A Baby Quilt for a Baby Bee

About halfway through our Little Blogs Quilt Bee (LBQB) our queen bee, Lou, who brought us all together announced that she was having a baby. This was all very exciting as it meant we could launch a bit of secret sewing!

A look through Lou's Instagram feed found that her favourite colours were pink, teal and grey which worked for not knowing whether she was having a boy or girl. A few secret discussions later and we agreed on a star type block 54-40 or Flight

We each made a block before I joined them together and sent it off to Gina to work her quilting magic. 

We were so pleased with the result, but nearly got caught out as her little bundle of joy arrived five weeks early!

Congratulations Lou! It was a fun project to make and a fitting end to the bee

Joanna

The UK Low Volume Plus Swap!

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen my callout for interest in doing a block swap.

It seems there is a bit of interest so let's do it!

 

The original #lowvolumeplusswap was run by Lindsay Conner in the States. It was open to US citizens only and she is currently sorting the blocks for all the recipients. She has quite a few to sort!

 

The block is quite simple and quick to make. You can find a tutorial on Lindsay's website here. Please ignore other information on Lindsay's page such as the sign up link and the number of blocks to make. All the information you need for the UK swap is here.

 

The Plus block

The block is 11 3/4" square unfinished and uses charm squares for the corners, although this isn't a necessity. The background should be made of scrappy low volume prints, although a few white, cream or grey solids are fine. Make sure that the background and the plus fabrics have a different value when you lay them out.

The plus should be ONE bright, single-colour print. You can use colours of the rainbow, including dark neutrals like blacks, dark greys and browns for each block. Make your blocks all different colours or all the same; the choice is yours!

All fabrics should be quilt-shop quality fabrics  e.g. Robert Kaufman, Moda, FreeSpirit, AGF, Benartex. The main thing in a swap is to remember to give as you would receive!

 

I'm going to suggest we each make a maximum of 12 blocks to start with. Lindsay has over a 1000 blocks to share out which seems a bit of a logistical nightmare to me! She has suggested on her page how many blocks you need to make various size quilts and has also posted some finished quilts as inspiration.

 

How the swap works

1. However many blocks you make and send to me is the number of blocks you will receive in exchange.

2. Blocks must come from a smoke-free home.

3. I will email you my address once you have signed up. Signing up to the swap is not a commitment to providing the number of blocks you have indicated. It just gives me an idea of who is taking part and the number of blocks I'm likely to need to sort.

4. When you have made your blocks, send them to me. Remember to enclose a stamped addressed envelope with your blocks so that I can send you your swap blocks in return.
5. When sending your blocks, please include a note with your name, address and email address so I know who they have come from AND the number of blocks you have sent.

6. I'll share blocks at random after the closing date.

7. The swap is restricted to quilters with UK addresses only.

8. The closing date for sending your blocks is 31 August 2015. This means you can make one block a week which makes it a bit less daunting.

 

Here's a BIG tip!

Use the same size envelope and same postage you use to send your blocks to me for your return parcel as guess what.....I'll need to use the same size envelope and postage to send you your swap blocks! If you don't put enough stamps on or a large enough envelope, it will be you that has to pay the excess postage charge or have blocks squeezed into a small envelope!

 

Ok, nagging bit over......

 

Still interested?

 

Sign up for the swap here!

 

Don't forget to hashtag your blocks #UKlowvolumeplusswap on Instagram and share the swap with your friends. The more people involved......the more variety of blocks to swap!

 

Let's have some fun!

Joanna


 

 

The Sweet Potato Queen

This is a bit of a tongue in cheek title I have acquired on twitter as a few friends have followed my attempts to grow my own slips from sweet potatoes. 

Whilst they are called potatoes, sweet potatoes are from a different plant family than your regular spud; the ipomoea family. They have a vine like quality that spreads over the ground while the roots form long tubers below the surface. And as they are from a different family, you don't grow them from a seed potato but rather from slips. Slips are new plants that are grown from a tuber

However, experiments with friends have shown you can't use just any old tuber as many commercial tubers have been treated with a chemical called budnip which prevents any growth from sprouting on them. 

I grew sweet potatoes last year from some slips I bought from Marshalls Seeds and had a reasonable harvest from five plants; and they were delicious! Mellow, smooth and sweet to the taste. 

Having watched some videos on YouTube, at the end of January I placed a couple of my homegrown tubers into two jars of water 

A couple of weeks later the first few signs of growth sprouting 

And gradually more and more growth, mainly shots but also a few roots 

When the growth is ideally about 6" long you simply break off the slip 

Placing the slip in water again encourages root growth 

The slips then need to be potted up before being planted out after the risk of frost has passed

It will be interesting to see what kind of harvest I get from these homegrown slips. It's certainly been satisfying growing my own as they are expensive to buy online at approx £10 for five slips. I probably grew about 18 slips from those two tubers but what was noticeable was the slips were gradually smaller and less strong, so maybe a note to myself in the future to take a maximum of four or five slips per tuber. 

I'll hopefully be planting my slips out on the allotment in the next couple of weeks and will post an update later in the year. 

My Musings on The Big Allotment Challenge

So the second series of The Big Allotment Challenge has just ended on bbc2 and I enjoyed watching very much. 

I enjoyed watching the first series too. 

It's a TV programme. It's a competition. Yet people are still moaning about the grow challenge being about growing perfect veg. Yet if you belong to any horticultural society or exhibit vegetables at a village show, that's the sort of thing you are expected to enter and the veg has to satisfy all the entry requirements to be in with a chance of winning. 

