Button mad and mad dog onto a winner

I am afraid that I have to warn you that this will end up being a bit of a shaggy dog story, but there are lots of pictures, so it would be nice if you could settle yourself down with a cup of tea, and a piece of cake, and join me for a little while, and I'll tell you about the giveaway, too.

My life has been quite buttony recently, and today I received these most wonderful buttons in the post from Button Mad; they are handmade, giving employment to women in South Africa, and are also quite beautiful, just the thing to make a cardi a bit special.

I also joined with Lemonade Kitty's Button Swap, when I sent out a few buttony bits and bobs to Simply Vintage, and received these lovelies in return. (Regular readers may not be surprised to hear that a princess in the vicinity has kidnapped one or two items, and might even be able to guess which ones.)

And look what I was lucky enough to receive from Sally at Tinkering Times: a mini Selvedge magazine, a fabric scrap pack, and guess what? Buttons!

Having been the recipient of such buttony wealth, I am very glad to be sending out into the world something buttony, too, and in the absence of any passing strangers today, I managed to persuaded Mad Dog to choose the winner for my giveaway.

What on earth does she want me to do now?

I have to tell you that she took some persuading, even with some carefully placed niblets in the bottom of the bowl.

Do you really want me to put my nose into that?

Does that look like enthusiasm to you?

My usual bowl is beige ... 

She took more than a little encouragement.

I am just not used to this sort of thing.

The clincher was a reordering of the biscuity bribe ...

... just to make it clear that nothing sinister was going on, and that I had not hidden a mop under all those scary bits of paper.

I thought she wanted me to eat those nasty little white biscuits ...

At long last, we got the idea and the maddest dog in the world managed to pick a winner.

And even began to show enthusiasm for the task in hand ...

Have you got any more of those nice bits of paper under here?

But sadly on this occasion there is only one winner.

 Lola Nova you have won a copy of Button Jewellery by Marrianne Mercer - congratulations!

And if you haven't won today, then don't worry, you can get your own copy here - and what is more, I have another very exciting giveaway coming up very soon, so all is not lost, and tomorrow is another day ...

Patchwork

I have always loved patchwork, ever since I paper pieced and hand stitched patchwork cushions in tones of brown and orange back in my teens. I think even at the time I felt that the colour scheme was not ideal, but I was constrained by the very limited choice of prints available in the local fabric shop in those far-off days long gone, before we had the wonders of the Interweb and Mr Google to do our shopping for us.

This love of patchwork extends to our garden where I have a penchant for lettuce patchwork as you will see.

Random patchwork

Unfortunately, the Head Chef planted this bed out, and thus the patchwork takes on a random air, which is quite alien to my innate sense of order. The Head Chef has a randomizing nature and I have an ordering one, and thus we get along famously, especially when he spends the day slaving over a hot shovel and I go gadding off to the Great Wen for a bloggy meet-up and spend the day sitting in the V&A cafe chatting to Floss, Serenata, Angela, Lisa, Sue and Sarah.

But when I arrived back I very magnanimously inspected the Head Chef's labours and congratulated him on his efforts (although sadly I failed to notice the full extent of the mowing (or was it strimming?) that he had done in the orchard), my appreciation thus ensuring me a rather nice supper.

Aubergines looking happy

And the garden is bursting with suppers to come: the polytunnel promises tomatoes of all sorts, aubergines, peppers and basil (and please congratulate the Head Chef on the excellence of his tomato stringing - he would be so pleased if you noticed and patted him on the back).

An example of highly skilled stringing

We are hosting a two-week residential permaculture course very shortly, so we are very keen for those little green tomatoes to get their acts together and turn red, but whereas we had sunny June weather in April, it seems that the April showers have caught up with us and made their appearance in June, with a drop in temperature as well, just as we need a bit of warmth to make all these Mediterranean vegetables feel happy.

But at least a bit of rain has cheered the peas up - and here I have edging rather than out and out patchwork, with marigolds (calendula) to pretty up the peas. They are not just for ornament - the petals are good in salads, and if you infuse them in olive or sunflower oil it makes a nice skin oil.

And rather than fill our pots with annuals, we have prettied up the paved area with useful, tasty plants: chives, parsley, mint, lemon balm and coriander - handily situated mere footsteps from the kitchen.

