Evenin’ all. 🙂
[Passes round glasses of wine (or juice, for the non-drinkers) and a range of small but delectable nibbles, including vegetarian options. Encourages you all to continue knitting or crocheting whilst we chat. Sorry the canapés are shop-bought: I didn’t have time to cook because I’ve been out all day. And – uncharacteristically for me – I haven’t baked any cake, I’m afraid. Maybe come back tomorrow if that’s what you’re after. I have baked some wholemeal bread, though.]
It’s not been a very knitty or hooky day, but it has been fun. And just in case you think I’m slacking in my yarnery, here’s a shot of the progress of the knitted mandala picture:-
I’ve been thinking more about mandalas, and I realized that there are a few on a dress of mine (I’m a sucker for Desigual dresses.) Look:-
Anyway, back to today. I have an allotment! No, let me say that again: I HAVE AN ALLOTMENT!!!!!!! After several years on a waiting list, and after endless hoping, pleading, bribing, blackmailing, extortion, and general corruption of a wide and creative variety of forms (not really), I have finally got to the top of the allotment waiting list. Unfortunately the plot that I’ve been offered looks like this just at the moment. Those weeds… they’re taller than the toddler twinnage:-
But a sweet new friend, whom I also secretly know to be our village yarn-bomber but I’m not supposed to know that is going to run it jointly with me, so right now it seems possible. She knows this plot well because she’s rented it in the past, and when we went to visit today (carrying the toddler twinnage to avoid losing them forever amongst the undergrowth, which would – let’s face it – be a tricky one to explain to social services), she showed me that deep down at ground level, you can find delicious strawberries. And there are some valiantly-surviving potato plants too, and a smattering of roses and day-lilies. All good, yes? The strawberries were delightfully yumptious, but I’m afraid I didn’t get a photo, because I was too busy eating them. Oops.
Anyway, the great thing about running an allotment with a yarn-bomber is that our first discussion was not about who was going to water the plants on a Tuesday, or how to divide up the tomato crop, or what type of fertiliser we need. No, our first discussion was about the yarn-bombing potential of the fence around our plot. Don’t you just love that? We’re sorting out the important stuff first. 🙂 Happy days. I’m thinking a little light rainbow crochet around the top of the fence, to start? Advice, people?
So we had a little look around, and we pondered. And we visited the chickens and guinea pigs in the garden of my new friend whom I’m not supposed to know is the yarn-bomber and then we went next door to the house of another friend of mine who has more than 20 pet rabbits, and I looked at her gorgeous bunnies and the piles of bunny-fluff on the grass from where she’d groomed them, which made me think, knitting! How soft would that bunny fur be to knit?! And a sweet baby bunny climbed me, resulting in this:-
And then it was time to go home, because I had – hard life – to go to my favourite cousin’s 40th birthday party in a neighbouring village, where we enjoyed a high tea with many cakes and scones and some rather delectable green tea and champagne beside the river Thames. Happy birthday Lisa, if you’re reading this!
Great photos!!
Thank you! (Not all of them with the new camera.) I’ve really appreciated your advice about both cameras and editing. 🙂
I’m rather afraid an allotment will severely curtail your knitting – and possibly baking – routines………… but having said that how great to have a new friend to garden with! We don’t have allotments here, given that most of the populace, barring me it seems, lives on at least a quarter acre. I am following a nice Englishman called Mark Ridsdell-Smith [I think I spelled it right] who has a website called ‘Vertical Veg’ and teaches how to grow up when space is limited. Most helpful 🙂 I mention him simply because it occurred to me that you have a brewery tower to grow things up – and which intertwined with your grand yarn bombings could well become a national phenomenon 🙂 Growing stuff is such fun isn’t it – almost as much fun as creating mandalas – which I still haven’t done more than think about yet!
Congrats on the allotment – happy weeding and clearing and planning!
