tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85961601337788852102024-03-12T23:16:34.115+00:00just saying ...knitting holidays, knitting retreats, knitting patterns, crafts, handmade, travel, foodBonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.comBlogger575125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-29957430130948586652024-02-22T14:52:00.001+00:002024-02-23T17:05:27.442+00:00Threading the Up-Cycle It always disturbs my equilibrium when I have to throw anything out. Anything. A pair of Mr B's discarded canvas trousers, worn at the knees, frayed at the hem and stained where random splodges of paint had caught him unawares mid-DIY - presented a special kind of problem: no one, but no one would want these bad boys. I noticed that the dark navy canvas really made my embroidery Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-41021498588410235012021-08-22T09:07:00.000+01:002021-08-22T09:07:09.769+01:00Aerial Gardening with a forest of Macramé hanging baskets ... It started with a YouTube video and a ball of string …I had more hanging plants than I had pedestals to put them on, so, with overcrowding at ground floor level, the only option was to go multi-storey, and reach for the ceiling. Macramé hanging pot-holders Seriously, if you can master the basic Square Knot, you're half way there; pretty much everything else is a variation on a Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-38810089555656278272021-05-16T18:23:00.001+01:002021-05-17T13:33:45.247+01:00Rhubarb Crumble Rhubarb CrumbleThere are few comfort foods more comforting to me than rhubarb crumble, preferably served with a generous dollop of creamy vanilla custard. The sweet gingery smell as it cooks, the slightly tart flavour and the crunchy topping take me right back to my childhood, back to the days when the statuesque specimens in my mum's rhubarb drill were taller than me. Here in London my Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-5251331161938523742021-04-25T09:20:00.001+01:002021-04-25T09:20:24.639+01:00Happiness is … Auriculas in bloom, socks that match their stripes and Ric Rac on steroids! Happiness comes in a terracotta pot, brimming full of auriculas. It's so satisfying to compare their performance with last year, and see how they're filling out and prospering. AuriculasI've had these beauties for a few years now. They came from root cuttings that came from plants that once blossomed in my great grandma's garden, so they mean a lot to me. AuriculasIt's also a Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-20326275581184599212021-04-11T09:21:00.000+01:002021-04-11T09:21:28.718+01:00Things that rocked my world this week ... This week I've been struggling with the cold weather. I want to spend my days outside, but it's just too cold. I've got a jungle of tomato plants that are crowding my conservatory, and I'm so proud of my baby pelargoniums. Back in February I pruned back the leggy plants that had over-wintered, planted up the cuttings and - hey presto - I've got loads of baby plants. I love this sock Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-14718522595930917002021-03-14T08:50:00.000+00:002021-03-14T08:50:46.758+00:00Happy Mother's Day 2021! A very big shout-out to all our mums! Happy Mother's Day!I've just made this lace scarf in a sumptuous fingering weight cashmere/ silk yarn that a supplier sent me as a sample. It was a delight to work with: lovely sheen and all the gossamer lightness of a spider's web. I cast it off on Thursday, blocked it overnight and posted it to my mum on Friday morning. And, thankfully, it arrived Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-8737437948193789662020-09-20T09:07:00.002+01:002021-02-08T18:04:38.052+00:00Garden Wins from the Summer of 2020It's that time of the year with summer turning to autumn, when I feel nostalgic for the season that's passed. It's hard to believe that summer's been and gone. And what a strange summer it's been: I've stayed put all summer. With all the crazy uncertainty I simply didn't want to go anywhere. I've been happy to just be at home in my garden. And we've been fine: my garden and I. I've taken care of Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-78143708968529919492020-09-05T18:08:00.000+01:002020-09-05T18:08:28.369+01:005 Things to do with a dead duvet ... Do you feel bad about throwing things in the bin - things that you might just conceivably find a second life for?I hate to waste things. Any things. It's my pet peeve. And one thing that always causes me particular angst is the vast expanse of a dead duvet - a duvet that, for whatever reason, you no longer want to use for its primary purpose. I am ideologically opposed to sending so much Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-56750603740737811462020-03-29T17:36:00.000+01:002020-03-29T17:36:19.394+01:00Masks
If someone had told me a year ago that I'd be staying in to sew plague masks I'd have thought they were tripping on something very potent ... but here we are a year down the line, and it's impossible to buy masks just about anywhere.
