Dream come through

If someone had said 15 years ago or 4 years ago even that a green house would be on top of my most wanted list I would have declared them completely crazy. I would have said that after working in my fathers green houses from the age of eleven planting, picking and watering flowers I had had my share of humid, hot glass houses and was never ever going to enter one again! But people can change can’t they? I can anyway!

I don’t really now when the change happened and it wasn’t over night but I think it was around the same time as we bought the country house. Maybe it was something about seeing the farmers’ harvest the fields that made me want to grow and harvest too? Or maybe it was because my garden is so big that if I wanted to fill it with flowers I had to grow them myself and you just have that much space on your windows sills and tables….Or maybe I just wanted a warm and cozy spot for drinking my afternoon tea or evening glass of wine?

I told my husband about my dream of a green house showing him various types and sizes. I told him I wanted one in town so that I could tend to my plants at all times and do you know what he did? He bought me one! I got a green house as a gift for our 20th wedding anniversary last week! Now did I marry the right guy or didn’t I !!!!

Take care
Jeanette

PS I think it was the promise of red wine and candles in the green house on cold autumn evenings that did the trick……

Copier Transparancies

I am making guardian angels for the exhibition. In my opinion you can’t have enough angels to guard you. Especially the way the world is today… I am going with the recycled theme so I am making them from old XEROX copier transparencies – who uses them these days anyway with computer power point presentations and what not… Old magazines and vintage books also come in handy!

Take care
Jeanette

My collection of kettle holders

Maria showed her kettle holder collection on her blog the other day. Inspired me to show you some of mine. I am crazy about kettle holders, don’t know why. Maybe it has something to do with my admiration for those who actually can crochet them and making them nice and square. Mine always got a sort of strange triangular shape or tower of Pisa look…. Used to drive my craft teacher in school crazy - how hard can it be she said. Which just goes to show how little she new….

I have great plans for my kettle holders, a shawl maybe or a bedspread. Definitely a bedspread! Then I will need a lot more of them and have many nice jumble sales to visit yet….

As you can see I am not the only one liking them!



Take care
Jeanette

When one thing leads to another….

I am sitting here with aching muscles, reading my last post and shaking my head. Gardening slowing me down? Yeah right! I have spent the last two days at my country house tending to the garden or more correctly I have gone a match against the thistles in what is to become my vegetable garden.

“ Ladies and gentlemen in the right hand corner we have Mrs Handmade, the fierce gardener and in the left hand corner you have the ever multiplying son of a bitch, Mr Thistle! Bong, and the game has started, look how Mrs Handmade is swinging that red spade. Can you see the look on her face folks? Scary! Poow, and Mr Thistle is down….1,2,3,4,5, 6, 7 ….and he is up again. Amazing how that man can keep on coming back….”

After 2500 thistles dug up I lost count. Why was I counting them you may wonder? Well it was preventing me from going insane. In my head I divided the vegetable garden in to squares, attacked each square with my spade counting the damn things while digging them up and thinking - Ha, Ha you suckers, 1 square down 10 to go…. You don’t think that sounds sane at all? You think it sounds more like “they are coming to take me away ha,ha, ho, ho…” ???



Anyway, after 3 hours digging I was so tired I could hardly stand up. I stood with my back and leg muscles aching looking at the now dug and raked little “field” feeling very content thinking I had done a good job. Then something at the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned my head towards the garage wall and froze -Where on earth did all that junk, old bricks and broken drainpipes come from? The mess behind the garage wall really stood out compared to my nice dug garden. So what did I do? I started to clean it up of course. I filled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with bricks and rubbish and my body was by now screaming 911 but me head said “keep on going you want to see it finished don’t you?” Then under all the junk I found 10 tiny little baby hollyhocks and then I had to replant them and make a border….and wouldn’t it look just beautiful with large stones around the border…..and….

At dusk my husband came out, took me by the hand and led me into the house otherwise I would be there still. Working on with one thing leading to another…..

Take care
Jeanette

PS I saved a whole field with thistles for the "Nettle butterfly" . It´s behind the barn where no one can see them! The thistles that it is. Have to think about the wildlife too!

A learning experience

I am not a very patient woman! Passion yes but patience no. I am more a “lets get this done fast” kind of girl and I don’t like to stand around waiting. As a result of this I am very efficient but in the rush of things shit sometimes happens….Shit happening is very often related to manuals. I mean who have the time to read manuals? Well my husband for one…

Lately I have been studying the art of patience through gardening and I must say that it actually works. When planting tiny little seeds you just can’t rush things, well you will miss the freaking pot for one…and they won’t grow faster even if you try to hurry them on.




In the evening I talk to my little plants before I cover the two little green houses with a fleece blanket to protect them from frost and in the morning I wake them up with a cheerful good morning! I am very content with watching them grow a millimeter or so everyday and that my friends might not be a giant leap for mankind but a giant leap for me. My gardening slows me down!

Take care
Jeanette

PS Weeding still freaks me out but you can’t learn everything at once can you…..

Wall hangings

This weekend I finally got started on my exhibition stuff. I have decided to do a textile and recycled theme ….sort of ….and today I wanted to see if I could combine the two. I started on a wall hanging. I have always been fascinated by cross-stitched wall hangings mostly because of the different kind of sayings that people choose to hang on their walls, the messages often encouraging, biblical or down right demanding. I went for a more pessimistic – optimistic approach on mine. I used a vintage wall hanging that I bought last summer but added my very own message and some machine embroidery. I haven’t got a fancy sewing machine so it took some time but I had fun doing it.

The message?

Life sucks, then you die.

If you read that every morning you’re day can only get better!

Take care
Jeanette