Sat, 05 Apr 25, (8m ago)
What’s happened to England to make the weather this consistently good? No sign of it turning yet. Who needs a summer holiday in France or Spain with this weather? I went to my field first thing on Monday before the jet lag had time to react.
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Sat, 29 Mar 25, (8m ago)
I’ve just got back from holidays, having had a lot of chill time, a little bit of knitting and lots of planning and thinking. My mittens are done, and I had enough spare yarn to make a headband to go with it. It’s not my best project; the second mitten is
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Sat, 15 Mar 25, (9m ago)
I spent one day on the field this week spreading out more mulch, around my garlic this time and in the hedge line. The mulch pile is now gone and I’ve spread the leftovers neatly in situ, which will become a potential car parking space. I also bought an a
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Sat, 08 Mar 25, (9m ago)
I was back in business this week. Sickness is gone, energy is back, and I made three visits to the field. The garlic is now about 10cm high, and the onions are sprouting. I should mulch around the garlic to protect them a bit.
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Sat, 01 Mar 25, (9m ago)
I paid the price for the “hard work in the field” two weeks ago. I’ve been ill with flu and a cough for almost two weeks, but it’s finally on its way out. I haven’t been that much progress on projects while I’ve been ill and on holiday . Next week I’ll ho
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Sat, 15 Feb 25, (10m ago)
Last week I had some awesome progress on the field. First I installed the stake storage; I positioned it a bit further down the field rather than next to my other storage boxes. The locals and the council are reasonably opinionated about what you put on t
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Sat, 08 Feb 25, (10m ago)
The storage box was finished early in the week, including a few coats of weather protection. It all came together really nicely, except the lid… Which weighed a lot on its own and I couldn’t figure out how to attach it to the box… How do you hold at least
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Sat, 01 Feb 25, (10m ago)
This week was a week of woodworking, the business of wood. Only one splinter was gotten. The timber delivery arrived on Monday afternoon, so I got started on Tuesday. I made the two smaller frames for the sides. Wednesday I didn’t manage to do much, but I
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Sat, 25 Jan 25, (10m ago)
This week, I’ve been working a lot on the blog website; making it more mobile-friendly, updating the homepage and adding a new Projects page. I also added loads of projects I completed before the start of this blog.
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Sat, 18 Jan 25, (11m ago)
This week, I finished the second hood in beige, which turned out lovely again. The pattern is really great. The project post will be up today with the link to the free pattern I used. Have already worn it out a few times this week as the temperatures have
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Sat, 11 Jan 25, (11m ago)
The first full week back after Christmas and New Year was a cold one. Around 0 degrees and below pretty much most of the week. I had made some progress on my new Grobbendonk jumper on the weekend, but by Monday I decided I needed to restart.
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Sat, 04 Jan 25, (11m ago)
It’s been a productive week as we roll into the new year. I planted my box of garlic, which took just a few hours, for maybe 500 heads of garlic?
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Sat, 28 Dec 24, (11m ago)
This week has been relatively quiet, we had three dinners this Christmas week so a lot centered around food, as most people probably had.
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Sat, 21 Dec 24, (12m ago)
A week of progress has transpired as I finished planting the hedges. It took a total of 4 days, 3 hours per day to complete. I definitely felt a peaceful sense of accomplishment when it was all done on Monday.
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Sat, 14 Dec 24, (12m ago)
It’s definitely winter now, this week was very gloomy, the right weather for that eerie, overcast, colourless winter scene. It can be quite enchanting in a park or outdoors, but mostly depressing in the city.
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Sat, 07 Dec 24, (12m ago)
It has been some time since my last newsletter… a long holiday abroad is the main reason for it and while I did bring along my knitting, not much else happened in the craft avenue of my life.
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Sat, 02 Nov 24, (13m ago)
It was a slow week last week, not too much progress. I’m taking a short break from the field for a few weeks, now there is not much prepping left to do before the hedges and trees come in.
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Sat, 26 Oct 24, (13m ago)
Last Saturday I borrowed a palm router, which opened up the possibility of making grooves for drawers and such, so I go to work on cutting down my final large plywood board of 6mm thickness. It’s the thinnest board, and really just supposed to be used for
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Sat, 19 Oct 24, (14m ago)
I’m off to my field this morning, I should hurry up and get there. Will do some more bean planting, not hugely excited about the effort required, but keen to try my new twister tool, which has now arrived. Let’s see how it goes…
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Sat, 12 Oct 24, (14m ago)
This week I have been making up for my woodworking stall the past few weeks and have gone full steam. It started with dovetail and box joint practice.