One of my besties sent me this link for an internet how-to instruct-able. The pattern is easy. I used old clothes - recycling/ upcycling is the newest, hottest Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-85128824751774086272020-03-25T11:18:00.001+00:002020-03-25T11:18:59.532+00:00Jam Muffins, Rationing and Teatime Rituals ...
These days I'm constantly obsessing about our food stocks, and making things last as long as I can possibly s-t-r-e-t-c-h them out for. At the same time I'm craving comfort foods: things like bacon and barley soup or fish chowder with freshly made bread and lashings of creamy butter.
At the same time it's comforting to follow familiar rituals like afternoon teatime. Normally, when Emi gets Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-73767435131429527682020-03-24T12:27:00.000+00:002020-03-24T12:27:46.087+00:00Reasons to be cheerful ... eggshell seed-plugsThe sun is shining and my seedlings are looking amazing ...
I'd read about recycling egg shells as seed-plugs, and I've discovered that they work well for water-greedy youngster such as sweet pea and honeywort. All you need to do is carefully crack the egg - close to the top, pour it out (using it as food, of course) and wash out the shell. I leave them to dry out on the kitchen windowsill Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-41761144977478955442020-03-22T12:55:00.001+00:002020-03-22T12:55:43.719+00:00Happy Mother's Day!Happy Mother's Day to all you lovely mums out there!
This has definitely got to be one of my weirder Mothering Sundays. I'm holed up with my 3 favourite boys - one of whom is of the canine variety, and I'm struggling to get my head around what's happening in the world. As my mum says: "I've never known anything like it," and she's lived through some very interesting times.
Mr B andBonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-92074242767811030432019-10-15T09:10:00.004+01:002019-10-15T09:10:54.636+01:00My Pet Plants ... the carnivores living on my window sillIt all started with the teenager. He saw them in the garden centre, and was immediately fascinated. And, as I've always been keen for him to share my love of gardening and the natural world, it wasn't hard for him to persuade me to buy them. So, home they came.
At first I was unsure about them. They struck me as being the delicate, demanding sort of plants that don't survive long in the Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-1202296393373685052019-09-12T10:02:00.000+01:002019-09-12T10:02:50.865+01:00Seed Stitch Gardening SocksI've been having a play with my standard sock pattern and designed something that's a bit chunkier than the normal vanilla sock. The seed stitch with the Dutch slip stitch sole creates a much more resilient sock that works well with boots. All things told they're perfect for wearing with wellies for an autumn tidy-up outdoors!
If you haven't knit socks before you may find my "anatomy Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-19159692198334296292019-02-13T09:57:00.000+00:002019-02-13T09:57:02.634+00:00WIP Wednesday ...
I'm really looking forward to seeing the spring bulbs and, in anticipation, I'm working on a row of cheerful tulips. I've up-cycled some old bed-linen for material, drawn out my posies and I'm working in tapestry wool and stranded cotton.
My carbon paper and I had a serious parting of the ways ... I hate using dressmaker's carbon paper; it's so annoyingly unpredictable. It doesn't -Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-34904533473409806972019-02-08T09:10:00.002+00:002019-02-08T09:10:59.932+00:00Instagram Royalty at Osterley Park
Last Wednesday I got to play with Ros Atkinson (@her_dark_materials) at Osterley Park, where she hosted a fun workshop for about a dozen enthusiasts. She'd set the props up in the Osterley kitchen before we got there, and we had a couple of hours to go nuts and take photos.