Thank you. That’s why I wimped out of taking on the allotment alone – I feared that I just didn’t have time. But I’m giving this a try with my new friend and if it doesn’t work out, we can stop. We don’t have to develop all of it straight away. Going to look up vertical veg site – thank you for the recommendation. That sounds useful. I try to grow veg at home, but suitable places are almost absent and our garden is small.
(And I hope you do do a mandala or two. 🙂 )
I am disappointed that your photos are not appearing 🙁 all I can see are captions. I would really love to see the mandala progress.
Oh! I’m not sure what’s going wrong there… Um… I’m sorry. Is this on a PC or a tablet or something else?
Feeling very inspired by the knitted mandala. Nice work!
Thank you!
Beautiful Mandalas 🙂 Congratulations!
Thank you.
Attack bunnies?! I’ve read somewhere that a person can pull fur from an angora bunny and spin yarn straight from the source. What I read said the bunnies actually liked it . . . Exciting news about your allotment–it’ll give you a break from all that knitting and bunny wrangling!
Hmmm, I may need to babysit my friend’s bunnies…………
if you thread the yarn bombing with shiny discs, you could explain to the allotment committee that it’s a scarecrow fence? I’ve seen something in a gardening mag using old CDs hung from a tree as a scarecrow/to scare cats away
That is a completely genius idea. They would look gorgeous with a lacy bit of colourful crochet round the edge, AND would be nominally practical too. Seriously, do you mind if I use your idea, please? It’s completely brilliant.
You can use it only if you share photos at the end ;p
OK. Deal.
I’m sure the bunnies you met aren’t really savage but I own one that growls. And she’s been known to bite. Flora is called PsychoBunny by everyone else and Flo by me 😉
Growls?!! Like, really? I’m scared already and (I assume) I don’t even live near you.
Oh ps (and I meant to say this first!) congrats on the allotment!
Thank you. 🙂
Congratulations! You’ve got a plot!
Yup! Happy – if rather weedy – days.
You gotta love them weeds!
Love your so practical first thoughts about yarn bombing your allotment fence!! 🙂 Think you are going to have a lot of fun with this!
Of course! What did you expect?! When you next come to stay, you can HELP!
I mentioned yarn bombing our allotment to my OH and he got a look of panic on his face so I am very jealous that you’re going to get to have some hooky/ knitty fun with your fence.
Maybe you should do it anyway…. He might come round to the idea…
Just love your mandalas♡
Awww, thanks. 🙂
Wow, I hope you have fun with the allotment! My gardening endeavors are very limited due to lack of space and sun, but I’m currently trying to coax some roots out of some rosemary and lavender clippings. Also, baby bunny scratches are probably one of the best sorts to have. 🙂
Thank you. Wishing you abundant rootage. 🙂 (Have you got some hormone rooting powder?)
Thanks! And no, we had some success with just letting rosemary sit in some water last year, so I’m just going to see how it goes.
An ALLOTMENT; indeed, such yarn bombing potential. 😉
Yup, never mind the vegetables – they’re secondary.
If you can’t grow them, you can crochet them!
Hmm, you might be on to something, there. Maybe the whole thing should be entirely in yarn….
If you would permit a dumb question from the United States, when you get an allotment you have to go in and clear it and plant what you want? Do you put up a fence of your choice? I need to be able to picture how it will look to decide yarn bombing possibilities!
Not a dumb question at all. Yes, you can clear it and plant it in any way you want (or even keep chickens there). You can put up your own fence, but the one that’s there already is fine, so I won’t be changing it. So in theory, it’ll soon look less weedy, with organised beds full of different fruit and veg. There’s a strawberry bed in the middle that we’ll try to keep, and also some roses and potatoes. And the toddler twinnage will need their own bed to destroy…
Lots of yarn bombing opportunities! Also you can stake up your tomatoes with some yarn!
The mandala looks so cool so far! I can’t wait to see how it progresses.
Oooh… bunny babysitting and garden yarn bombing all sounds like fun! What size is the allotment? Looking forward to seeing what you do with the place 🙂 ❤ <3
Not sure, in terms of metres square. But it’s large enough to intimidate me.