it would have been brick.

Well the bread I'm making today is called Pain Polka and here it was the amount of liquid that was wrong. I didn't twig either when I read 9dl of water to only 1,4 l of flour. That is way to little flour. Oh well I compensated with adding more flour and now have 2 HUGE round breads cooling on the rail rather then 2 medium sized round bread... Ho hum, the more for Jamie to eat and I am pretty sure he won't complain one bit!

I made a note on the page about the blunder and will try it out with 4 dl of water with the 1 dl of sour cream instead of 8+1.

A Very Good Day

That is what today has been. I have finished my mums overnight bag she asked for earlier. I am making a move on a HUGE bedspread I foolishly promised to make for a friend. I cant see that I will ever manage to quilt it in my machine though. So option two is hand quilt it, which come to think of it might be worse!

Besides finishing the little bag I made  three 6 inch squares of crazy quilt. I've always wanted to try it out and see what its like. And I can tell you, it is very addictive!

Here are some pictures of them all. Jamie very kindly helped me pin the side panels on the BIG beadspread while he was watching the english football premier on telly so he got caught on camera.

The little overnightbag for mum. I made a pocket in this one as well. Me likes to make pockets I think...

And finally my little attempt at crazy quilting. It was so fun I could have used ALL my scraps up if I would have had enough fusible web.

Oh I almost forgot

This is what I have been doing today. My mum wanted me to make a small handbag for a friends grand daughter who just have turned 4 years old. All that is missing is a nice big button for the clasp. I enjoyed doing this one even though I haven't done many handbags, it is 8 inches square so maybe a good size for a little missy? I even made a little pocket inside!

Look what I've found!

Yes this is my very first quilt, still not completed because what doesn't show in this picture is how bubbly it is and not really matching up. So when I had put on the outer border I stashed it away wondering what to do with it. I pulled it out this morning when I was going through my closet where I have all my material and thought I might actually finish it. Since it being sooooo very bubbly I think I might give hand quilting a go rather then try and machine quilt it on my old machine which will probably make it worse. Maybe a wash and stretch while still damp might help crease out some of it but I am doubtful.

Garden looking good

I promised some pictures and since the sun decided to shine almost all day today even though they said it wouldnt i went out  and took some pictures.

This one is of the front side of the new deck with roses and dahlias. I love my pots this year, Zinnias in a dark pink and mums double petunias. Lovely!

This is our vegetable garden showing how well it is doing at the moment with house and new deck

We are growing runner beans along those poles since we didn't manage to fill the bed with flowers i thought it could be nice with some climbing plant and decided on runner beans and some lilac French beans that really have a nice deep lilac coloured flower. The beans themselves are deep lilac but turn green after boiling.

This is our new project along the hedge towards our street. Just a shady spot for various shade lovers. Plan is to do a little wooden pier instead of a grass walkway between the house and hedge. I got a picture in my head you see where ferns and grasses grow over the boards and there are larger bushes to make it a bit like a mini woodland. Am not sure what to do closest to the house though, it has to be something that can manage without extra water so we don't need to water close to the house

Bye bye baby... car

Yes, our Volvo decided to give up and make some loud noise and rattle since it wasn't happy. After a trip to the garage were it really got its death sentence (needs new exhaust, new hand break, and new rear breaks) we decided not to fix it since it is getting old and went hunting for a newish car. We had a little look around but I knew that i wanted a Toyota if possible as our next car. So after test driving a nice little Toyota Auris twice we decided to go ahead and buy it. Next Thursday we're collecting it and leaving our old car in, I am still amazed we got as much as we did for our sorry little car. Btw the Toyota dealers were very good and I'm impressed with their customer service. Didn't have such a good experience from the Volvo dealers and garage I might add.... I will post a picture of it when we get it.

It has been a bit of a stressful start of the week with the car surprisingly breaking. But even with that its been a good week with Jamie's parents visiting. Today we took it easy and cleaned a bit, I even washed all the windows! After a short walk this evening we picked our gooseberries, raspberries and black currants. It's just not possible to do it during the day when all the wasps are about, it is a really bad wasp year here. Just got to wait for the night frosts to come and kill a few off. But hopefully the frosts keep off for at least a month!

