Snapshots - May 2016

Hi again, here we are at the end of May to go through the month in snapshots. The weather this month was unusually mild and even summery, and it was lovely and often quite hot to be outside. We took plenty of strolls around the garden looking at things. I thought about the work ahead, to do when the weather is a bit cooler and the growing season has stopped, and the cats chased things and climbed trees.

It's really been a beautiful end to the season. There are autumn leaves and colour everywhere, and the last of the roses to be picked and admired.

There's also been plenty of crochet this month. I got some Circlepuff Squares completed! (Still plenty to go.)

Some more gorgeous autumn scenery... left, the fernery at the Timaru Botanic Gardens, right, Queen Elizabeth rose in my front garden.

Kitten pics! The boys continue to grow and be adorable.

It's time for bringing in leaves and seedheads and making autumn arrangements.

Some more of the month's crochet. I painted my blocking board and used it to block Circlepuff Squares. I also made and blocked more Jan Eaton squares.

I guess I didn't have enough projects on the go, so I started a new one. These squares are Jack and Lydia from the Sophie's Universe blanket pattern. I'm absolutely dying to make a Sophie one day, but in the meantime these squares were perfect for this project, which will be a project bag. A simple cube with a square for each side and some handles on top, and each square will be different aside from the central motifs. So they have been a lot of fun to work on, mixing and matching colours and stitches for each round.

Also in this collage is some autumn garden beauty - camellia Elfin Rose, and brilliant blue viburnum Davidii berries.

The cosmos has finished in the front garden, and its seed heads have been picked clean by finches. It's time to clear out this new bed in the front, so I can plant it up properly. I really did enjoy the sense of enclosure created by the bushy cosmos, so I'll definitely try to create a screen with shrubs, but I hope to keep it from getting too dense like it has along the fence line. We've just chopped out some shrubs and trees that were past their expiry date, so I have room for quite a bit of new planting and I'm excited! But more about that next month :)

For a few years now I've had it in the back of my mind that I would like to learn to knit socks. Hopefully, this will be the year that it happens! I've been following the YouTube podcast Crafternoon Treats, and the host Kathryn is in the similar position of being a crocheter wanting to learn to knit. She recommended the Linus shawl pattern as being a good one to start with. So I found the pattern and ordered some yarn and needles, and I've been knitting away, very clumsily at first! I'll go into my knitting more in another post. This yarn is from Wool Warehouse in the UK, and I really hope I like sock knitting as I have a good stash here! Even with postage and the exchange rate, it was cheaper and a much better selection than we can get here in NZ, so I'll be ordering from there again.

I had another piece of happy mail at the end of the month - a beautiful ATC from my talented friend Mayumi in Japan. It's been handpainted and stencilled with the lovely pansy design. I love the vintage style of it and had great fun laying out this wreath to photograph!

It's been a pretty good month really - good weather, plenty of craft and pretty things. Let's hope June is filled with more of the same.

Snapshots from April 2016

Hi all, here is the update from the month of April! Weather wise it was a perfect late summer month. If daylight savings didn't end right at the start of the month and the dark evenings start creeping in, you wouldn't realise it was autumn! Ok, well looking around the garden might give you a clue. All the late summer favourites are there... dahlias, cosmos, hollyhocks... but berries and seed heads are also starting to appear, marking the seasonal transition.

I bought three packs of tulips from The Warehouse - they had a great selection this year. I planted up a couple of pots to go outside the front door, and I'll put a few amongst my spring bulb selection lining the driveway.

The beautiful weather lent itself to sitting on the deck relaxing at wine o'clock. Even when it rained (which only happened a couple of times) it was beautiful. The downside of course is that everything is very dry, and I find it hard to keep the garden well watered when I don't have that extra time in the evening to do it.

Kitten pics! Podrick often appears out of nowhere and flops himself down on me for a cuddle. In the above left picture, he is reclining on my left hand which was holding a book open. And in the above right pic, he flopped on top of my crochet. Luckily we all agree that kitten cuddles are much more important than anything else you could possibly be doing!

Inigo (left) and Podrick (right).

This month I crocheted a sock! I lost track of how many attempts it took... four? Five? But at last I made one that I could get on my foot. The really funny thing is, when I made Sock #2 to match I somehow miscounted the stitches even though I thought I had them right, and when I tried to put it on, it was significantly smaller than Sock #1. Hilarious! I may try again at some stage, as I really want to be able to make wearable socks. Apparently the type of yarn affects the stretch factor though... so practising with cheap acrylic may not have been the best idea.

