The Little Green: Food and Craft Market.

I'm impressed by The Little Green: Food  and Craft Market. This is the second time I've been here now and there's a lot of effort put in to make this a success.

There was a Halloween theme today... with skeletons buried in the allotments.

....and chickens dancing the birdie song.

I spied a witch....keeping an eye on things...

.....there were some weird looking cabbages..

...and a little girl transfixed by all the strange goings on down at The Little Green Allotments.

Yarnbombing.

Now I'm not sure about this yarnbombing thing. I'm in favour of graffiti as an art form but somehow decorating the outdoors with bits of knitting and crochet seems a bit odd to me.  However, staff at the Arts Centre, where our craft group meets, have invited us to take part in an arts project involving decorating parts of our local park at Halloween.
I guess it's a kind of textile graffiti so I'm willing to give it a try.

One of our members brought in these strips of fabric to knit with. I thought they looked too good to be wrapping round trees!

Everyone dived in.. and there's no shortage of willing volunteers.

The yarn looked lovely wound up in balls.

Some of the ladies prefer to knit or crochet with wool.

We have just 3 weeks to make our strips.    6" wide x 50" long.  Here goes....

Jam.

Been on a blogging break over the summer. Time to get back.

I like September. Blackberry picking - jam making. The blackberries don't seem so good this year, but over the fields I know where the damsons grow. I love their colour -  deep purple, almost black - and cloudy at the same time.

I simmered my damsons with water for 30 minutes and then I added the sugar.  I'm sure I could dye some fabric in this!

Removing the stones is the worst bit.

 You can take them out before you start cooking.

Or you can count the damsons in and count the stones out.

I scoop them out when the jam is boiling and hope for the best that I've removed them all.

I always forget to keep enough jars.

These jars are ready for selling at the Craft Fair.

I've done the taste test.   It's good!

Pot - pourri.

It's Rose Week coming up soon at Lady Dixon Park and there's plenty of things there for you to do, but I just like taking a walk and picking up the petals!

rose petals

time for tea

The gardens are looking lovely despite all the rain and I like the patterns left on this wall from previous growth.

cosmos

I put the petals in a bowl and turned them over every day.... and this is how they look now.

So how do I get them to smell nice?

dried rose petals

Owl.

There was a family fun day at Dobbies Garden Centre today.
Sharon, if you're looking in, I thought you'd like to see these photos! A baby owl, just 5 weeks old, was gorgeous, all fluffy and soft. I think this is a long - eared owl in the first photo.

long- eared owl

A Mystery Outing.

A text came from my son...
Are you free Sunday 10th?
Yes, I'm free. Where are we going?
Can't say. It's a mystery outing. Be ready for 12.30pm.
How exciting! I wondered where we were going.
My husband wondered even more (he wasn't invited)!

'The rhythm of life'

Saint Anne's Square

The MAC

We went out to lunch in St Anne's Square,  and to The MAC to see 'Sweet Charity',  and then we looked at the art and saw the paintings by Lowry. I loved my mystery outing.

Meetings about meetings.

It was the AGM of our Harmony Hill Craft Group today. We're always having meetings about something. I've been on the committee for four year's now and thought it was time for a fresh face.
My husband always says, "If it ain't broke don't fix it!"   But I think change is good.
The key members of the committee have all been writing reports and getting on with the business side of things, for a few weeks now, in preparation for today.

Then, after all that's out of the way, we can get on with the good stuff. It was lovely to be able to present a £400 cheque to Dorothy today, money the group has raised, for her chosen charity 'Casting for Cancer'.

 I liked the fact that we could give to a charity that she had personally benefited from. 

Dorothy accepts her cheque from Yvonne

              Then there's the Winner of the Visitor's Choice Cup voted for at the Annual Exhibition.

Yvonne presents the cup to Elizabeth

Here's Elizabeth's winning doll. I blogged about her here.

'IMENA'   meaning   'DREAMER'

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Things are always a bit of a blur after you've been busy concentrating on the paperwork.....  

.....then you turn around and the table is groaning with all the lovely food. 

Our ladies have other talents apart from all the craft that we do.

Pot Luck Lunch

You see, we did have to do a bit of work today, but it's all about the puddings really!!

Yummy!

Jubilee preparations.

I've been out and about looking for things to mark the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. There are  preparations going on in Lisburn.

I wondered what was going on in Castle Gardens last Thursday....

Castle Gardens

... today I went back for a look and there was a crown.

It's my Birthday coming up and I bought myself this Pandora bead to remind me of the Jubilee and the Olympic Games.

London bus

This cake was in the Windsor bakery.  I was born 4/6/1953 just after the Queen's Coronation.

Jubilee cake

Wouldn't that make a great Birthday cake?!