Hokay, it's been over a month since I posted anything here...sorry. I've been engrossed in so many distractions. Darn Stuff! Actually, Darn Stuff has not been the culprit at all, unfortunately. It's been more like a host of incredible edibles and crochety little things that have been consuming my passions for the past month.
I've been sharing photos of my little veggie garden on Facebook since May when sowing started (I know... should've started in February or March. But you know what it's like...oh, plennty of time *flippant hand* and before I know it, it's nearly October and I haven't gone on a single mushroom forage yet *SOBBB* Ah..guess I'm a bit slow to jump on the bandwagon. Maybe retailers have a point, stocking Christmas gifts and winter wear when it's not even cold yet! Ugh.) More to the topic, I've started writing about my veggie garden for UK Handmade. All the articles I write for them will be compiled on a new blog called Middle-Aged Kingdom, so they'll all be in one place, together with recipes and a number of other articles not featured on their website for whatever reason - probably because they're too norty. Y'know I can't help a little innuendo sometimes...
Hmm. Inn-u-end-OH! Coincidence...? I wonder...
Speaking of incredible edibles and crochety things, my tiny seedlings were being demolished by a hungry little critter during the sowing period. And they didn't go quietly when Andy brought out the pest control...
I woke up the next morning to see this little fella perched high up on a plant stick, campaigning for its rights to eat our lettuce. Let SNAIL?
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| 'Lettuce eat lettuce!', the snail protested, waving his feelers in the air. |
Luckily for this little chap, Andy liked his spirit and rescued him. His friends weren't quite so fortunate...
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| The Earlsdon Slug Pellet Massacre |
I know quite a few of my readers are Singaporean, so if anyone's thinking escargot, yup, that's it. The brown and orange ones, at least. (No, I know escargot is French, but Singaporeans love food and will eat anything. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here) I briefly considered it too, but you have to catch the snails live and feed them on cornmeal for about two weeks to cleanse their insides before you can kill, cook and eat them. Plus, Andy's not into chewy textures, so that plan (along with the snails) fizzled out.
Snails are actually really cute, but if they'd been less impatient and waited till the seedlings got a bit bigger, we would've left them alone and shared our abundant crops with them. But, munching the seedlings leaves us nothing for later, so they had to go. However, here's a little tribute to them:
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| This is Whirligig the snail. His diet of cotton socks and polyfibre stuffing lettuce clean him in a washing machine easily. None of this fiddly cornmeal nonsense. |
I've also been making some other crochety little things, inspired by the veggie garden. Check out this peapod!
I love peas! Peas in a pod are the most beautiful sight in the world to me. Even interjections by my mad friend, Dannie Cho, that I obviously haven't seen his wife naked yet, haven't managed to ruin this image.
Actually, he's very wrong. I have seen her naked, and you can too, should you wish. Yi Lin is lovely, but Dan's harassment of the wife to say that he, naked is the 2nd most beautiful sight in the world has kept my mind steadfastly focused on that peapod. Hehe.
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| Click to enlarge, ok? |
I'd been dying to knit peas in a pod for years, but didn't know how, until I started going to the Knit, Stitch and Crochet Club at The Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre. I met someone who taught me how to hold the hook and yarn, and to follow patterns. The one for the peas is from Amigurumi Two! by Ana Paula Rimoli, and it's crocheted. I've decided for now that I'm not so into knitting, I have limited coordination with any activity that involves more than my own body. Sewing and crochet is just about ok, but coordinating two sticks, yarn and fingers all over the place is just too much to handle. I nearly had a fit when I saw the others at Knit Club making socks with four needles...*faint*
I also finished something super cute last week - a radish lariat scarf! It's my pride and joy and I wear it everywhere when it's not boiling hot. This one's from Crochet Goodies for Fashion Foodies by Twinkie Chan.
Unfortunately I got the pattern a bit wrong, so there're a few holes in the leaves. I managed to hide them a little by weaving in the ends, but, welllll, that's au naturel, right? I mean, in real gardens, you get crochety little snails munching on the radish leaves, so I decided to make one of those too!
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| Right, let'snail this crochetyness! |
The snail pattern came from the same Ana Paula Rimoli book, but I changed the colours to look like our brown garden snails. He's got a pin that allows him to crawl on my holey leaves, cling to clothing or perch on a headband so he can be a scarf accessory, brooch or fascinator. Knowing these crochety little things, they'd most like to be fascinators. Well, at least this snail is free to roam, even if the others weren't.