Tea leaves in chimney pots

So there is a lot of cheer to be had from the garden this week, but preferably viewed from through the window - summer has gone, the holiday sofa is still eagerly waiting in the kitchen for it to be warm enough for such a tender chap to go outside, and I am still taking two hotties to bed with me at night.

You may laugh at the thought of two hotties in June, but then you don't have to suffer the chill factor of a Head Chef masquerading as a gigantic ice block getting into your bed in the small hours after having to pick up a General who had been celebrating the affirmation of his genius by his examiners at a time when anyone over 40 would be snug in bed asleep.

Just to warn you, this is your last chance to enter the giveaway - tomorrow I plan to accost a passing stranger to draw the winner as Naughty Dog seems unwilling, and Teddy-Face has had her turn.

And for more garden excellence, please visit the other gardens in the Bloggers Garden Tour organized by Amy, and pat them on the back, too - or you could join in yourself and get your own little pat, or maybe even a big hug.

Looking after the bees

Let me take you by the hand, and take you on a little tour, not of the streets of London, but of my cottage garden, and ask you when you garden, to keep the bees in mind ...

Heartsease - very tasty flowers

In recent years the numbers of bees bumbling about the countryside have fallen precipitously, and some varieties have even become extinct.

The best use for heavy old metal watering cans

There is all sorts of speculation as to why this might have happened, and research is ongoing, but I feel that the very least we can do is to garden to help the bees.

Busy bee on catmint

They pollinate so many crops, and human beings are so dependent on them (if they did all become extinct, we would soon be following them), that it is pretty much a matter of enlightened self-interest.

Where the bee sucks ... Lonicera periclymenum

So as we walk round my little patch of earth, I will show you one or two plants that the bees seem to love - so they must be good to have in the garden. They are certainly attracted to honeysuckle (do you think they like the name?), which is lovely to grow up walls, along picket fences, or as part of an informal flowering mixed hedge. And the smell in my garden is quite heavenly ... somehow like the very best soap, but a lot less expensive.

Another plant which is always alive with bees is catmint (Nepeta x faassenii) - it has a very long flowering season, is pretty to look at, and a nice addition to this sort of flower arrangement.

And let nature take its course a bit:  I am all for an easy life, and this is one of the things I like about permaculture - it encourages you to work with nature, and not to labour unnecessarily. Bees need flowers from early spring to autumn, so in February and March when flowers are short, I let the pink, purple and white deadnettles have their pretty way on path edges and in corners - insects love them, and you can always tidy them up after they have flowered.

Spot the busy bee

And just to show the virtue of laissez faire in the great outdoors: this is an unprepossessing wall on the north end of the house, close by the boiler outlet (you can see the blue of the oil line behind), with no soil to plant in, and here we have self-sown hollyhocks, feverfew and delphinium which have been allowed to have their own way. A tidy gardener would have weeded (or worse, weedkilled them) out of existence to leave a neat blank wall in all its ugliness.

Whereas Slack Alice somehow never finished the housework, and in the process made a bee very happy ... If you want to find out more about how you can help bees in your own garden, you will find The Bumblebee Conservation Trust here. I would also love to hear what you have been doing in your patch that encourages bee conservation - I am always on the lookout for new ideas.

And this little garden tour is part of the Bloggers' Garden Tour organized by Amy at During Quiet Time - have a look at the other gardens here - and even better still, why not join in and show us the pretties in your patch?

Delectable floral frocks

In a previous post I gave my dear readers a little thrifty hint regarding a most enticing charity shop to be found just across the road from the V&A, and what is more, I also dropped a little hint about a floral frock which was hanging there waiting for me to call in.

So in the spirit of show and tell which suffuses the land of blog, I present this flowery dress in all its rosy beauty.

Note the shoes

I must admit that I hesitated just a little on the point of purchase, for I am not used to paying out amounts that venture into double figures in a charity shop, but the label said LK Bennett and although I thought this was just a shoe shop, I had a vague idea that they certainly aren't at the cheap and cheerful end of the market, thus this charming confection must be a Bargain not to be sniffed at (and subsequent research confirmed this, to my great satisfaction).

