A quick pic of my first attempt at an Xmas decoration! I used the tutorial on the brilliant bugsandfishes blog and stuck to a blue/silver theme as requested by our friend Tom.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Welcome to the World!
Baby number 1 has been born!
She arrived last week, late on Wednesday night, as we were driving home on the Friday for a wedding. Luckily, I had pretty much finished her present, just needed to add the finishing touches.
I've been working on this, on and off, since April, and this was the first crafty project I've really attempted since I was a Guide. I knew I wanted to make baby (the flavour was a suprise!) a present, but I wasn't sure what I was capable of. My lovely friend Charlie suggested English Paper Piecing, I remembered my Ebay password and off I went.
Admittedly, my first effort was less than commendable - my lovely MIL now has a bookmark and mat for her dressing table which she kindly pretended to like!
Attempt no. 2 went much better thankfully. I found various gender-neutral fabrics on Ebay as well as paper templates, and bought a cream cushion and new duck-down cushion pad from Dunelm. I decided to decorate with two small "flowers" on the front of the cushion, and one larger one on the back. There are some great tutorials to explain how to make these, particularly here and on Sew Mama Sew too.
Once I finished my little "flowers", I lightly stitched them onto the empty cushion cover. I'm making two of these, so stopped at this point and repeated for the second cushion (this took much, much longer to do than it did to type!). I also ironed them a LOT which is not my favourite of jobs by a long stretch, as you can tell from the creases.
This was where I was up to when we got the call on Wednesday night to say that baby was here!
I then had a mad rush to finish before we went up early on Friday morning, especially as my felt (again from the Felt Fairy on Ebay, excellent quality again) didn't arrive until Thursday morning as she arrived a little earlier than expected. I printed out her name in Copper at about size 200, then Hubby had the nice job of cutting out the letters (which he found was much easier to do using scissors - after he had found his craft knife -oops)
Hubby practicing his Beaver Leader craft skills - look at that concentration!
Next step was to stitch the letters on! I chose quite bright colours with a fair bit of pink and purple. The letters were all stitched on with yellow thread except the middle "a" which is pink.
The finished article, front and back!
Now I just need to decide what to do on the next one to make it a little different - we should have a bit more time between birth and visit next time so I might ask a friend with an embroidery machine to do something with the date of birth/weight.
Unfortunately we couldn't go and see the little poppet, so her present has been left with the proudest Grandma in the world! Hope she likes it.......
She arrived last week, late on Wednesday night, as we were driving home on the Friday for a wedding. Luckily, I had pretty much finished her present, just needed to add the finishing touches.
I've been working on this, on and off, since April, and this was the first crafty project I've really attempted since I was a Guide. I knew I wanted to make baby (the flavour was a suprise!) a present, but I wasn't sure what I was capable of. My lovely friend Charlie suggested English Paper Piecing, I remembered my Ebay password and off I went.
Admittedly, my first effort was less than commendable - my lovely MIL now has a bookmark and mat for her dressing table which she kindly pretended to like!
Attempt no. 2 went much better thankfully. I found various gender-neutral fabrics on Ebay as well as paper templates, and bought a cream cushion and new duck-down cushion pad from Dunelm. I decided to decorate with two small "flowers" on the front of the cushion, and one larger one on the back. There are some great tutorials to explain how to make these, particularly here and on Sew Mama Sew too.
Once I finished my little "flowers", I lightly stitched them onto the empty cushion cover. I'm making two of these, so stopped at this point and repeated for the second cushion (this took much, much longer to do than it did to type!). I also ironed them a LOT which is not my favourite of jobs by a long stretch, as you can tell from the creases.
This was where I was up to when we got the call on Wednesday night to say that baby was here!
I then had a mad rush to finish before we went up early on Friday morning, especially as my felt (again from the Felt Fairy on Ebay, excellent quality again) didn't arrive until Thursday morning as she arrived a little earlier than expected. I printed out her name in Copper at about size 200, then Hubby had the nice job of cutting out the letters (which he found was much easier to do using scissors - after he had found his craft knife -oops)
Hubby practicing his Beaver Leader craft skills - look at that concentration!