Yes all of us who grow vegetables are growing them for the taste and so we know exactly what has gone into producing that parsnip or whatever. We don't care what they look like. Nothing beats homegrown. 

But are you telling me you don't get excited or a certain amount of pride when you dig up a perfectly straight carrot or grow a massive cabbage?

I like that the TV company listened to comments after the first series. There was more factual information about growing each vegetable or flower and I think I preferred the one gardener per plot format. 

I'm gradually getting converted to growing more flowers and already know I want to make a Christmas wreath for my front door this year. 

The eat challenges were a bit more inventive in the latest series too, which is great as was using the veg or fruit that they had grown. 

I've heard on the grapevine (twitter) that a third series hasn't been commissioned which is a real shame when you think how much crap there is on television these days. Surely a programme that promotes growing your own and preserving and healthier living and exercising as a result, is something that should be welcomed with open arms? People say it's a poor imitation of the Great British Bake Off, but how many series did that take before it became the massive success it is today?

I really hope the beeb reconsider. 

And finally I'm delighted to see that my fave Rob won, and feeling smug that we followed each other on twitter before he became famous! Well done that man!

A Year in Review - the Year of the Bee!

I've been so busy this month I've just remembered I didn't do a review of my quilting year! To be honest, there isn't a huge amount to report on and I mentioned a lot of what I have been up to quilting-wise in my Around the World Blog Hop post a couple of months ago.

 

2014 was definitely the Year of the Bee for me where I dipped my toes into the online world of the virtual quilt bee. The first bee I joined was the Little Blogs Quilt Bee. I blogged about it here last year. We are almost at the end of this bee now with just one more queen bee in February but we hope to keep some joint quilting efforts going in some shape or form.
The second bee I joined was the Modern Instabee on Instagram. This has been a fun bee too making blocks for each other from the book Modern Bee by Lindsey Conner. I am queen bee in March so looking forward to receiving my blocks then!

 

My recent quilting has been to make a quick Plus Quilt for the designer of my magazine who left to have a baby

 

 

 

And I finally found a bit of time to join my #LBQB blocks together. Looking forward to quilting this soon!

 

 

 

So I think that's probably about it quilting-wise for 2014. I've already got lots of ideas bubbling around my head for quilts I want to make this year, including getting back to my City Sampler quilt.

 

Let's see how I get on!

 

Joanna

 

 



 

 

A Year in Review - Preserving the Harvest

As this was our first full season, it also meant we had the opportunity to preserve more of our harvest. We've made jams before and made one chutney but apart from that, not much else. 

Jams

Our strawberry jams have usually been successful, although last year's raspberry jam was a bit too seedy. This year we planned to make more of a jelly with the raspberries by straining out the seeds and I have to say this as been our best jam to date with a perfect set

The other jam we made this year was apple and rhubarb which had a nice tangy fizz to it

Chutneys

These have been a bit hit and miss. We had so many runner beans this year that we made a runner bean chutney. Possibly tried eating it a bit early as it tastes a bit vinegary 

Next up were a beetroot chutney, which I think is ok and a courgette and tomato chutney that we're yet to try but it looks promising!

As for the rest, the main crop potatoes are stored in hessian sacks and should last us well into next year. The excess runner beans are in the freezer. Onions have been strung up and the shallots pickled which was our biggest success; really crunchy!

And the main failure was the tomato ketchup but mainly because I put too much ground cloves in it!

And we are yet to sample the tomato sauce that's in the freezer....

So all in all I think we've done ok growing and keeping enough to keep us going!

Can't wait for next year!

The Year in Review - the allotment

So as 2014 draws to a close, it's time to take a look back at the highs and lows of our first full year on the plot. Overall I think the year has been a success with a few lessons learned and a plentiful harvest.

Starting from the top, Bed 1 which this year was the root crop bed. We had initial problems with everything that germinated being nibbled. It was really frustrating until another plotholder advised us to cover them with fleece, which we did. Thereafter everything was fine. So not as many carrots or beetroot as we would have liked but still a good harvest, especially the Autumn King. 

Really pleased with the sweet potatoes which were an experiment 

They taste so sweet and mellow though so well worth it even if they aren't that big. 

Talking of big though, here's a parsnip. It weighs 875g!

Bed 2. This had our sweetcorn and tomatoes in together with a couple of courgettes plants and some cabbages. The sweetcorn were delicious and we had about a dozen good sized ones like these

The tomato harvest was enormous. We couldn't keep up, although we did get tomato blight late on. The San Marzano were great for sauces etc

We managed to keep on top of the courgettes luckily, mainly as we went down to one plant. 

We had trouble with the cabbages getting eaten before we covered them but finally getting some now 

Bed 3, this year's potato bed. Really good harvest. The first early Rocket potatoes were delicious and worth growing again. We had a total of 30kg of main crop spuds which should last us until next year easily!

Bed 4 the legumes. The onions were good, both the spring sown and over wintered ones and will last us until next year. They make a mighty fine French onion soup. The shallots made three jars of pickled onions which are lovely and crunchy 

We lost count of how many runner beans we harvested. They were lovely and long and not stringy. Froze loads. We kept some of the seeds for next year. 

The French beans were not quite so successful but tasty all the same as are the leeks which are still going strong 

And finally TK's pumpkins....let's just say the biggest was a whopper which he carved for Halloween 

So all in all a good year. We'll remember to cover things a bit more next year and maybe look forward to a few spears of asparagus!