In other crochet news, I worked on the last colourway for my Circlepuff Squares blanket. The next step is to add the grey to make them square.

Here is a square being formed! And a shot of a particularly pretty moonrise one evening.

Oh, I also made a new pair of fingerless gloves. But they are currently stalled because I'm trying to come up with some embroidery designs for them. And I made this little poppy for Anzac day.

At the end of the month, the garden is looking full and floriferous! The first camellias are blooming, accompanied by the last roses, and even a late flush of clematis. I need to soak it in because winter is coming... but surely it's still very far away?

Snapshots from May

Well, May is long gone and we're already well into June, but I thought I'd still share some of my phone and Instagram snaps from the past month. The leaves have changed colour and fallen to the ground in the garden. Everything is pretty soggy and wet these days, but there are still roses blooming here and there.

 I visited Cuningham House, the Victorian greenhouse at the Botanical Gardens. It was an absolutely glorious autumn afternoon, with a low warm sun casting shadows and mysterious illuminations through the windows.

 The vaulted glass ceiling is held in place with a grid of metal bars. Inside the palms and vines grow massive. There is a lot of greenery, but also bright tropical flowers.

If you go through a door at the back of the hothouse you end up in the flower-filled conservatory. The displays here are changed seasonally and on this day the room was filled with cyclamens, so many that the air was heavily scented.

 I finished a few small projects at home. A cross stitched rose on a jar cozy, and an adorable embroidered bear from a magazine...

 Low winter sun makes for wonderful silhouette photos! Sunsets are fleeting and over in minutes. Sunrises take half the morning...

 My winter hoarding insticts kicked in and I gathered a stash of books. Perfect for sitting in the last of the day's sunshine, cuddled up next to Mr Lui.

As the month drew to a close, I found beauty in the continuing blossoms of the camellia Elfin Rose. We also had a run of frosty mornings (the worst one was -4!) and with that, winter was truly here.

Styling the Seasons - May 2015

Welcome to my Styling the Seasons post for May. It's nearly winter and the fireplace is in use again, so this month I decided to style my mantel. I haven't really done much with it since summer (you can see it here in an earlier post) and it was definitely time for a refresh! 

Every good mantel display needs lights so I started with the & shaped marquee light. I balanced the black with a black metal terrarium and dark twiggy branches in a vase, and added soft natural colours to the rest of the display. At this stage of the year winter is a peaceful and restful time so I didn't want any energetic colours (that will change later in the season no doubt...)

I love the pale aqua tea light holder/vase, and the way it echoes the filigree ceramic balls.

Some little succulent cuttings are coming along inside the terrarium.

I made this little planter by putting clay around a can. It was inspired by many I've seen on Pinterest including the ones by Atelier Stella. There's no way I can get my hands on one of those so I thought I'd make one of my own, and I love how it turned out. Pressing the texture into the bottom was really fun! Then recently I found this chain of hearts plant and knew it would be just perfect for planting inside... it trails beautifully and leaves that look like hearts win me over every time!

It wouldn't be May without the sweet fragrance of wintersweet. My tree has just started blooming and for the next few weeks I'll be filling the house with fragrant bunches! It has the most divine smell and makes the transition into winter much easier for me.

Styling the Seasons is a monthly styling challenge hosted by Katy at Apartment Apothecary and Charlotte at Lotts and Lots. Find out more by searching the hashtag #stylingtheseasons on social media. 

Autumn potager

As we head towards the end of autumn, the days of big basketfuls of produce from my potager are at an end. But that doesn't mean an end to the growing season. Our climate here in Christchurch means that I can still grow plenty of things over winter, as long as they are frost hardy, so I like to plant accordingly. When evenings are dark I can't pop outside after work with my basket like I can in summer, so I usually take a tour at the start of the week and bring in enough for the next few nights. Spring onions, leeks and broccoli can be stored in the fridge, and herbs or leafy greens like silver beet go in vases on the windowsill. I'm even getting the occasional strawberry or raspberry, so if they're still fruiting at the end of May then that's really only about 4-5 months until the first spring berries start up again... not so long really!

