Upcycled Purse for Cloth napkins

I'm always disappointed when I go to a cafe or restaurant and they offer paper napkins, rather than fabric. I often try to go without a napkin at all, but sometimes it's essential to use one (specially when eating something like fajitas or spaghetti!).

I've sometimes thought about carrying a cloth napkin round with me and was pleased to find one in the stash of crafting supplies a friend recently gave me. I didn't want to carry a napkin loose in my handbag though, so I made this little bag for it. It was very easy to make. it fastens with press-studs, the button is only for decoration.

You may recognise the fabric - I used a length of it to decorate this upcycled gift bag. I'll be making a couple of beaded versions of this bag too and may put one in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop!

I know of course that in many restaurants and cafes unused paper napkins just end up in the bin anyway and there's also the issue of the amount of water and electricity used in washing and ironing cloth napkins......

Geese and goslings

Today we went took my parents to Figgate Park for the first time. We had a lovely time and enjoyed seeing all the birds, including this Canada Goose on its nest.

Then we hopped on a bus into Musselburgh for lunch, where we also enjoyed watching the birds along the River Esk. There were lots of swallows, house martins and swifts (and the occasional sand martin) flying low above the river and also higher up, all hunting flies. There were also these adorable goslings.

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My guided walk of Colinton Dell on Monday 27 May has now been CANCELLED. Apologies to anyone who was hoping to come along.

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Windowsill garden update

Our windowsill garden is doing well. the mixed salad leaves and coriander are doing better than ever on our living room windowsill. Our tomatoes are doing well as well, most of them are on the spare room windowsill, but one is on the living room windowsill. Creating nice shadows on the wall!

For Shadow Shot Sunday, early I know, but my parents are visiting this weekend and I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to do!

Reef by Romesh Gunesekera

This is a beautifully told novel.

Triton is houseboy to Mister Salgado, who is a marine biologist working slowly on a project related to the disappearing coral reefs round the island where they live. The story really focuses on Triton and his relationship to Salgado and his friends and business associates. It's a fascinating, insightful view into the life of someone working in service. It's also a novel full of beautifully observed moments, including this wonderful observation of an oriole:

The oriole came back. it had never come so close to the house before. I could see it behind Mr Salgaldo: tangerine yellow, a bold black head, bright red-ringed eyes, a red beak. It was small and yet its voice could fill the whole garden; its yellow plumage like a lick of paint. It sang deadpan. No anguish. No fear of the eagle that would swoop down on it one day and rip its yellow feathers. 

Reef by Romesh Gunesekera. published by Granta

Birding Update

Musselburgh is renowned as a place where rare birds often stop over near Edinburgh. There seem always to be some notable species somewhere along the River Esk or at the Lagoons. I didn't see any of them today, but really that doesn't matter because there were large numbers of swallows, house martins and the occasional sand martin swooping low over the River Esk. It's just amazing to see these lovely birds all so busy catching insects above the water. Lots of swallows over the Boating Pond too and here they were swooping round over the nearby grass, sometimes circling round me. Just wonderful!

Yesterday I took my birdwatching class up Corstorphine Hill. I had arrived early, as I usually do, to check out what was around, and came across two jays, being chased by magpies. Jays aren't uncommon birds but they are surprisingly elusive. They're large pinkish birds with vivid blue streaks in the wings, you'd think they'd be easy to spot, but they're not. This was my best ever sighting. Sadly, they weren't still around when the group arrived for the guided walk. But we did have an excellent view of a sparrowhawk and the birdsong was amazing.

I've seen very few swifts around where we live so far this year. (Anywhere in fact). It's a species in decline, so I'm always worried that we're losing them here, but I really hope we're not.

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Upcycled gift bags

I recently made two of these gift bags from old sleeves that were in the stash of fabric that a friend gave to me a while ago. This is something where it would be useful to post the before and after photos but Blogger is taking almost five minutes to upload a single photo so I'm sure you'll understand why I'm only sharing one photo here!.

The bags were very simple to make, as the side seams and the top patterned edging were already sewn. I just sewed up the bottom seam, opened up the edging and put in the yellow cord and then fastened the edging up again.

The fabric is quite thin so they're ideal for lightweight gifts! 

foraging few flowered leek

I've blogged about few flowered leek before. This is a rather distinctive looking plant as seen from the photo below,

though from a distance it can be confused with wild garlic (which you can see in this post - that year wild garlic had flowered mid April, this year it's barely yet starting to flower!).

I've noticed few flowered leek much more over the last few years and realised it wasn't a native plant. But it was only on reading this article from Plantlife that I realised it is classed as an invasive plant, and is gradually taking over from the wild garlic, bluebells and other flowers of the woodland floor.

But you can be part of the solution! Few flowered leek (and its near cousin three cornered leek) are edible and because they're invasive plants you can pull up the whole plant! (But if you're picking wild garlic just pick the leaves, wild garlic is native to our woodlands and it's illegal to uproot it!). There's a good video here about how to recognise few flowered leek (Thanks to Howard for sharing this link on Facebook).

You can chop up either of these invasive leeks and use in potato salad or to make pesto. 

Of course, as when foraging for any plants, choose areas that aren't used by dogs.



For Nature Notes. 


As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.