The kitchen is one of my favourite parts of Osterley. And Ros had brought along a wheelbarrow-load of the most Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-88665572325461757962019-02-06T08:40:00.000+00:002019-02-06T08:40:07.885+00:00WIP WednesdayWhat have you got on-the-go at the moment? I've not got a lot of knitting to show for WIP Wednesday. There's the usual collection of things that have lived in the WIP corner for a-g-e-s, and with which I have totally fallen out of love with, and am never likely to finish anytime soon - short of a miracle.
I have made some progress with my rag mat. I've been saving up all of Emi's old Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-81903049877749816532019-02-01T14:30:00.000+00:002019-02-01T14:30:37.870+00:00London Institute of PhotographyLast week I shimmied over to the London Institute of Photography on Brick Lane to do their beginners' course. I've been taking photographs pretty much all of my life,and it's been something that I've hugely enjoyed doing. I've owned a succession of fairly respectable cameras, but I've pretty much always kept them on automatic or some other-semi automatic programme that did all the thinking Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-2171465158500979162019-01-25T13:45:00.000+00:002019-01-25T13:45:10.300+00:00Minestrone Soup ... I'm in the throes of seasonal grey. I am filled with admiration for those people who can enthuse about all the seasons and extol the delights of our great British seasonal variety. I try. I really try to mimic them and muster some enthusiasm for January, but it always defeats me. January is just a month too many in the book of my year.
If January were cold and crisp and full of frozen Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-41463149639517364222019-01-06T17:54:00.000+00:002019-01-06T17:54:56.387+00:00January ... bleurgh! - time to grab a book ...I'm back for my start-of-the-year moan about January. I know I do this every year: so grey, so bleak, so ... predictable. I've just taken down all the Chrimbo decorations, sent the cards for recycling, clinked all the empties off to the bottle bank and then, to add to the grimness, I've taken the pledge for a dry month - no more vino til' February 😨. I'm about as cheerful as that pitiful Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0London54.770602429411667 -4.204995594971478636.956902929411669 -45.513589594971478 72.584301929411666 37.103598405028521tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-11569656126130212712018-12-28T15:41:00.000+00:002018-12-28T15:41:25.158+00:00Farewell to 2018!
I've not been around much in Blogland recently. I've been busy with other real-world business, with some travelling and with much seasonal merry-making.
Yesterday on the way out of Dublin Port I was struck by the dramatic low clouds, and the number of people walking along the breakwater. From the distance and the elevation of the car ferry's deck they looked like an army of ants Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-20395296492963934072018-12-04T15:30:00.003+00:002018-12-04T15:30:34.151+00:00It's coming ...I know! I know! Shoot me now for mentioning it, but we're getting rather too close for comfort given how little Christmas shopping I've done. Eeeek! Every year I swear it'll be different next year. Next year will be the year when I finally get my act together and don't end up doing my usual demented dash for the festive finish-line.
I find it hard to get geared up for Christmas until it's Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-28760949847024830332018-11-16T10:27:00.000+00:002018-11-16T10:27:46.698+00:00Royal School of Needlework, Hampton Court Palace, LondonOn Tuesday I spent a fun day at Hampton Court Palace. Now I have to confess that it takes very little enticement to get me to spend a day in such a wonderful place. However, on Tuesday, I had a very special reason for being there: I was taking part in one of the Royal School of Needlework's sampler days, which involved a tour of the Royal School's workrooms and then a workshop in their studio.
Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-74356134851342154032018-11-12T14:14:00.000+00:002018-11-12T14:14:01.802+00:00and a big "thank you" to all my lovely Festiwool customers ...... hope you all enjoyed the fair.
All the best for now,
Bonny x
Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8596160133778885210.post-6414641988355986602018-11-08T11:39:00.001+00:002018-11-08T11:39:39.867+00:00Festiwool 2018I'm looking forward to Festiwool -this Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Priory School, Bedford Road, Hitchin, Herts. SG5 2UR. If you're in the area do please drop in for a feast of yarn and woolly delights.
All the best for now,
Bonny x
Bonny Bonafillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17735110907048794437noreply@blogger.com0