It's my best side

And to continue my career as self-styled granny fashionista, you will be very glad to hear that this new addition to my wardrobe of flowery frocks also coordinates beautifully with my granny cardi.

Granny fashionista

And just in case you were concerned that I was hurtling into granny territory at too cracking a rate, I think that I must be regressing into a second childhood. Those dainty little bronze pumps are courtesy of Mini Boden via Princess Bunchy.

Do I really have to face the camera?

Yes, my youngest child is now giving me her hand-me-downs as I shrink with age: or are my offspring just growing very tall?

The frock is also accessorized by a Naughty Dog who is showing promise as a canine model when not herding unwanted strangers off the premises.

(Credit where credit is due: photography and animal handling by Princess Bunchy.)

And just to confirm that my love of floral frocks shows signs of becoming an unhealthy obsession, this impossibly wonderful book has just arrived to feed my flowery fantasies and rose-tinted dreams.

Good night, sweet ladies, good night ...

Bringing you roses

If you are looking for my giveaway, you will find it here, but let's move swiftly on to a bit of beauty to help us through the week.

As you know from here, I like a bit a of aesthetic excellence, and I love a bit of floriferousness, so I offer you a little something from my garden to jolly along your Wednesday.

(Amy of During Quiet Time is organizing a Linky Bloggers' Garden Tour - it would be nice if you could join in with your own little patch, or if not, have a look around the others.)

In the past couple of years we have been concentrating so much on the productive, self-sufficiency side of things that flowers have been rather abandoned by the wayside, but I started out as a flower gardener, and this year I decided that my psyche needs flowers, and so does my B&B, so rather than pay for air-freighted flowers produced in uncertain conditions, I would exploit my own labour. So I sowed a few seeds in amongst the vegetable ones, and I also bought in some tiny plug plants from Crocus and Sarah Raven, and now my B&B guests can reap the benefits of my springtime exertions.

Lady's mantle, white valerian, delphinium blue. red valerian,  delphinium white

With two members of the family suffering badly from hay fever, I don't usually get to bring my flowers into the house, but running a B&B gives me the opportunity to indulge in a little light floristry in a rather amateurish way.

... and cranesbill, and lupins, and catmint, and roses

But the good thing about garden flowers is that you don't have to worry too much about the initial arrangement - they all move about the vase as they settle in, and some decide to lounge about, and others to stand upright as a result of the picking and plunging, and it seems that whatever you do, the effect is one of lovely disorder.

Sweet disorder

And before I go, and while the Head Chef isn't looking, I'll share with you a little purchase I made when I, um, accidentally pressed a button whilst perusing a very lovely Etsy shop. Amy is not only a gardener, she is also the most talented needlewoman, and somehow this wonderful zippy bag found its way into my bathroom.

And not only is the front made of fabric screenprinted by Amy with cottages and apple trees (just like mine), the back is yes, flowery, with individually quilted flowers. 

How on earth does she quilt those petals and circles so neatly? I always struggle with curves (and even my straight lines aren't that straight).

And I can't even practise sewing curves for a bit - my dear Rose (even my sewing machine is a flower)  is off to be fettled up today, and she will be absent from our happy home for a couple of weeks. All I can do is go and gaze longingly on the productions of others, and muse on my past creations: Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts has a nice little selection to admire, but perhaps this is a form of self-torture?

Such is the trauma of parting, I can't find words to express my separation anxiety - will dearest Rose have changed when she returns, will our relationship be the same? Karen has written most expressively about this - read what she has to say, as I can dwell on such a painful separation no longer.

She exits in search of a length of black lace and six yards of bombazine.

Another lovely giveaway for you

Now, if any of you dear readers are feeling in need of a little present to assuage the stresses and strains of everyday life, then do read on, as I have a little giveaway for you (as well as a little story, you didn't think you would get away without one, did you?).

This is a tale of a dreamer and her buttons ...

There are buttons which were bought on adventures in the far north and west all tucked away in a basket which arrived in the post from the Head Chef many moons ago (it never ceases to amaze me that he remembered the name of the shop in Bath where I gazed on it in mute adoration and he seemed to ignore me, only to ring them later and arrange for it to be delivered into my own fair hands).