Next step was to stitch the letters on! I chose quite bright colours with a fair bit of pink and purple. The letters were all stitched on with yellow thread except the middle "a" which is pink.
The finished article, front and back!
Now I just need to decide what to do on the next one to make it a little different - we should have a bit more time between birth and visit next time so I might ask a friend with an embroidery machine to do something with the date of birth/weight.
Unfortunately we couldn't go and see the little poppet, so her present has been left with the proudest Grandma in the world! Hope she likes it.......
Busy Gardening!
The garden has been looking amazing for the past few weeks, all this rain has made up for the drought earlier in the year.
The sweet peas have gone absolutely crazy - I should have paid more attention and tried to tie them up quicker, as they'e spread about 4 foot over the border.
It doesn't show up well, but there were some beautiful bright pink flowers in there!
I also picked the last of the rhubarb (left 2 sticks on) and the courgettes last week - no more big yellow flowers! We did try deep-frying a few of the small ones which worked really well.
The potatoes are lovely, and took such little effort to grow especially as I used potato grow bags. That's definitely one to try again next year. The beans were also extremely good, I used a Jamie Oliver recipe to cook them down - must remember that I put the leftovers in the freezer.
Now we've got lots of wasps round the end of the garden, just when I want to prune and tidy up, and deal with the bindweed that inevitably comes over from next door! Hope the little blighters buzz off soon....
The sweet peas have gone absolutely crazy - I should have paid more attention and tried to tie them up quicker, as they'e spread about 4 foot over the border.
It doesn't show up well, but there were some beautiful bright pink flowers in there!
I also picked the last of the rhubarb (left 2 sticks on) and the courgettes last week - no more big yellow flowers! We did try deep-frying a few of the small ones which worked really well.
The potatoes are lovely, and took such little effort to grow especially as I used potato grow bags. That's definitely one to try again next year. The beans were also extremely good, I used a Jamie Oliver recipe to cook them down - must remember that I put the leftovers in the freezer.
Now we've got lots of wasps round the end of the garden, just when I want to prune and tidy up, and deal with the bindweed that inevitably comes over from next door! Hope the little blighters buzz off soon....
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Red Gooseberry Jam
My lovely in-laws had a glut of gooseberries at home, so kindly gave us a kilo of deliciously bright red gooseberries - there were initially a few more, but after a few days forgotten in the back of Hubby's car, they weren't worth using!
I used a couple of different recipes from the Pickle and Preserve blog and Delicious Magazine - I ended up using 1kilo of gooseberries, 200ml water, 250ml elderflower cordial and 1k sugar. I added a little less sugar than suggested, as the gooseberries were so ripe.
The cooked down gooseberries made such a lovely coloured mush!
After adding the sugar, I boiled the jam down - my new jam thermometer came in very handy at this point. It took 12 or so minutes to reach setting point - it still looked very watery but passed the wrinkle test.
I've now got 6 very full jam jars cooling in the kitchen - looking forward to my jam and toast tomorrow!
NB - Don't try and cook dinner on a tight schedule (Hubby had a meeting) at the same time - it'll just lead to more stress!
I used a couple of different recipes from the Pickle and Preserve blog and Delicious Magazine - I ended up using 1kilo of gooseberries, 200ml water, 250ml elderflower cordial and 1k sugar. I added a little less sugar than suggested, as the gooseberries were so ripe.
The cooked down gooseberries made such a lovely coloured mush!
After adding the sugar, I boiled the jam down - my new jam thermometer came in very handy at this point. It took 12 or so minutes to reach setting point - it still looked very watery but passed the wrinkle test.
I've now got 6 very full jam jars cooling in the kitchen - looking forward to my jam and toast tomorrow!
NB - Don't try and cook dinner on a tight schedule (Hubby had a meeting) at the same time - it'll just lead to more stress!
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Babies and Presents
There seems to have been a bit of a baby-explosion within our circle of friends recently. I've been knocked out a bit by a viral infection, so have been making various presents as it doesn't require too much energy at one time!
