Mayfield Lavender Farm

I have taken a break from posting for a while, OK a long while!, just doing other things and needed to concentrate on them and come back fresh with pattens, crafty stuff, ideas and life to share.
So I thought I would start with a beautiful place I visited this weekend, Mayfield Lavender Farm. A very good friend sent me a message early on Sunday morning would I like to go to a lavender field, I replied "YES" start away. We went to Mayfield Lavender farm is just 15 minutes from London on the Surrey Downs. It grows different types of organic lavender and is a certified organic, very cheap to go in £1.00 per adult (parking is free around the outskirts of the field) and free for children under 16 which they use this income in the upkeep of the lavender field, hand weeding keeping it organic with no nasties sprayed on it.
You can not pick the lavender, but they have plenty of products for sell in their shop. You can wander through the large field of different types of lavender taking in the beautiful smells, watching the bees, there were loads of them, I love bees!.Just be careful where you walk, I saw quite a few bees people had stood on. Maybe a bee-ware of the bees, don't step on them sign is needed.
Its a beautiful place to visit, get there early as it was a very popular place with lots of visitors. Makes a nice change from busy London.

Bees

Spoonflower's latest design contest is called Bees. I had to enter this one. I love bees and could watch them buzzing around flowers all day the noise is so relaxing. They are so important pollinating over 80% of all fruit, vegetable and seed crops, without bees the cost of pollinating food would be so expensive many of our favourites may no longer be produced like broccoli, cucumbers, pumpkins, blueberries, watermelons, apples, cranberries, and cherries, almonds. Plus they make both honey and beeswax. Bees are decreasing so plant a few flowers for them in your garden.
The brief for this weeks contest was "Create a bee-inspired design to be previewed at the fat quarter size (21" x 18"). Deadline for entry is Tuesday, April 21st. Voting will open on Thursday, April 23rd" Here's my design called Bees Together, it matches my filet crochet chart on my website (its a free chart) called Here Come The Bees.
To see this weeks entries and vote for the designs you like the link is below. There is no need to sign in and you can vote for as many as you choose.
http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters_temp/new?contest_id=300
I am looking forward to seeing all the other entries.

Fabric arrives

Recently spoonflower had a BOG OFF sale (buy one get one free) on fat quarters of fabric. My fabrics arrived last week, here's some of the pics.

 
The first two are cut and sew patterns, both printed on 100% cotton fabric.
"Mr Fox Awake/ Asleep Cover" is inner pillow/ cushion, that is filled with wheat or rice to create a  heatable pillow(in a microwave), it can then be put into the fox (one side awake the other side asleep) outer cover.

"Bees 'n' Flowers Barrel shaped pencil case" make one lined barrel shaped pencil case with a strap, or two unlined barrel shaped pencil cases :) 

 

 

And "Mom's Recipe - Soda Bread Tea Towel" this is printed on the linen/ cotton blend as its larger size, I think I may also make a smaller size so two prints can fit on a fat quarter. I was very happy with how this printed and it just needs the edges neatened and hemmed.

I'll post the other fabric quarters as soon as I photo them :)

Here come the Bee's

Maybe its because it has been a beautiful spring week with the sun shining or its the fact the windows are not shaking every 20 minutes because of the no fly zone over the UK caused by ash from a volcano in Iceland, but I have managed to update the whole of the nezumiworld.com website (all 132 pages) plus added a new chart "Here come the Bee's". This is to complement the last chart "honeycomb" I am currently using this chart to make a scarf, I will post it when finished and hopefully now keep updating the site and blog more regularly :)