My allotment is organic, ever year I buy my seeds from The Real Seed Company. It is run by a husband and wife team they are also gardeners and write their own catalogue and run their own website. As their website states they do not sell F1 hybrid or genetically modified seed. A lot of the seeds they sell are also rare heirloom varieties.
As I am sure a lot of you are aware the EU have an official list of vegetable varieties and as such this means that if the vegetable is not on their official list then seed companies are not allowed to sell it to the general public. I think this is ridiculous, apparently there is no law that stops the general public from actually buying or growing the seed, just that companies are not allowed to sell it if it's not on the 'list'! This also mean that thousands of heirloom varieties will be lost forever because of this EU law.
However, The Real Seed Company have found an ingenious way around this, they operate as a Club, 1p of your order pays for a years membership, this means they are not directly selling to the general public but to a club member, so lucky us we are able to grow the heirloom varieties which would otherwise become extinct.
When I received my order the company also including instructions on how to harvest and store the plant together with useful cooking instructions. They also ask all their customers to try saving their own seed and you can download information on how to do this on their website, here.
It's taken me a couple of days on and off to crochet this hat, I've called this a slouchy hat, but to be honest it's not that slouchy on my big head. I crocheted as the pattern suggested 20 puff stitch lines, probably I should have added maybe another 10 to that to make it a bit more slouchy, maybe next time. The hat is very comfy and warm. The pattern is a free one from a blog called Hopeful Honey and the hat is called Puff Stitch Slouchy Beanie.
I have added a few photos before and after I stitched the hat up including a couple of photos of me wearing the hat so you get an overall idea of what it looks like on, which is unusual for me as I hate having my photo taken.
What a horrible day today, very misty and damp. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to.... crochet. Not that I really need an excuse.
I decided my next project is going to be a hat for myself, I'm not really a hat person, my hair is thick and hats just don't seem to stay on my head. However, I have been in my allotment digging over my raised beds, generally tidying and repairing things over the last week and it's been a little bit cold and I came to the conclusion that I really needed a hat. I found a nice pattern for a slouchy hat and I thought I would give it a go. I had already decided I wanted to use a soft Merino wool and the rim of the hat would be in Slate Grey as I still had some of the yarn left. I was at a bit of a loss as to what other colour to choose, when I remembered I had bought a ball of Peter Pan Merino Baby Wool in a beautiful blue colour. However, I really did not think I would have enough so I ventured to my local wool shop in Ulverston called Loopy and spoke to the owner Andrea, she kindly searched around and found me a ball. So, this afternoon I will be watching old Vincent Price and Peter Cushing films with my dog Tilly laying across my feet, or should I say squashing my feet while I crochet my hat.
I decided yesterday that I needed some boot cuffs to go with my mustard colour fingerless gloves. I have no idea why I need boot cuffs I just came to the conclusion that I just do.
I had a ball and a half of the Drops Extra Fine Merino in the mustard colour left and a ball of the same in a Slate Grey colour. I spent about an hour looking on the Internet and Pinterest for a pattern when I came across a blog called javocado with a pattern I fell in love with. The pattern was explained very well with photographs to help and to show you at each step what it should look like. I should point out this is an American pattern and as such I had to adjust the stitches to English terms. When I had finished I decided to crochet a couple of stars in Slate Grey rather than add a button. The pattern for the teeny tiny stars is from Attic24.
Red and yellow and pink and green.......that nursery song just popped into my head as I was having a look through my yarn stash and came across my dwindling supply of merino 4 ply.
I decided to crochet some bows and make them into brooches, I will be donating some of these to our local village Easter Fayre together with about 30 handmade cards which unfortunately I forgot to take photos of.
There are two different size crochet strips that are needed, the first one is 35 stitches long and the second one is 12 stitches long, these were crocheted together to form a bow and I then added a safety brooch to the back of them.
As promised here is a photo of the fingerless gloves I have crocheted, they are a lot larger than I originally thought they would be, but they are very warm.
The colour of the yarn is various shades of pink although in my photos they look like they have a lilac tinge to them, sorry about that.
One stitch had to be missed for a hole for my thumb.
I used a free pattern for these gloves from a website called pompommag.com, I just love the colours they have used for their gloves, MillaMia in lime, cobalt and putty which is a sort of grey. They definitely remind me of the eighties, I just need to find a pattern for leg warmers now :)
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