Continue reading...Thu, 25 Sep 25, (2m ago)
This bag design is taken from a bag I bought in Mexico on the street. Its pretty simple, but I love using the bag for its size and shape. It can fit a lot in, but at the same time it's small and lightweight.
Continue reading...Thu, 18 Sep 25, (3m ago)
This was my first home-spun, natural home-dyed knit project. I have done a cotton spun kids jumper before, which I dyed blue with a chemical dye.
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Wed, 10 Sep 25, (3m ago)
Very soft, a bit greasy even after washing once. Not super strong, but has a delicate feel. This was dyed and spun into a shawl.
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Wed, 03 Sep 25, (3m ago)
As seen in Mexico, I loved the design of a skirt I bought, so wanted to recreate it in different fabrics. It was quite easy to reverse engineer; the original skirt was handmade as well, and I think designed by the same lady. I bought the fabrics while I w
Continue reading...Mon, 07 Jul 25, (5m ago)
Another pattern by Petite Knit, since her designs have worked out well for me so far. This time, I want to make a jumper out of the sheep wool from my family's sheep in Belgium.
Continue reading...Mon, 16 Jun 25, (6m ago)
I haven't been sewing in a while and it's been on my mind to try sewing some more clothes. While in France I found a fabric shop that sold loads of cool fabrics so got excited to try something. This would also be a great craft to do this summer in France.
Continue reading...Sat, 14 Jun 25, (6m ago)
This blouse has a lace pattern on the front, something which I haven't knit before. That was a great experience to try. It did mean a lot of looking at the pattern to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong. I don't think I ever got to a stage where I had
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Wed, 28 May 25, (6m ago)
This was inspired by a basket I saw on pinterest, but I did change a few features when I reverse engineered the design. I made the basket out of scrap plywood and a round rod I had lying around. For the netting I used hemp string.
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Mon, 19 May 25, (7m ago)
I saw recently this at a fair in Belgium, and I've seen this game probably many times before. It seemed like a quick and easy wood working project, using up some leftover wood.
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Sat, 17 May 25, (7m ago)
These garden obelisks will be to train my garden tomatoes this summer. Previous years I've used just bamboo sticks, but I found that they're quite slippery to tie plants onto. Yes they're strong sticks, but you need some horizontal supports to hold the to
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Tue, 23 Sep 25, (2m ago)
How have I gone this long without a forest update? Woops. I have been away for quite a few weeks of the summer, so I'll do an entire summer recap... Or at least the highlights...
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Sat, 03 May 25, (7m ago)
Spring is definitey well on its way. All the trees and hedges have a good set of leaves on them. They seem to be able to grow inside the plastic tube protectors; the leaves are a bit squashed but the light seems to get through. Some are already poking out
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Mon, 07 Apr 25, (8m ago)
Another few months have gone by. I've had a few weeks away while the plants have been settling in. Now they're starting to wake up and buds and leaves are forming. It's honestly so exciting to visit each week and see the changes.
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Sun, 09 Feb 25, (10m ago)
Since my last update, I've been busy adding in all the tree guards to every tree and hedge. I still have loads to spare. The rabbits had already knawed at a couple of fruit trees, but I think since I've put the guards on that has stopped... I hope it will
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Sun, 19 Jan 25, (11m ago)
I had a big shipment of tree guards and extra bamboo stakes arrive. I went out to the field twice this week to put them all in place.
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Sun, 12 Jan 25, (11m ago)
I tested my new hole makers, one manual spiral auger, which makes a nice uniform hole about 10cm wide and 20-30cm deep. It takes about 20 seconds to make. I also tested the heavy pole bar, which weighs almost 10kg and you just shove it into the ground wit
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Tue, 24 Dec 24, (12m ago)
This morning was a big day for the forest. The first installment of fruit trees arrived and I got them all in the ground in one go. I had 28 trees, 2 of each species of apples, pears, plums
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Sat, 21 Dec 24, (12m ago)
It's been two months since my last update and the main thing that's happened is the hedge plants have been delivered and gone in the ground. I was away for a few weeks, so some things were on hold and I had to delay the hedge delivery to give myself time
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Fri, 25 Oct 24, (14m ago)
Since my last update I've been able to do quite a few visits and making a lot of progress. I built the trolley, which I can move stuff around in, hoping that it'll come in useful. Pretty easy to build, and I take off one wheel and put it into the locked s
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Wed, 16 Oct 24, (14m ago)
Busy day, I successfully got my new large storage bin into the car and to the field. I set it up there, and it works perfectly. Super cool. I mapped the wastewater pipeline, which runs under the field, so I know not to plant trees there. I’ll go back on F
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