Sunday 21 April 2013

Quilting itch V: The final scratch

There is a certain satisfaction to binding a quilt.

Its like being back in primary school, finishing a piece of good work and ruling off.
A nice straight, bold, precise line that finishes everything off.

This quilt needs a particularly good binding...its my final chance to reference the 25 years it is made to commemorate, so I've decided to make it from 25 pieces of fabric.  So I need to plan the order they will be joined together in...

 

Not to mention work out the maths so I get just enough to go all the way around...


I can't believe I'm resorting to bits of cereal box and a calculator to work this out! - where's an excel spreadsheet when I need one!

So its a couple of hours work for me..
Trimming...


Measuring...


Drawing the sewing line...


Lining up...


Pinning...


Until its all ready in one long piece...


Ready to be sewn together...

 

Then snipped and trimmed to make a long ribbon of binding...

 




There's no point having a straight ribbon of binding if the edge of the quilt its being attached to isn't straight as well.  The easiest way to achieve that is to throw the quilt on the floor, measure the edge and crawl all over it trimming away the unwanted bits...


Time to sew it on...did I mention it was a pretty long ribbon of binding...

 




So once the binding is on there's nothing more to be done than a quick trip round the washing machine to rinse out those pencil lines...look it really does fit in there...

 

Sadly the weather is being typically April today and I just can't predict that the quilt will dry out there on the grass, like the last big project I did.  So its time to push the furniture back again, and think to myself that I seem to have done this rather  few times for this quilt...

 

..and if I crank up the heating far enough it should be dry in the next few hours ( don't breath a word to 'i indoors -he'll get grumpy with me) and I can sew the label on and wrap it in some lovely shiny silver wrapping paper. 
I'm just wondering now if the friends celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary will really like it...


And the other thing taxing my little grey cells is ......What to do with all the scrappy left overs


mmmmmm......I feel a bit of an itch coming on.......




Saturday 13 April 2013

Time for some spring cleaning

I don't think I was alone in being super S*U*P*E*R happy that the temperature nudged into double figures this weekend.  Becky's bees were flying, indeed they've been busy pretty much any time the temperature noses above 8'c ...they were positively frantic at 11'c today.....the entrance got a bit congested at times...

 

I really didn't know what to expect to find on opening this hive....

In December it did look as though there were quite a few bees in the hive ...they were generating enough heat to melt the snow...


And when I'd last seen them back in October they were taking advantage of the extra space the eke had given them whilst I was treating for Varroa mites to build some bracing bees wax...

 

But six months is a long time in bee keeping... it was really any body's guess what these girls had been up to. First signs were good ..they'd found the fondant I'd put in to boost supplies of honey...


But boy-oh-boy had they been busy making honey comb, I really didn't need to peek to far into the hive to see it all...


Do you want to see more?


There really wasn't anything else for it .....as much as they would hate me for doing it a thorough spring clean needed to be the order of the day...


Every single inch of the excess comb needed to be scraped off the top of the frames... otherwise the hive just wouldn't go back together properly.  And I have plans for this hive.... its going to get a lot bigger.

Becky is clearly a very prolific queen,she and her girls are going to need a lot of space..so its time for a "double brood" box.  I want this colony to expand to fill twice the normal capacity of hive, because after all, surely a lot of bees will give me a lot of honey?

And there are all these girls from the underside of the lid to get in there now...

 

...and then I can clean up the rest of that misplaced bees wax....

See it all fits together beautifully smartly!


Now after all that spring cleaning its got to be time for a cuppa for the bee keeper whilst the girls get used ot their new double storey home.

Tuesday 9 April 2013

New garden guests

I've been a bit of a blue bee keeper for a few weeks now...


Its not just been the fact that we've started eating the last jar of last summer's honey...
Its not just been the weather... (though heaven knows that would be enough to make anyone miserable)
I'm really quite cheesed off that my first hive of bees didn't make it through the winter.
And with the weather being as cold as it has been there has been no opportunity to get out and check on how the other hive of bees are doing.
Having one hive is not a good thing as if anything goes wrong there is nothing that can be done, salvaged or rescued with the help of a neighbouring hive.

:(  :(  :(  :(  :(

So when the opportunity of adopting two hives from a bee keeper who needed to give up in a bit of a hurry presented itself , I fairly jumped at the chance.
Squeeeeee!!  New bees!!!

Now to bring them home...

First, wait till after dark.... after all there's no point moving a hive unless ALL the bees are in it!
Then carefully bung up the hive entrance with a piece of foam...

 

Lift and slide the hives carefully and slowly into the back of the car, close the boot quietly and off you go.

I did rather wish, as we were driving VERY slowly from one side of the village to the other that we had a big red sign in the boot saying "CAUTION BEES IN TRANSIT" .
One of those scrolling word signs form the post office might have done the trick in terms of keeping other drivers a little further from the back of the car.
I considered hanging out of a window and yelling "back off road hog" but instead we regaled each other with tales of what might happen if we ran out of fuel or needed to do an emergency stop!

Thankfully we arrived back at my house pretty soon and a mere 45 minutes after we started 2 hives of bees had been safely carried to the bottom of the garden.  Handover complete.

:)  :)  :)  :)  :)  :) 




Two happy bee keepers ....tho' for different reasons.
Good luck Tom, really hope your move abroad brings you loads of exciting adventures. Enjoy!
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