BUYING POSTAGE ONLINE

Sat at my desk with a birthday card to post, I couldn't face queuing at the nearest central London post office, where there are always at least 20 people in front of you. Can I print out postage online, like you can on eBay, I wondered... A couple of clicks later I was on the Royal Mail's Online Postage service doing just that. If your postage is more than £10 you can pay with a card; otherwise you deposit money into an online account. Type in the name and address and you can print your prepaid postage label on sticky labels or paper. A two-minute walk to the nearest pillarbox and my birthday wishes were on their way. So if your nearest post office gets busy, or is miles away, why not give it a try?

SEWING THE SORBETTO TOP FROM COLETTE PATTERNS

There are, of course, lots of free sewing patterns online, but one of the most popular must be the Sorbetto top from Colette Patterns. It's a simple loose-cut sleeveless top with two pattern pieces, bias binding around the neckline and armholes and a front pleat detail. It's supplied as a 'patchwork PDF' that you stick together to make the pattern. The instructions are easy to follow, the pattern pieces are easy to put together, and it's very quick to make. You can see my finished top here.

BUYING BIAS BINDING

You might think this item is linked to the one above and obviously it is, but I made the bias binding for the Sorbetto. This is yet more bias binding (I'm a bit of an addict) for another top made of white and black graphic print fabric. It will be finished with very narrow bias binding, much narrower than I could create (at least without a lot of swearing) in charcoal grey. And although making bias binding isn't difficult, walking into a shop and buying it is quicker! For this top, though, I had to buy the binding because there's no spare fabric; it was an offcut and requires a bit of jiggery-pokery to fit the pattern pieces on to it at all.

MAKING ELDERFLOWER CHAMPAGNE

I've done this for the past few years: free fizzy booze! Why wouldn't you? And there's no complicated procedure: it's a bucket and some bottles. This year my elderflowers have come from withing five metres of my back door, as the elder in my neighbour's garden has had a growth spurt and is now dangling its frothy flowerheads over my fence. (She's happy for me to help myself.) And now my elderflower 'champagne' recipe is in our Food channel. Do try it; it's a real taste of summer.

MOVING A PLANT

If a plant's not performing well, or you want to redesign a section of garden, don't be afraid to move something to a better position. A couple of years ago we bought a lovely Clematis armandii and put it at the (shady) back of the garden. It hasn't flowered and I hadn't realised just how much it had grown until I cam to untangle it from the fence - it's about three metres long! We'd recently removed some windowboxes from a sunny wall on our patio and this was the perfect spot for the clematis, with a pile of large pebbles around its base to adhere to the 'head in the sun, feet in the shade' rule. The clematis appears to be happy in its new site, although we've missed it flowering this year, but it's evergreen so will look attractive against the wall until it - hopefully - flowers next spring. Do check the best time to move your specimen before grabbing your spade, as this varies.

What have you tried this week?