A Creative Day

I planned to have an indoor day, so I spent a few hours up at the allotment weeding, chopping back grass, painting timber for a raised bed, sowing more seeds, harvesting a lone radish that wasn’t big enough last week, feeding the birds, watching the bees, and planting nasturtium plants!

A wee bee.

Aside from the allotment, I have been crocheting – I have started the second half of my temperature blanket project and counted them both three times to make sure I had the same number of stitches, convinced myself they were the same, counted again, and the new one was twenty stitches less than the other! Instead of frogging (ripping it all out) it, I decided to make a 20-stitch wide patch to tack on the end, this would be much faster. I’ve now added it to the blanket and started the next few rows so hopefully now it is the same width as the first blanket!

I have been playing with clay as well – I bought some new soft Fimo from eBay; I am very excited by their new colours and now want to buy ALL OF IT. I have been faffing around just to get used to it again, I always used to use the classic clay but I have been buying soft to make it easier on my hands. I think they both have their merits; soft gets very squidgy very quickly but is easier to work. I have made a few bits and pieces, and tried out the ammonite moulds I made last week. I enjoyed it so much that I have ordered yet more clay from eBay and I have been browsing the internet for inspiration! I want to start making Things again; sculptures and models and useful things. In a previous life I used to make beads by the billions so I don’t need any more of those.

After all of the crochet and clay excitement, I decided to have a whittle! I have been making plant labels by whittling a twig at one end to produce a flat surface, and they are quick and easy to make, but I really need to learn how to sharpen my knife and get an edge back on it.

I am still collecting avocado stones whenever I buy one but I haven’t carved one for a while. I really struggle with 3D carving – I can do flat relief but anything 3D is currently beyond me. I think I peaked early with my little avo-carv-o hedgehog I made; nothing will ever top that.

Doolally Sunday

In an utter break from tradition (ie, I volunteered to do something requiring something silly) I was up at 3am on a Sunday, to go to work. A colleague and I lead/backmarked (aka generally ambled in the same direction of a group) a dawn chorus walk at one of my work sites! It is now 3:30pm and I am utterly delirious as I don’t nap as a rule. It was a nice walk – the hot water flask fell over in the car and soaked my outer layer of clothes and the bottom of my bag, so I had no windproof legs and ended the walk with a soggy bum, and then no one wanted hot drinks at the end anyway – but I saw and heard lots of birds and think I could actually now start to differentiate bird calls. I saw my first willow warbler! Ever!

Red light just above the trees in the centre is the BT Tower

Following a brief early-morning stint at work, I decided to take myself up on my deal to start working with clay again. I sorted out my boxes of polymer clay that I bought years ago, and last used years ago – seriously, I think I last used polymer clay about three years ago. I certainly haven’t used it since David and I have been together – I was hoping it would still be pliable, but after sitting on an unopened pack for an hour, and then spending another hour kneading and warming it up, it became apparent that it is not as good as it used to be. So I went online and ordered more!

I have read a few articles about helping to recondition old clay so I am going to give that a go, but I want to cash in on the clay modelling urge while it is here. Today with what little clay I softened I have made some moulds of genuine pyritised fossils that David and I collected at Charmouth earlier in the year. I will use them to make more mini clay ammonites, and when I can afford silver art clay (!) I shall try to make some silver ammonites.

Fossil finds from Charmouth

This picture is weird because the clay mould looks like it is sticking out and the actual fossil looks like it's going in and my head is hurting.

Momma and I went back to the allotment to try and repair the damage to the shed roof. This also required a trip to Wickes for timber and screws, and a trip to the shop for an iced cinnamon pastry. Pro-allotment tip y’all: NEVER rotavate where bindweed lives. I thought this was common knowledge but apparently not, and now it is springing up all over Plot 4 and Momma is going to have a helluva time pulling it up.

Pastry.

Before we left the allotment to come home I nipped round to Plot 31, by way of Momma driving me there, and I discovered that my first batch of radish were ready! So I pulled them. The first harvest of 2019 and the first harvest from my square foot / no dig bed! I was very excited, as I had been reading last week or before about roast radish – so I’m going to try it today with my parsnip and carrots. The other crops are looking good, so next weekend I will sow more seeds to plug the gaps. Exciting!

My social media free weekends are harder than I want them to be – I do like aimlessly scrolling but it adds nothing to my life so I am trying to stop it, hence clay modelling, crochet, allotment… I have even bought some books to get back into reading! 

1: Grow All You Can Eat In Three Square Feet

2: 21st Century Yokel

3: The Wild Remedy

Next weekend my big allotment project numbero uno will be finished, and then I can start numbero two-o. I am delirious I did warn you. Here’s a picture of Taffy-Cat.

Taaaaaaffffffffffffffff