To celebrate the Harvest Moon a moon feather heralding a storm.

 I've moved all the loose pots and plants in the garden into the greenhouse ready for the gale force winds tonight and tomorrow. 

My son and I got the ladder and picked as many apples as we could before they fall and bruise tonight.

Likewise the fig tree stripped bare of its beautifully ripe baubles before they scattered as a sacrifice to wasps.

Pumpkins and courgettes lie low with their heads bowed in preparation.

Tonight the season turns with the gale and the moon. The leaves are in a hurry to fertilise the soil this year and put the ground to bed.

The fruits prepare to grow new trees.

And we move to the next decade since another fall...

Sew a Little, Sow a Little

Potential here for a lovely linen quilt.

Really understated. Plenty of plain fabric with a little something of colour. Interest lies in the weave and texture. Something simple. Grown from a little seed.

To compare:-  the seeds I planted only a month or so ago. From something so unprepossessing to a rich and varied lunch of twenty or more varieties of salad leaves is very satisfying. Interest here lies in the textures and many flavours.

Apart from a little Welsh cheese added here my food miles for lunch were approximately 30 metres!

I like the connection here between the potential quilt and those little seeds which yielded so much.

One Big Achievement and Many Small Pleasures

I am very slow at making quilts so when one gets finally finished it's time for a heck of a gin and tonic. So excuse any typing errors!
This one has been a year in the making. It's single bed size and is for my parents. They have just celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary. I missed the deadline slightly, but then the Queen sent them a card right on time. To think they have been married 60 years. The quilt took me 1/60th of their married lives to make!!

Here is Isabel, my daughter, checking for stray threads.

Finally though I have made the decision to give up my allotment. This vegetable plot has been an ongoing struggle project for about 5 years. Finally my back has won with it's slippy disc and my knees protest a little too much and I have given in. I have finally lost the plot as it were!

However I cannot contemplate life without home grown veg so I have installed a small bed in the garden and several crops in pots. I am taking the Alys Fowler approach to having an edible garden. Tonight we had some wonderful french radishes sauteed in butter and garlic, with their green tops and courgettes with garlic.

It looks as if there will be a bumper crop of Victoria Plums this year.

A very small achievement for many, but a giant leap for me is that I have learned to do a colonial knot. Much better than a French knot, which I could never do anyway!

... and finally I thought I'd make something weeny. This little pair of fairy slippers was fun to make from a pattern by Annette Emms. They are about three inches long. Hopefully they'll keep a little character warm whilst they keep the slugs off my vegetables at the bottom of the garden at night!!