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Month: April 2016

CHERRY BLOSSOM

April 26, 2016November 24, 2016 | Chloe

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Everything’s looking very pretty and springy round our way at the moment – I love this time of year!

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This wisteria has been a harbinger of spring my entire life and today I share it with you 💜 It grows up the front of my childhood home and last year it was looking so ropey and past its prime that my Mum cut it right back to its trunk thinking that maybe it's time was up. Instead it's put out fresh growth and is flourishing once more. I'm sure there is a lesson buried in there somewhere. I hope things are blooming in your life wherever you are in the word.

I've got a little DIY tutorial in the pipeline which I'm hoping to have ready in time for the warmer weather. This bow scrunchie has been living in my minds eye for a long time - it's so nice to see it out in the world at last!

Spring vibes... 🌸 While I was dashing to catch a train the other week I saw these delicate blossoms floating in a puddle and the puddle (which you can't really see here) was reflecting the clear blue sky and puffy clouds. It was bitterly cold and when I walked home from the train station that evening I got rained on. That's the part of spring I find the hardest - once I've stopped lighting candles in the evening and gone from looking inwards and feeling cosy to looking outwards and yearning for warmer days and the smell of cut grass to be carried on the breeze but the earth still feels so cold. Well, this week has been the first proper taste of Spring hopefulness for me, has Spring just arrived for you too?

The sun, the allotment and me. Last week during a glorious afternoon of unseasonal warmth, I planted a russet apple tree (of the dwarfing kind...hopefully... I threw away the tag which listed the root stock 🙄). This was swiftly followed by two red-currants and a blackberry. It feels so good to be outdoors, digging and planting these first few things at the allotment. Carefully tucked away in a drawer at home are my seeds which if I'm honest, make me feel a little nervous but digging a hole and plonking a tree in it? This much I can definitely do. I'm standing here in front of my new fence which I'm hoping to use to train more fruit trees but these will have to wait until the Autumn now. This apple tree is going to be allowed to grow wild and free and I'll just have to hope I can keep it contained to allotment appropriate proportions! Have you tried training fruit trees and if so what shape do you prefer? I'm partial to an espalier myself but I think I'm going to try cordons here for maximum use of the space 🌱#allotmentlife #allotmentlove #allotmentuk #kitchengarden #growyourfood #landscapelovers #natureperfection #quietinthewild #gloomandglow #seasonspoetry

An unexpected surprise that brought a smile to my face one morning last week 🐔 I don't think I've ever seen a chicken feather up close before - I'm going to share a closer look in my stories for anyone who is curious. These lovely eggs are from @riverford - I've been a customer of their organic veg boxes for over a decade now ❤️ For anyone else who is dismayed at the amount of plastic packaging that accompanies supermarket veg this is a really good place to start. I wrote a blog post recently about my plans to make more sustainable choices with our household shopping - go have a read, the link is in my bio! 😄#mysustainableswaps

Happy Valentine's Day! Here are some flowers for you 💜 This was last year's bumper crop of lavender from the front garden. I'm really looking forward to growing some flowers on the allotment this year - for cutting, dyeing, and hopefully making some nice things for the bath too. I could feel Spring in the air today and I know it's nearly time to shake off my Winter hibernation and start making things again. I'm curious to know, does your creativity eb and flow with the seasons? It only dawned on me a few weeks ago that mine does and it's made me look at the year ahead completely differently ✨

On a cold and wet Winter's evening there's only one place I want to be - at home, preferably with a cup of tea and a hot water bottle, making plans for warmer days to come. You can find the tutorial for this quilted hot water bottle cover on my blog - link's in my profile 👆 This is a great project for newbie sewists because it's basically just a two dimensional shape and nearly all straight lines - but you get something useful at the end! I love my floral version which is made from beautiful @riflepaperco fabric but there are so many other prints I want to try - you can never have too many hot water bottles right?

This unassuming exterior was once the Sussex home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. I visited Charleston Farmhouse back in October and have finally got around to sharing some photos of the beautiful garden over on my blog. It's good reading if, like me, you're indoors listening to the wind rage outside, reading gardening magazines and thinking of warmer days to come. I'm hoping to incorporate some of the wild abundance of this garden into our allotment this year 🌱 Link in profile ✨

Sometimes I'll feel so focussed and purposeful and then it suddenly just evaporates - does anyone else feel the same? Perhaps it's a mid-week thing, or a moon phase thing? In her podcast Hashtag Authentic @me_and_orla talks about breaking big tasks or projects down in to tiny steps, that way you can kind of lean in to how you're feeling on any given day and choose the tasks that suit you best. I've found it a really helpful way to keep things progressing, even on 'meh' days and think of my 'to-do' lists now as more lateral things. How do you tackle creative energy slumps? Do you power on through or take a break?

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SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING (or more accurately, how I have been doing the complete opposite of this but am trying to do better)
FRUIT & FLOWERS: Finding Allotment Inspiration in Sussex…
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GLOOM & GLOW (AND PLANS FOR 2018!)
HOW TO MAKE A QUILTED HOT WATER BOTTLE COVER [DIY TUTORIAL]

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