Garden ghosts

Imagine you are a wealthy Edwardian lady with a beautiful house and garden like the one above. Isn't it gorgeous. You would, of course, have a gardener who would keep the lawns manicured and pick fresh flowers to fill your pretty house with scent and colour.

Then one day the gardener complains that large leathery leaves have mysteriously appeared in his carefully tended flower borders. He cannot identify them as there are no blooms. You decide to leave them growing just in case something beautiful or unusual appears.

The following spring several buds emerge and within a few short weeks these spiky beauties appear. They are 'eryngium gigantium' (sea holly).

In Victorian and Edwardian times, if these plants mysteriously appeared in your flower borders the chances were you had been visited by a well known plant enthusiast named Ellen Willmott. She would regularly taunt her friends by scattering seed of eryngium gigantium in their gardens and must have carried seed with her wherever she went.

Ellen Willmott

The flowers are tiny and are clustered on the central cone. They are surrounded by wonderful grey/white bracts that shine like silver in the summer sun and on a moonlit night they appear a ghostly white. Friends of Ellen Willmott eventually became used to these plants popping up uninvited in their gardens and they became know as Miss Willmott's Ghost.

I heard this story a few years ago and couldn't resist buying a packet of eryngium gigantium seeds to scatter in the garden. Nothing appeared so I forgot about them. Last year some strange leaves emerged which I thought were probably weeds. Then suddenly, in the last few weeks Miss Wilmott's Ghost has put in an appearance.......magic!

Elsewhere in the garden Posy has been hard at work. She is the only dolly whose legs are long enough to reach the pedals on this old bicycle and so she volunteered to pull the trailer loaded with pots and garden tools (plus a few helpers).

Meanwhile, Polly and Kate have been in the orchard gathering cherries. Every time they count them there are less cherries in the basket. I'm not sure how many will remain by teatime!

I'd better get back to the garden whilst the sun continues to shine. Enjoy your weekend.

Eli

Button love

I was tempted to buy a large bag of multi coloured buttons last week and since bringing them home have had endless fun sorting through them.

The colours are just yummy and they'll mix and match well with my rainbow selection of knitting yarn.

I placed a small selection of buttons on various ginghams and was surprised how different the colours of the buttons appeared on each. The same buttons are used in each photo.

 

The bag of buttons is just the sort of thing my mum would have bought for me at the start of a school holiday as she'd have known they would have kept me occupied for days. A needle and thread were always within easy reach at our house and I know for sure that apart from stitching them onto dolly clothes etc I'd have had endless fun creating (and wearing) zingy coloured bracelets and necklaces.

With baby brothers in the family I would of course have been warned not to leave stray buttons within easy reach of inquisitive hands.

With the school holidays approaching I thought I'd recommend 'Made by Me' by Jane Bull. The ideas and illustrations are delightfully tempting and just right for young girls who show an interest in sewing and knitting. I know my own daughter would have loved it.

There are some clever storage ideas for all those bits and pieces every crafter collects.

Some great ways to decorate a plain T-shirt

An easy rag doll to make and dress

There's even a knitted hat for your dolly to wear. I was thrilled to see knitting had been included in the book as I'd like to see all youngsters learning to knit.

Simple sewing and embroidery stitches are described and illustrated and there are numerous cute items to tempt young crafters.

Last week I stumbled across blogs by two youngsters Karn and Margo. They use their blogs to post pictures of their drawings and paintings. I think this is a wonderful way for children to keep a record of their work and of course show their artistic creations to a large audience.

You can see their blogs here:
Karn Draws.
My Strawberry Unicorns

If you have a creative little person (under the age of 10) with a blog that is used to post art or craft work done by this child please do let me know, I'd love to see it and will add it to my list.

Until next time,
Eli

Summer begins

Well, its officially the first day of summer today and I've chosen this pretty floral fabric as inspiration for the new dolly I've been planning. The fabric is named 'Summertime' and I've just realised it is a UK product. We used to be world leaders in cotton production and for centuries our mills produced cotton fabric that was exported around the globe. But those days have gone and now most of what we use is imported so it's really good to see some fabric with a UK label.

I love matching yarns to printed fabrics and as you can see work on the new doll has already started thanks to this little floral print. I know more or less what she will look like but am never averse to making changes to my plans along the way. I can't say how long the dolly will be in the making but while we are all confined indoors the knitting will continue.

The rain stopped for about five minutes this morning and as I had my camera handy I popped outside and took a few pics. I think they speak for themselves.

Meanwhile the dolls in the playroom gaze out of the widow longing for the rain to stop so that they can enjoy some much needed outdoor fun.

Back to the knitting!

Eli

A woolly sort out

We really are having the most dismally wet summer here in northern Britain. Yesterday, to add a bit of colour to the day, I decided to sort through my knitting yarn. I do this from time to time as it can get into a terrible tangle. I like to separate the various shades into different boxes as it makes mixing and matching yummy colours a lot easier.

I never know what I will find when I'm having a sort out. Below is something I started knitting before Easter but I can't remember what it was going to be. I like the colour combination so might hang on to it in case it provides inspiration for a future project.

In the cupboard I have a large bag of knitted experiments and unfinished items. Here are just a few of them. When creating a new pattern it can take two or three attempts to get something looking just right. I used to pull back all my trial pieces but now I often keep them as they can provide a useful guide when planning new toys.

Meanwhile, the dolls continue to remind me of what I should be thinking about, namely knitting a larger playroom friend who will fit nicely into this rather large chair.

Thank you dolls, I think I've got the message!!

The playroom chair

There's an old wooden chair in the playroom which provides the dolls with a constant source of amusement but also concern. The amusement comes from taking turns to climb into the chair. As you can see, a helping hand is always required and the smaller you are the more difficult the challenge.

The concern comes from there not being a playroom doll that is big enough to fit comfortably in the chair.

Two small dollies prove the point.

When I asked what we should do about it the dolls disappeared and returned with a Raggedy Ann book.

They quickly turned to this page.

When I saw a picture of sweet Raggedy Ann sitting on an old wooden chair it quickly became evident that the dolls were looking for a similar friend to join them in the playroom.

Someone who was just the right size to fit in their old wooden chair.

Someone to share meals with.

And a kindly someone who would tell them bedtime stories on dark nights.

I explained that we didn't have a Raggedy Ann living here.

But my explanation fell on deaf ears and a wooden cart was wheeled in which the dolls proceeded to fill with yarn.



From the colours they chose it was easy to see what they were trying to tell me!

I'm guessing these little rascals were telling me that they'd like their own Raggedy Ann doll to come and live with them in the playroom. I confess I have been asked several times by knitters if I'd create a knitting pattern for a Raggedy type doll but I've always shied away from the idea as for me there is only one Raggedy Ann. So any doll that I created might resemble the original but would require a different name, but what?

We'll have to put our thinking caps on here at Flutterby Patch and see what we can come up with. I'll keep you posted!

Meanwhile, enjoy your weekend

Eli