Duilleoga

Birdhouse Fun

My son & I spent some quality time together just the 2 of us. The weather wasn’t great & we had a pj morning while we decided what to do with our day. Instead of watching cartoons I decided to crack out our ‘Build a Birdhouse’ pack we had.

Pretty much it was a case of paint the leaves, screw together, varnish then pop on your garden wall. Not a huge ordeal but it was such great fun. It is so nice to just chill out & build something with Red while we had little chats & giggles. Whats even lovelier is having something I built with my son that I can look at & remember the fun times we have.

I think it turned our well. Red loves it & can’t wait for a bird to make its home in it & have a family. Not too sure if this will happen but it would be awesome if it did!

Custard Jugs & Bread & Butter Plates

My blog seems to be turning into a utility china blog as of late but I really love the stuff. Mind you so does everyone else…which is good because there seems to be more of it around. But bad because more people want to buy it :/

Luckily I outbid a person or 2 & won a custard jug on eBay, also a steal at £4.50. *woot* I didn’t really realise how big the jug was going to be, it’s pretty big so we reckon it must be a custard jug, but it is so lovely.

Also secured on eBay was a bread & butter plate. It is some more Johnson Brothers Greydawn, it seems the most common of utility china, but this delicate plate is just pretty!

Back in the Crochet

It’s been awhile since I mentioned anything to do with crochet.
Well here I am… A post about my newest finished WIP.

I made my first pink project. A baby blanket for our neighbour’s daughter. It is just a little v-stitch pram blanket but it is slightly different as the stripes are vertical rather than horizontal. I just crocheted a little edging & pinned it down to finish it off.

I am quite please with it. I also am contemplating making a v-stitch blanket for me because Hayfields is so soft & snuggly & warm! Some day soon before winter sets in….

In the wild….

Well I kinda stopped with the blogging there. Must say I missed it but sometimes life just gets in the way!

Recently I went on a wee trip to the UK with my mum & sister. It was a lovely weekend, just hanging out & giggling our way through the days. We visited lots of lovely villages, one of which was Haslington. And in this lovely village I found my first piece of ’In the wild’ ironstone.

I found a lovely Johnson Brothers Greydawn sandwich tray. It was also a steal at on 99p! *win*

It has a little chip on the back but it is perfect on the serving side.

Super pretty & super delighted I found it!

Decoupaged Giraffe

The craft group I am a part of went on tour last week to The Art School, a new enterprise in Dublin 22. Pam the lady that owns it is a lovely woman, she is very helpful, friendly & a wonderful artist. She has some lovely paintings of Clondalkin’s Round Tower on her walls.

She also runs courses for children. Red is enrolled in a ‘paint your pottery’ day. I can’t wait to see how it goes & how his pottery painting turns out.

When we arrived for our decoupage evening we all had a glass of wine & chose an item to decoupage. It was a lovely evening of great conversation, laughs & craft.

Myself & my friend Lorna chose the giraffe. I, quite unintentionally, went for blue & Lorna for green. I think they turned out well, am very pleased with my giraffe.

Decoupaging is good fun & when with friends even better as you couldn’t not have a giggle.

What I love is that I have now decoupaged a dinosaur & giraffe for Red & I must say, he really loves them. Red loves animals & animal toys are his second favourite, after his cars of course!
It lovely to see your child play & enjoy something you made for them.

My Collection

This is my utility china collection so far. It isn’t huge but it full of pieces from my lovely family.

Big thanks to you all

J & G Meakin Glamour Rosa

My parents live in the Irish countryside & the other day my mum & sister went to a local market. Who would have thought that there, in the Irish countryside there would be utility china?!? But there is!… Well was, it’s now on my kitchen shelf in the suburbs of Dublin city.

I’m delighted as these pieces are my first pink pieces & also my first Meakin pieces. *woot*

Big thanks to my awesome mumsie for gifting me this utility china.
And to my sister for foregoing these pieces.
My family rock

The Baby Blanket

There seems to be a bit of a baby boom & the only thing I make for people when they are due babies are blankets. I started a jumper for Red last October & it still isn’t finished so blankets are the only way to go for me otherwise their children would be grown up by the time I got around to finishing a gift!

Any-who I tend to try & make individual blankets for each child. Have a think about what the parents like – vibrant colours, traditional colours like baby pinks & lemon, modern designs etc etc.