All the berries are now cleaned and either frozen or in the fridge waiting to be turned into jam and marmalade tomorrow. All other veg is really growing now when it's turned slightly cooler and is raining more. I am growing 5 different kind of spuds this year and they all taste really nice. The early ones are suffering from some sort of mould on the leaves though so will be eaten first and quickly. The others are keeping better but then they are winter storage ones. This year I am growing Maria and Princess which are early, Amandine which is medium late but keeps very well for winter as well and Asterix and Sava for winter keeping. Dont know if I will do the early ones again though.
Other veg that is groing well now is red and white cabbage, all my squash are setting fruit like crazy, onions are soon ready for harvest, they are really bulking up! Got to remember what kind they are and get the same ones for next year, am very impressed with the sizes I am getting. The carrots are doing well, I am weeding them out by pulling the biggest ones up for eating now. Don't know if we will get any sprouts, they look awfully tiny but I am hopefull. The swedes are starting to look like they actually are there under the soil and not just a bunch of leaves. Just picked a small 2 person portion of sugar snap peas today, they are really lovely to eat raw so the portion got slightly smaller before they got boiled and bagged away in the freezer. All my beans are looking much happier now with more and more flowers showing, I think it must be all the rain and the extra watering that Jamies dad did while trying out the best way of emptying a waterbutt by the far corner of our house using a siphon. It still works!

3 more days

Then it is vacation!!

And I can't wait! It has been very slow and boring at work and actually quite depressing. Makes you wonder what the news will be when I come back in late august....

Never mind that though. Got 4 wonderful weeks of doing whatever I want ahead! And that is something to celebrate. So if you excuse me I'm off!

Cant help myself....

I know I know, I was doing my starry bedspread but I thought I'd cut in with a quick and fun little jelly roll project, and I just love how it is coming together.. I used some Bali pops called Strawberry fields. I tried to coordinate the colours a bit when sewing them together but then for the final layout I put all squares in a big pile and just pulled them out randomly and tried to make sure they were evenly laid out. I managed to sew most of them together before going to work. I will finish it off tomorrow and decide how to quilt it.

Early bird..

One most definite thing I don't like about summer is my grass allergy. It is in full swing and I didn't have any spray at home so woke up EARLY (like 3.30) with a completely stuffed and runny nose and couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up and watched a bit of TV before heading off into Farmville land. Me a Facebook junkie? Wouldn't have thought it but yes I am hooked!

New project

So this is what I'm up to at the moment quilting wise. It is slow going though. I don't like too much repetetive work at once so I do a few stars and then have to do something else for a while as not to loose interest. I am going to edge the stars with beige fabric in maybe two different tones. And then sew them together with a strip in between. Haven't decided yet if I'm going with the white I have in the stars or if I am going to do something more colorful. Tempted to sew some flying geese as a border around it all, just have to see how the finished size will be before deciding on that.

Gardening is coming along nicely. It just needs watering and some sporadic weeding now untill harvest time. Unless I find some new project to do out there! There is always the chance of that now isn't there when you have a garden just waiting to be developed...

Bruce Forever!

Jamie has managed to get an invite to Spotify and i am bopping along to Bruce Springsteen at the moment and i do LOVE that man and his music. Wished he toured this year here in Europe but alas no. We've managed to see him in concert twice and they were brilliant just wished we had been able to get in on the Seeger sessin our but they were sold out within 1 hour here in Sweden.

I'm singing in the rain...

Yes it has been raining all day long. At times it seemed like pouring rather then raining. But I'm happy, it means I didn't get wet for no reason yesterday when I went around fertilizing everything in our garden. Hopefully it means that when the sun appears again everything will really start growing like crazy.

Other news, hmmmm not much actually, been working a lot and so has Jamie, gardening when there's a chance, not much quilting done, got few more pieces done for or bedspread though so that is coming along.

Will take some new pictures of the garden as to show how the new borders are coming along.

Presenting!

Let's all give them a very warm welcome to our garden. I give you John Cabot, Raubritter, Clair Renaissance, Emelie and Awakening!
Big huge welcoming applause now and lets hope they like it here!

They are our new roses for the new flower beds we dug around the decking. We went out to Bäsna today which is one of the better nurseries we know around here. They've always been very helpful and have a big range of plants, you can also by trees from there which is what we did last year. A little pink flowering paradise apple tree that's just coming into bloom. I was a bit worried about our garden making it through the hard winter we had. My lovely huge Aisha rose died back to where the snow had protected it, so did my elderberry . All other roses seem to have made it in one piece and are sprouting.

Potatoes are in the ground, so are carrots and onions. Bit more to do but cabbages are not big enough to go in yet and the squashes and beans aren't ready either to go in. Besides it is a bit too early still for them. We might still get frosts at night. Have been busy moving flowers from one bed to the new one. Still got a few more to move but are getting there.

Care to lounge a bit...?

