Spring Handwork and the Garden

We are in the full swing of Spring here in the south at the moment, such wonderful and happy days. I watch as the garden turns into a beautiful wonderland of blossoms with fruit emerging after the blossoms have fallen from the trees. Oh, I have such hopes for this garden this season, our quinces are blossoming for the first time, beautiful large white flowers... Our new fruit trees are also starting to fruit too and we are having a bumper crop of asparagus this year!

Jen has been enjoying some needle felting and has created a beautiful Lady Spring and a gnome for our nature table...

Jenna's Lady Spring and gnome... 

I have been knitting these little pumpkins this week, they make me smile:) Here's the free pattern.

I have always admired orchids and my Richard gifted me with one out of the blue the other day, don't you just LOVE thoughtful surprises like this? I do:)...

Aaaaah and my Tasha Tudor books have been taken down from the shelves again, I am going to be reading through them, I find them so inspiring and precious, I definitely consider them to be treasures in my home...

Caiden has been building a wall outside under his tree house. He is waiting for the mud to set and then he will remove the planks, so sweet...

Our Petria is flowering near our water storage tank, the colour is so vibrant...

Lavender by our front door...

Irises are flowering all over the garden, once they are finished, we are going to dig them up and divide them. We usually do this every two years.

Quince blossoms, oh, how I wish for quinces this year!!! Need to look for some recipes...

My Heart Swap has arrived from lovely Lanie. Oh my goodness, I have been so blessed with kindness! I received 3 beautiful crocheted bowls, a flower brooch, button bracelet, sweets and I love the card! Everything was wrapped in a silk scarf. I love my gifts Lanie and thank you so much for taking part. I will email you soon :)

Our first Calendulas are flowering... and guess what..... the chickens don't like eating them! So we will have some flowers in the front garden after all:)
xo
Linda

Our Travelling Easter Tree Tutorials...

Dear Friends,

Thanks so much to everyone who has put their name forward for the Share the Love Heart Swap, we have started to partner people up and we are all looking so forward to this wonderful crafting experience and connecting with people all over the world:) Jenny B I received your comment but I couldn't find your email you sent through, it must be stuck in cyberspace. If you could resend  your address, name and blog link through that would be wonderful, thanks so much:) I will write more about the swap at the end of this blog post...:)

Now back to our travelling Easter Tree. My very creative friend, Heidi, and I have decided to put together a travelling Easter tree that will commute between our two homes and each time it arrives we will put together a tutorial specifically for the tree. Heidi built the tree and you can see her tutorial here on her blog, her first addition to the tree was a crocheted Easter egg tutorial.

Now it is my turn. When this beautiful tree arrived on Sunday afternoon, I looked at it and throught how lovely it was. I was wondering what I could add to this tree.... I decided on a Robin's bird nest with eggs:)

Here is the tutorial below:

I used:

Brown Alpaca roving for the nest

Merino roving for the nest

Blue roving for the eggs

Needlefelting punch

Sponge

For nests I usually make the nest on the corner of the sponge. Take quite a large amount of merino roving and start using a needle punch to firm up the roving into a nest shape.

Once I have shaped the nest and it is quite firm, I needlefelted the inside of the nest, turned it over and also felted the back.

Now it is time to add the outer colour of the nest, the brown roving. Just tear thin strips, spread them out and start needlefelting them, until you have a nice smooth surface.

This is the underside of the nest.

The inside of the nest... I just curve it slightly and continue with the needlepunch to firm up the shape.

And there you go, a little Robin's nest:)

For the eggs, I used natural Merino roving for the egg shape. Needlefelted the egg until it was nice and firm.

Added the blue outer colour in thin strips and made sure the surface was covered and smooth.

And there you go!

A Robin's nest with eggs:)

Perfect for an Easter tree:) Happy crafting:)

Share the Love Heart Swap:
We have received so many entries for our Share the Love Heart Swap, thank you all so much for taking part, we are very excited! Please, if you haven't sent you name in and would still like to take part, feel free to leave a comment in this post and email me your name, address, blog link and email address to lindadawkins@mweb.co.za and Heidi and I will partner you up with someone for the swap. You can read about our swap here.

Happy Monday everyone:)
Warmly
Linda

Needle Felting for Easter

This has been my newest project, I am going to add a whole range of needle felted animals to my shop. This particular one is called Shy Rabbit, I am particularly pleased with him...

I have put him in my shop for Easter and although I will miss him dearly, I know he will find a warm and loving home soon...

You can view him here:

www.mamma4earth.etsy.com

Have a wonderful weekend...