Wednesday 22 April 2009

Spring Bag and Spring Veg

At last this bag is finished. I really enjoyed using these Japanese taupe fabrics although the woven ones aren't so easy to work with on a small scale . I love the feel of them and the slightly muted colours. The little buttons were lovely to sew on on one of those days when I had plenty of patience. (Must have been a "p" in the month).

I managed to get down to the allotment today in some warm Spring sunshine. I have mountains of rhubarb so it's a good job my family will eat crumble with this in as often as I can make it! I also picked this yellow stemmed Swiss Chard, which has sat through a pretty cold winter, and steamed the leaves. They are rather like spinach and hence my family won't touch them - all the more for me then.

Also there was a last taster of purple sprouting (calibrese? broccoli? I don't know what it's called around the world). So it was pretty healthy tea with home made halibut goujons and brown rice.

Generally I know feel much happier having spent all this time out of doors but my back is a little creaky from planting the last of the seed potatoes. I certainly think it's a far better way to get fit than sweating in a gym to endless daytime TV pap. I really have something to show for my day (apart from the aches and pains).

All in all I feel a whole new quilt coming on....
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10 comments:

  1. lovely bag. I dont think we get purple sprouting broccoli here - Ive never seen it - just the boring old green stuff! here we call swiss chard silverbeet (if it has white stems, or rainbow chard for coloured stems), and when i was a kid it was always called spinach. in fact real spinach is still called English Spinach to differentiate. our kids like chard braised with olive oil, onion, pinenuts and sultanas (seedless raisens), or in spinach and feta pie.

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  2. and the owl is beautiful. I really do like your patchwork backgrounds. (dont you just hate it when you are showing off something beautiful and the commenter just spouts on about veggies instead of complimenting you on the art work!)

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  3. Love the bag! Where did you get your pattern?

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  4. I'll start with the art! :)

    It's beautiful, and I could see a quilt happening.

    I grow sprouting broccoli here (grew up eating it), but it's not very common. I love it! Also swiss chard, yum! That's probably my Italian back ground showing.

    I do think we share a lot of interests!

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  5. I'm so jealous, rhubarb doesn't like this climate! But chard grows like a weed!I do like the chequered background of the owl, it's calling out to be quilted............

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  6. Bethany - the pattern for the bag is from Elaine Aitken at Button Angel but slightly adapted (i.e. I went wrong a couple of times and thought... "oh well" and carried on. I HATE unpicking!

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  7. Thanks for the lovely comment on my blog. To answer your question those pictures were taken with a Nikon D40 with a 55-200mm lens....any SLR will give you better depth of field and generally nicer pictures than a point and shoot as the CCD is larger. If you want to ask any other questions, please feel free.

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  8. Gorgeous bag! good luck with the lino printing, I have found that wood block cutting tools help.

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  9. I love this bag, all the creative elements and colors. Very, very nice.

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  10. Where do I begin - in random order: fantastic bag and such lovely subtle colours; barn owl beautiful, chickens sweet, and best of luck to your daughter with her RSPB entry. Purple Sprouting - mine is late, spinach delicious with a poached egg on top and the beet sort I know as 'perpetual spinach' and it's great for feeding hens in the winter; does something good for the eggs (I think it's the iron). And I think I have commented on two posts here.

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