My favourite season in the garden is summer, but I also really like the tidiness of the winter potager! I've trimmed the lavender hedges and the rosemary balls, and they'll provide shape and structure until the spring growth hits. I've also created some scalloped garden edging which really tidies everything up and looks great with the black metal arches. The edging was so easy to make and I'll share a tutorial very soon.

In this bed I have silver beet (not pictured), cabbages, broccoli and the last of the chillis. The chillis are doing well, they will last until frosts get them and provide a good spark of colour until then. In the bed behind are leeks and spring onions.

 In the two beds closest to the glasshouse, I planted a green crop of mustard, lupin and some kind of grass. I haven't grown a green crop over winter before so I'll see how it goes. I do intend to put garlic in one of those beds so half of it will be dug up, we'll see if it makes a difference! 

The cherry tree is always the last on my property to shed its leaves and it's doing so quite spectacularly! It's amazing to see how many different leaf colours and patterns come off one tree.

A sunny autumn day in the potager is like heaven. Hope you're having equally good times in your patch, wherever in the world you may be! xx

A walk through the autumn garden

 Hello again! I thought I'd take you on a walk through my garden just before it undresses for winter. The seasons are shifting and it's time to say goodbye to endless foliage and bright summer flowers. I have leaves on the lawn and seedheads in the garden, but it's a small price to pay for the fleeting glory of an autumn afternoon.

 Even on a cloudy day this tree glows like a beacon. It is probably the last season for this tree actually... I love it a lot, but it is so big and still seems to be growing, blocks the light from our windows, plus it drops seeds everywhere and gets infested with whitefly in late summer. I've got two ornamental prunuses to replace it with so sometime this winter, my big tree's number is up.

 This little red and purple gem is Cercis Forest Pansy. It's beautiful through all the seasons, and I'm hoping it will grow bigger (but not too big) to take on more of a focal role.

 There are still some late summer flowers hanging on, but they will be finished before long. I'll miss them, but I'm looking forward to the time of camellias, hellebores, wintersweet and anemones.

 I also enjoy the remnants left behind... seed heads, last leaves, graphic lines of stems and twigs.

I love to sit on the deck in the afternoon, sipping a coffee and planning my next garden adventure. Pop back in the next few days and I'll show you how my potager looks now that the mad summer harvest is over!

Styling the Seasons and Urban Jungle Bloggers - April 2015

This month I've decided to combine my entry for Styling the Seasons and Urban Jungle Bloggers. I hope it's not against the rules, but since it's Easter and that would have been my theme regardless, it seemed a bit much to recreate the same thing twice for different posts. So here is my hall table, bedecked with eggs and flowers and lights in celebration of Easter and autumn.

 Styling the Seasons is a vignette created to show what this month means to me. April in NZ is autumn, the end of Daylight Savings time and Easter. The Easter part is obvious - I've put up my decorated Easter egg tree! This is one semi-commercial trend I really enjoy... why should a decorated tree be just for Christmas? Especially when eggs are the perfect size and shape for decorating.

 It might be autumn but I'm still in denial a little bit, and as long as the dahlias are still flowering I'll keep pretending it's summer! One thing I can't deny is the end of Daylight Savings time this weekend. Longer nights call for more lights, so I fashioned a wreath of sorts from a bamboo circlet wrapped with ribbon and my string of beaded fairy lights. (Side note: aren't we lucky to live in a time of great advancement in decorative lighting options? Fairy lights, solar lights, flameless candles, waterproof candles, LEDs, battery powered lights... it almost makes long dark evenings fun!)

The theme for Urban Jungle Bloggers this month is Happy Green Easter. I've brought in my lovely pink cyclamen, whose blossom co-ordinates most beautifully with the pink foil Easter eggs!

 I had my niece and nephew over for an Easter egg hunt yesterday. They had a blast running round the garden with baskets, finding chocolate eggs. They didn't find these ones though... Greedy Rabbit and I are pleased about that :)

 These Easter eggs are ones I decorated a couple of years ago. I shared the tutorial here if you'd like to make some of your own! It's not too late... I for one won't be taking this lot down until I've had a good few weeks' enjoyment out of them.

 Urban Jungle Bloggers is hosted by Judith at JOELIX.com and Igor at Happy Interior Blog. Find out more at urbanjunglebloggers.com. 

Styling The Seasons is hosted by Katy at Apartment Apothecary and Charlotte at Lotts and Lots. Find out more by searching the hashtag #stylingtheseasons on social media.