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My Homespun House

This week…

After 7 months I have finally finished my Christmas Eve Socks – all ready for Christmas 2016.

Harvesting mangetout – loads of it!

Pieced together a Christmas quilt using a Joyeux Noel Jelly Roll.

I bought this Jelly Roll around June 2015 and was determined to get this quilt done by the festive season. I still have boarders to sew on then I think I am going to have it professionally quilted as it is HUGE. I just do not think my sewing machine will cope with the quilting.

I have finally finished pulling together next years homeschool planner – I’ve decided to use a binder.

I had actually bought a Well Planned Day planner but I knew that there were things that I wanted to add to it and other things that I really did not need. So I cut the coil binding off the purchased planner and popped into this ring binder, sorting it into months.

This way I am able to add additional planning forms that I use as well as write/print out detailed lesson plans for some things eg. for artist study I can print out info on the artist as well as print off all the prints that we will use for the term and store behind the correct month. I’ve added a zipped pocket at the back of the binder to hold any loose flyers or papers that tend to lie around. Everything in one place – perfect 😉

And finally in my homespun/homegrown home…

The first marrow

Baby cucumbers are sprouting on all my plants – I predict a glut of the fruit. Wonder what I’m going to do to maximise the harvest later on.

Gooseberries – I think that we might get enough to make one or two desserts – I only have one gooseberry plant. I think I might look into how to propagate more.

And tomatoes! I’m so excited about these. Since living in England I have struggled with growing tomatoes. The growing of them is not a problem, it’s the ripening of the fruit. Up to now we have lived in the Midlands so to have successful tomatoes you really need a greenhouse. But now that we are further south I’m hopeful that I will have more success. I think I’m going to have to trawl Pinterest for canning recipes 😉

9 Comments

  • Amy at love made my home

    Your homespun house is lovely and sounds and looks very homely indeed! You are certainly going to be well prepared for Christmas with your lovely socks and quilt!

  • mamasmercantile

    The quilt is a delight, such beautiful fabric and Christmas socks too how wonderful. There are so many recipes for tomato chutney which is beautiful with cold cuts for over the festive period.

    • Shirley-Ann

      I only have a few jars left of last year's chutney so I think that some of my tomato's would be perfect for making into a new batch of chutney to see us through to next summer 😉

  • Bevy @ Treasured Up and Pondered

    I wish I lived close by and could help you hand quilt that quilt… Do you ever hand quilt? You are so creative and do so much other needlework and sewing, etc. ? Just curious.

    • Shirley-Ann

      I wish you lived close by too Bevy! It would be wonderful to natter over quilt. I do hand quilt 🙂 in fact I've hand quilted all the smaller quilts that I have made so far, but this one fits a king size bed and I feel out of my depth on this one 😉

  • karen

    love your socks the best! they look so cozy and warm 🙂 I can't wait for fall and I've got a ways to wait!!

    • Shirley-Ann

      Thanks Karen. As you know we are kindred spirits when it comes for fall – but so far here in England it's felt like we haven't moved out of fall LOL. We've had such a rainy summer so far so a little warm weather and sunny skies would be very welcome around about now.

  • Elizabeth

    Ok, you have just inspired me to cut up my Well Planned Day Planner- which does not have everything I need! Really. I have been using online planning for several years, but find that I still need a paper planner. I started designing my own planner, but something always hinders me from finishing it, so I end up buying these others. Sometimes the electronic planner feels more convenient, but other times not. Certainly when there is no internet connection, it is useless.