New Orchid and seedlings

The other day Mr Motley and I received a wonderful gift to add to our ever-growing collection of plants.

This is an unusual miniature orchid and basically we wanted to say a very big thank-you we love it!
We also have lots of seedlings sprouting up now on every windowsill making the house into an extension of the garden, which has a very 'good life' feel to it!

Currently we have a large number of lettuces, the ones that managed to avoid the frost, chillies, tomatoes, and sunflowers.

Not to mention all of the houseplants.....   we can't wait for some warm weather to arrive so we can really get going on the garden.

Lettuce seedlings vying for space amidst the cacti, scented geraniums and  amaryllis

In other news, the other crochet project that i began the other night (eventually it will be a blanket) is now well under way.  I got three balls of  random 3 colours, chenille style wool from the art,craft and bookshop called the works for £2.99.  I'm sure this won't be enough for a full size blanket, but I'm going to see how much this makes up, and then have a rummage to find some other wools that complement the weight and colours.

Scented geranium, resurrected from being killed off in the frost.

 Autumnal colours

I can't wait to post some delicious salads made from our home grown veg!

Tom and Barbara from BBC programme 'The Good Life'.

Recent Purchases

Ceramic 1930's Lady Bookends

These two Ladies were part of a larger Lot that came from the local auction house, I have no idea as to their providence but they are lovely nonetheless!

Below are three books that I found in a local charity shop.  The two novels are in quite a bad condition but for £1 for all three (!) I was pretty pleased.  The nature book has some fantastic faded illustrations, and scientific diagrams in that I intend to use for craft and scrap-booking purposes.  Usually I'll either scan the pages or if its in really bad condition will cut up the actual book.

Crochet Cushions and Crocuses

one of the beautiful yolk-egg yellow crocuses that has poppeed up in the garden

I have been working on a few crochet projects recently, the first was to use up some small balls of pink, cream and orange cotton that I found in the bottom of a craft chest whilst having a spring clean.

To begin with i started by making a large granny square that measures about a foot square, I decided that as it's only a small piece and I don't have any more yarn, that I would turn this into a cushion.

I am a bit of a hoarder and have quite a few bits of vintage fabric stashed away for just such projects, unfortunately my sewing machine isn't working at the moment so I have had to hand-stitch the entire project, making it take a lot longer than I initially anticipated! Anyway this square of fabric is an old off-cut from some Liberty curtain-weight fabric.  The My Little Pony motif was cut out from an old T-shirt that I don't wear any more and appliqued onto the other side.

Now all that's is left to do is to stuff it and assemble it together!  I will post pictures of the finished project :)

hand-stitched appliqued MLP Motif

some mushroom Hunting from months ago

Hi, just a quick update, haven't posted for ages as I've been so busy doing things here and there!

these are some pictures of last autumn Sept/October when we last went mushroom hunting and some of the haul that we found!

we laid them out like this to aid in the identification, despite only managing to identify a few of them!

I'm looking forward to the forthcoming fungi season, and springtime photography and walks here in the forest.

The Master Identifier!

Purple Amethyst