So far, I've been working on a cross stitch and two cushions for the newborns, and also a present for hubby's cousin, who's just turned four (better late than never!)
I decided to try out some letters that I've been after on Ebay for a while, and this was a good excuse! This tutorial on the Felt Sew Good blog, and the Hobbycraft Ideas Library notes on a similar design (here) were really useful for helping me figure out how I wanted her present to look. The plan is to make five hearts, two as bookends, and three in the middle with her initials on. I'm adding ribbon to the top of each so that they can be hung up together in her room.
Progress so far:
Felt (from the_felt_fairy on Ebay, which is really good quality) has all been cut to size, using heart shaped templates that I printed from Google:
I've started the darker purple hearts that I'm planning on putting on each end of the chain:
These are the letters to spell out her initials:
Hopefully she'll like it - this is the first time I've tried anything like this, and even had to learn how to do blanket stitch too (the guide here was excellent)!
Edit: the finished article!
So far, I've been working on a cross stitch and two cushions for the newborns, and also a present for hubby's cousin, who's just turned four (better late than never!)
I decided to try out some letters that I've been after on Ebay for a while, and this was a good excuse! This tutorial on the Felt Sew Good blog, and the Hobbycraft Ideas Library notes on a similar design (here) were really useful for helping me figure out how I wanted her present to look. The plan is to make five hearts, two as bookends, and three in the middle with her initials on. I'm adding ribbon to the top of each so that they can be hung up together in her room.
Progress so far:
Felt (from the_felt_fairy on Ebay, which is really good quality) has all been cut to size, using heart shaped templates that I printed from Google:
I've started the darker purple hearts that I'm planning on putting on each end of the chain:
These are the letters to spell out her initials:
Edit: the finished article!
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Reading at the Minute....
Anyone who knows me well will know that the background to this site is apt - I read a lot. Our house is covered in piles of books despite the three huge Billy bookcases in the dining room and the two other bookcases in the spare room and the lounge!
Recently, I've been reading a quite a variety of different genres.
A friend recently mentioned how much she enjoyed reading Game of Thrones, and with all the hype surrounding the TV show and the fact that I know other friends have read them in the past, I decided to give them a go. Mum and Dad recently bought me a Kindle (obviously feeling very generous!) so I downloaded Game of Thrones, and off I went. In the last two months, I've devoured all the books, including the newest, Dances with Dragons. I love the characters and the setting, and GRRM's take on this style of fantasy (i.e. absolutely brutal!) but I'm not convinced by his latest offering. Maybe a re-read after a few months to calm down - I won't say why to save spoilers, but OH MY GOD!!!!! - might change my mind.
As I've not been very well, I've been re-reading "comfort" books - lots of Chalet School and other Girl's Own type - not very taxing on the brain, but familiar and with a lovely sense of family and homiliness which is exactly what I needed.
I'm also still marching on with Les Mis (62% complete according to Kindle, but not suitable for reading when ill!) and Birdsong. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has been in my bag as a "bus book" for about three weeks now, but I've still not cracked the covers....
Recently, I've been reading a quite a variety of different genres.
A friend recently mentioned how much she enjoyed reading Game of Thrones, and with all the hype surrounding the TV show and the fact that I know other friends have read them in the past, I decided to give them a go. Mum and Dad recently bought me a Kindle (obviously feeling very generous!) so I downloaded Game of Thrones, and off I went. In the last two months, I've devoured all the books, including the newest, Dances with Dragons. I love the characters and the setting, and GRRM's take on this style of fantasy (i.e. absolutely brutal!) but I'm not convinced by his latest offering. Maybe a re-read after a few months to calm down - I won't say why to save spoilers, but OH MY GOD!!!!! - might change my mind.
As I've not been very well, I've been re-reading "comfort" books - lots of Chalet School and other Girl's Own type - not very taxing on the brain, but familiar and with a lovely sense of family and homiliness which is exactly what I needed.
I'm also still marching on with Les Mis (62% complete according to Kindle, but not suitable for reading when ill!) and Birdsong. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has been in my bag as a "bus book" for about three weeks now, but I've still not cracked the covers....
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