But the problem is you have to wait to see what sex the child is. I mean what if you make a pink blanket & the baby is born a boy, most parents would not appreciate a pink blanket. Then you need to make a blanket pronto, unless you make it unisex.

And then the design must be chosen. I made a circle in a square blanket & while I loved that blanket because of the yarn (Rico Creative Cotton) & the design (loved the vibrant colours) it took a lot of time as you make each square then stitch together & do a border. Not handy for when you have several blankets to be making in a short period of time.

With this in mind I have decided I need a standard pretty, yet quick & easy, baby blanket because seriously there are more babies being made then I can crochet for!

The chosen design – V Stitch. It is a bit more funky & looks better than the granny knit square but it is just as easy, treble crochet all the way!!

I made this blanket for a colleagues baby. The yarn I used was Hayfield Baby Changes, baby lemon, green & white. I used 2 balls at the same time to thicken the blanket & make it softer & in total I used just under 4 balls.

I must say I am very, very pleased with how this baby blanket turned out. It just naturally created stripes & the colours are really lovely. I am not a fan of old skool traditional baby colours like lemons etc but this changed my mind. I just love the colours & the stripes. As I used 2 balls at the same time it is thicker & softer than one would expect. I just think it is lovely. Took 4 hours to make over 2 nights, perfect for need in a jiffy baby blankets.

Going to start blanket no 2 for the baby across the road that is due any minute now.

Happy Birthday Blog…

This morning my other half checked his emails & he said to me ‘huh, just got an email to say that your domain is up for renewal’. I panicked & said ‘well please sort it’ & he told me that it automatically renews itself. *phew* He originally bought the domain for 2 years so this is the first renewal. It is also the first time that I realised I have been blogging for a year, except I missed its first birthday. Aw well!…

So I have been blogging for 2 years. Wow. Just wow. I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem like 2 years have passed. But is has. It has passed quickly, which is scary. If these 2 years went so fast how fast will the next year of blogging go? Before I know it I will be having a 5 year anniversary for this blog or even 10! *gulp* That is really scary as Red would be 13, the age of my nephew!

I am not sure who reads this blog, or if anyone really does. Maybe some people read it regularly or others just randomly come across it or maybe I am just taking up some space in the never ending Internet. Who knows?… But I am enjoying so I shall continue taking up some space & posting about the randomness that is my garden, my crochet, my baking & things I collect.

In these 2 years WordPress tells me that I have had 6936 visitors & 2558 comments, though 2397 are spam

This is my 115 post on the blog. And really all there is to say is… Happy Birthday Blog!

Pink Dahlias

Today I got these pretty, delicate & ornate Dahlias.

Some info on Dahlias -

“Dahlias are classified according to flower shape and arrangement of petals. Single-flowering dahlias have one row of petals, generally grow to 3 ft or less, and have flowers 4 inches or less in diameter. Types of single-flowering dahlias include: singles, orchid-flowering, anemone, and collaretts. Single-flowering dahlias have a ring of evenly spaced petals. Orchid-flowering dahlias are similar to single-flowering types, but the ray florets curl up along the edges. Anemone flowers have an extra ring of small petals.

Double-flowering types have multiple rows of petals, grow taller, and have large flowers. Double-flowering types are also classified according to flower size and shape. Cactus dahlias have somewhat tubular shaped petals that curve backwards for over one-half of their length. Semi-cactus dahlias resemble cactus types but the petals are broad at their base and curve for less than half their length. Incurved cactus cultivars have petals that curl strongly towards the center of the flower. There are two types of decorative dahlias: formal and semiformal. Formal decorative types have broad, regularly arranged, pointed or rounded petals that curve back towards the stem. Informal decorative dahlias have long, irregularly arranged, often twisted petals. Ball dahlia flowers are usually 3 1/2 inches in diameter and ball shaped or slightly flattened. The quilled petals are blunt or rounded at the tip. Pompons are smaller version of ball dahlias with flowers less than 2 inches in diameter.”

Planting Info

Select a sunny (minimum of 6 hours) location protected from strong winds. Dahlias grow best in a deep, fertile, well-drained soil with a pH of 6.0 to 6.5; they are not tolerant of water-logged soils.

Flower size can be increased by removing lateral flower buds (referred to as disbudding). When the three buds that form at the end of each branch reach the size of small peas, remove the two side buds. Small-flowering types should not be disbudded. Faded flowers should be removed to encourage continuous blooming.

All the above information on Dahlias came from dahlia.com