Our Dec 2016 garlic harvest was our best ever crop! In 2015, the garlic harvest was sickly, with small bulbs — that’s probably why I can’t find a previous blog post about it. The cloves were quickly rotting, and about half of each bulb ended up being composted. In 2016 we decided to give our garlic cropContinue reading “Garlic Harvest!”
Author Archives: Jessica Norris
Spring Bees Baby Quilt
This baby quilt was made for a new niece way back in March. March! I am still a little puzzled about why I have not blogged about this yet, because it is super gorgeous: Right? I originally pieced this in Springtime last year (about this time of year, in fact!), using a simple half-square triangleContinue reading “Spring Bees Baby Quilt”
Home-made Pressing Starch from Rice
I’ve recently discovered how wonderful it is to cut and work with fabrics that have been starched. It took a long time for me to get on board with this idea. I figured the hassle of finding starch, and then preparing the fabric, would stretch out the cutting stage of the project, and this is where IContinue reading “Home-made Pressing Starch from Rice”
Early Spring 2016
Now that Spring is here, we are changing some of our garden spaces around. This back patio gets very hot in summer. We are preparing to create an outdoor kitchen / potting bench area here, to make better use of the space. At the moment we are using the area as a nursery to raiseContinue reading “Early Spring 2016”
Moving a raised garden bed
Springtime is a busy time — when we are paying attention to our garden! This year we’ve moved some garden beds around, so we’re redesigning our vegetable rotation, and what goes where. For example, we’ve moved the strawberries from their old too-shady location, to inside the netted orchard: More dramatically, we disassembled the raspberry bedContinue reading “Moving a raised garden bed”
Website tweaking
Just a quick note to let you know I’ve fiddled with the site to make it easier to find the Comments section. This should now be visible for you by default (instead of hidden). Minimal is nice, but there is such a thing as too minimal! Your comments are important to me, and I’m tired of having them hidden away!
Winter garden wrap-up
Last time I spoke about our vegetable garden, it was Autumn. We had seedlings of broccoli and broad beans just starting out. Check out what happened over winter with these crops. You won’t believe the transformation of our baby Tree Lucerne!
Quilted cushions experiments
I mentioned that it was birthday season, right? This year I happened to be in a “quilting mood” as the September birthdays approached, so I got my mojo on and made some cushions! Each pillow is an experiment with a new (for me) technique. Last January I watched a fantastic Craftsy class in Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) withContinue reading “Quilted cushions experiments”
Feeling crafty — made an iPad stand!
Hello all! It’s birthday season again, which means my mind turns inevitably to creating gifts for people, and counting out the days that I can feasibly make something. Well, hey, an iPad stand turns out to be a fantastic gift idea! I made this little beauty in about an hour, using this tutorial. I usedContinue reading “Feeling crafty — made an iPad stand!”
Teenage wardrobe love
Okay, so I teased you some time ago now about upgrading Isobel’s wardrobe, right? If you remember from back then, Isobel’s wardrobe looked like this: Having achieved great results with the little kids wardrobe, I wanted to do basically the same thing for Isobel, but with a more teenage flair. For ages (and I mean,Continue reading “Teenage wardrobe love”
Simple Crafty Life 