There is a tin full of my inheritance from my dear departed grandmamma - where on earth did she get all of those yellow buttons from? I never saw her wearing such a sunflower shade of yellow ...

And a tin of odds and bods and singles in all sorts of jolly colours ...

Not to mention a Penhaligons Bluebell soap box full of quite aged buttons in sober colours, enlivened by some bright and sparkling gold.

So what is one to do with such a treasury of buttons? I have stitched them on cardis, and embellished T-shirts; I have put them on pincushions and needlecases, but still the tins are overflowing.

I was at quite a loss as to how to be inventive with buttons, but then the lovely people at Search Press sent me a book which offers some wonderfully creative solutions to a surfeit of buttons.

Button Jewellery by Marrianne Mercer, in the Twenty to Make series, has some lovely ideas for simple to make button jewellery.

I particularly like these bracelets which make use of the sort of metallic buttons which were originally spares from men's blazers and vintage suits, or mixed brightly coloured singles ...

And these bag charms, which also make the most of those single metallic buttons:

So if you fancy trying out some of the button jewellery ideas in this lovely little book, then I have a copy to give away, courtesy of the kind people at Search Press.

Entry is open to anyone, anywhere - just leave me a comment below - or if you are having trouble commenting (as I know that some bloggers are), just email me to enter. Please, if you are entering via commenting, make sure that you put your email address in the comment box, or put your email in your profile, and make your profile accessible to others, otherwise I can't email you to tell you that you have won!


And if you have any more ideas for using up a button stash, then I would love to hear them!

As it is half-term for many people this week or next, I will leave the giveaway open for a couple of weeks to give you time to enter - the closing date will be Sunday, 15 June.

A quilt top, and a wave of aestheticism

The Rose Parade quilt top is complete but it will not be keeping me warm on my holiday sofa this summer; instead it is now on its way to gracing the bed of a princess, a princess who had no call for a quilt until she saw this one in progress.

She stepped in, gave me a little guidance as to fabric arrangements and preferences, and is taking me to town to choose the backing fabric tomorrow.

Blowing in the wind - again

So here is the QUIP moving QUIFward, although it is nigh on impossible for the photographic amateur to get a good picture of a quilt on a tempest-tossed washing line (I had a professional photographer to stay last night, who also complained about the wind, so maybe it isn't just me), but I did rather like the stained glass effect of the reverse side (which also shows up any imperfections in the seams), and the princess is delighted with the finished result (which is a relief).

The art of seaming, or don't look too closely

Although princesses tend to smile sweetly and gaze admiringly on one's belongings in a longing sort of way, and charm them out of one's possession (a Cath Kidston handbag and purse come to mind), their presence in the house does offer some advantages, viz:

1. One now has a valid reason for taking out a subscription to Selvedge (on her behalf, of course) in the furtherance of her artistic leanings;

2. One also has a valid reason for taking a trip up to the Great Wen to visit the V&A (again) all for the sake of the cultural education of the younger generation. (Thrifty hint: there is the most wonderful charity shop almost opposite, where I found the most delectable floral frock last time.)

The trip may not be to the 'too utterly utter' Cult of Beauty exhibition, which was so utterly utter that I want to see it again, and am looking for somebody to come with me, but this time to Yohji Yamamoto (all very cutting edge for a granny fashionista). I have inhabited the nineteenth century so long, that it will do me good to face up to the present one (and the generation gap is made explicit in that the princess in dire need of a cultural education sees a distinction between 'twentieth-century fashion' and 'modern fashion', whereas I in my dotage did not).

If you need to dig a hole, ask a Ploughboy

So I have been reflecting on the way in which my family, young and old, are of great service to me: the Head Chef does bins, drains, and heavy lifting; the Ploughboy will dig a hole anywhere on request, and keeps me up to date with tractor specs; the General is always there for a conversation on typography and the wonders of the Interweb, and I have told you how Princess Bunchy is a great facilitator of unselfish expenditure.

Heavy lifting

I really only wanted to drop in briefly and tell you an everyday story of a quilt, but a shaggy dog wrestled me to the ground and I am beginning to feel quite Aesthetic: as I float off I wish you all an utterly utter weekend, filled with beauty, floral frocks, and a smiling, helpful family.

Beauty and the bin