Finaly got one thing sorted. Now we are looking for a table and chairs to match the new sofa. It took us ages to decide but when we saw this setup in the shop it clicked straight away that this was IT. We also have to finish off the wall in the background but that will be a doddle since the blokes who built the decking prepared it well so it is just for us to put whatever we want to the wall. Still deciding if we want small or wide striped planks.
Oh and the big green pot is going to get some grass or a bamboo planted in it. There are 2 more big pots as well but we are putting japanese maples in those. It will really look nice when everything is done. Thing is the weather hasnt been very forgiving for planting things, still quite hard frosts at night with -4 at the lowest. And that is a lot for being May. But weather forecasts say that we are getting some russian warmth now and you can relly tell it is getting warmer even though it is pouring down with rain. But rain is good! Makes everything go poof once the heat arrives as well.

Btw, have you ever noticed there arent enough hours in the day for everything you want to do and need to do? I am noticing big time at the moment.

This is the BIG To Do List that is sitting on the fridge at the moment
Got seeds to pregrow, potatoes to plant, onions to plant, dig the compost out, sow the other vegetables, move all the perenials from two flowerbeds made out of doorframes to their new bed along the decking, move strawberries to their new doorbeds, choose roses for the decking, get windowbox for herbs by the kitchen window,  find nice climbing frames for a couple of climbingroses for the decking, split some plants to give me more to bulk out beds, organize the new long flowerbed by the street that we dug last year i think various bushes and rhododenrons will do it, dig and prepare greenhouse made out of old windows, move dried wood into woodshed,.... Plus of course there is everything else to do, cleaning, laundry, doing my walking, working...., sewing is put a bit on hold, that will have to be a winter thing or a rainy day thing.

You see now how it is impossible for me to go to work today and for at least 2 months ahead? Wishful thinking..... I have to go in about 45 minutes and try not to be bored out of my mind. It is really pitiful how slow things are at work since the new refurbished shop next door opened again. Sigh...

We got a new boss as well. He seems very energetic and full of ideas. Hopefully he will last the distance and get us up and running, if not the future looks a bit bleak.

It is snowing!

News

Spring is springing!
I have been busy outside in the garden digging 2 new flowerbeds but had time to finish Jamies grandmas birthday present anyway.
And here they are, a pair of pillows for her new sofa set

I had a totally different color scheme going (pinks and pale greens) but I couldn't get it to work since I really didn't like the colours myself... I know its odd but if I dislike it I just cant make anything nice out of it so I had a change of plans and used some of the stars I'm making for our new bedspread and they turned out much better then I thought. I even ended up using one of the original pink fabrics for the flower border around the star, so it wasn't a total loss.

Also the digging of flowerbeds are progressing. Slowly but surely they are getting done. My mum came over yesterday and helped me plant all the seeds I got from James' dad so they are on the go. It is a wee bit too early to grow my beans and squash, am going to wait with them until middle of may. It has been a very cold spring and it is officially 2 weeks later the normal so everything is put a bit on hold until warmer weather appears. At least I got the potatoes pre sprouting in the utility room. Little knobs of greenery on each potato. Ahh I wish it was warmer!

 Progress at Lasts....

Sniffle

Yes once again i got a cold. And i hate it!
No energy, but still got to go to work and it is mayhem there at the moment since the big supermarket next door is closed for a refurbish and we got a truck load of new customers but no new staff!

Quilting

Yes, the blanket is now ready and I have completed my other project. A multicolored  heart in gold, red and blue. 

It is sitting waiting to be quilted together with the backing. It is a wall hanging and I will put it up in the hall since I think it will do best with a white background.

Talking about white. I do like these trendy and cool white interiors you can see so many of in glossy magazines but I don't think I could live in one. Every time I am to choose what color scheme I am to use I tend to go very colorful instead of smart and cool..... And bland I might add... I go to this quilt course on Tuesday evenings and all the others are very careful in choosing their colors. You know, pastel green and pink together or white on white with a hint of beige... Some times I actually think what the point is when you cant see the actual pattern of the quilt because everything has the same tone and color...And then there is me... I stand there and then come away with bright red and greens with black! Not to mention my last project with 12 colors of red, gold and blue. I am just like a kid in a candy store faced with the wall of fabric in all kinds of color and cant wait to put them together, ALL of them...

So what will I do next?

Decided

Unlike me I have decided almost straight away how to do something instead of ponder away and dither until the ends of time. And this is how i decided to do the quilt. All i got to do now is do the quilting and I've chosen a soft black fleece as the backing. It will be really nice and snug to have it in the sofa on those colder evenings.