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Showing posts from 2015

I'm still here, knitting ...

I'm still here, just some bad news on the 10th October knocked me for six. My dad has cancer (again) this time its stage 4 and lots of chemo has started, so I went a little quiet to reflect on this and my family and life in general - like you do when you get such bad news. Anyway as my dad wouldn't want me to dwell on bad stuff, he is such a fighter, I am filling my life with colour and knitting (I'm off the crochet briefly, I always find myself knitting at this time of year for gifts and just comfort in front of the TV watching I'm a Celebrity (its now finished :-( Knitting at this time of year is addictive, isn't it? I've found a new passion, the Trendy Chale, you will see this on Pinterest and regularly on Instagram (as you know I post almost every day now and have over 770 followers, not sure how that happened but it s a comfort to know that people enjoy my work and pictures). Anyway this is just a brief pop by to say hello and to show you some of my cur

its time to start of new granny blanket

It's that time of year where the evenings have a chill in the air and the leaves are steadily falling from the trees. I've been watching my neighbours trees in their front gardens, such a pretty sight but also tinged with oh no winters on its way! I'm all ready, new woollen coat from M&S and a beautiful pair of hand knitted gloves from eBay this week in denim yarn, so lovely to own something that someone else has made, I can appreciate that being a fellow knitter even though I won them for the huge asking price of 99p. I feel a bit guilty really but that's the way these things go, you take a change listing something too cheapo and no one else bothers to bid. But my real passion is crochet, I got hooked so to speak a while back and inspiration came from Lucy at Attic 24 and more recently from Heather at the Patchwork Heart amongst others I now follow on Instagram on a daily basis. Oh yes that's the reason for less content on my Blog, Instagram has taken ove

Production line

I had a good productive weekend with my UFOs, I finished a crochet snood and a knitted hat! The rainbow scarf was sitting in my craft room waiting for the ends to be sewn in and despite my original thoughts it was actually straightforward and took no time at all the complete. merino wool crochet snood My other project that needed finishing was my blackberry beanie and that was finished on Saturday night, I'm on a roll don't stop me! Sorry I couldn't find a glamorous model for the shoot! Blackberry beanie And finally a knitted snood that's been on my needles for over a year! soft and snuggly linen stitch snood So there you have it two items for my Folksy shop and one for me. I have had a lot of interest in my granny stripe snoods, and I sold one on Saturday. I'm now making another one this week ready for more orders! I hope you have a good week whatever you are up to. Amanda granny stripe snood

Lets talk about cake

Lots to update you on but not enough time today - holiday to the Norfolk broads, project updates but for now let's talk about cake! I was given this recipe for the Macmillan cake sale and forgot to make it. Last night I decided to give it a try but left out the chocolate topping only because I didn't have a bar in the house (which is unlike me not to keep chocolate in every kitchen cupboard) Anyway here is the recipe, please give it a try its really simple and makes a good gift when visiting a friend or relative.    Ingredients 200g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing the tin 200g golden caster sugar (although I used white) 3 large eggs, beaten 200g self-rasing flour 2 tsp vanilla extract 3 tbsp. milk for the chocolate mocha 30g cocoa poder, sifted 1 1/2 tbsp. strong coffee, cooled 50g dark chocolate, melted (for the topping) Preparation time: 20 mins Cooking time: 55 mins Serves: 10 (?) Method 1. heat the oven 10 180C/160C fan/gas 4 2.

MacMillian Coffee Morning 2015

cakes all ready last night A big baking session last night in my kitchen. Most of you that follow my blog will have been touched by cancer either a family member or friend - most people are touched by this at some point in their lives. We always thinks its someone else until it happens to us. I remember thinking oh god not the C word, my dad, why my dad? before sobbing.  Two years ago my dad was diagnosed with throat cancer and fortunately for us he had fantastic care through MacMillan and is in remission with regular check-ups. So this year I decided to hold another MacMillan coffee morning, or rather day at work! It started at 10am and finished at 3pm, not bad for a small office with only 14 members of staff there today. We grazed all day long. My day started with cake for breakfast, lunch was cake and tea time was cake. I think I'll be off cake for a day or so. jam tarts in progress I love cake, who doesn't so three ladies at work decided to bake and sell the yum

jam making and gardening (a lovely combination)

A fully packed weekend, need Monday to recover! So here are some photos of my weekend in the lovely warm Kent sunshine. I hope you had some sunshine where you live, sadly its now raining. Faversham food and crafts on Saturday with Jack, lots of lovely produce and a great selection of hand made gifts. Sunday, spent almost the entire day gardening but did save time to make strawberry jam and chill jam and a few more rows of my snood, almost done and this one will be added to my Folksy shop. I plan to make another for myself on holiday later in October. I bought a bargain bundle of Cath Kidston yarn on eBay, can't wait to receive it! garden tidy-up well under way Local Kent strawberries   row ten complete home made strawberry jam home made chilli jam for my MacMillian coffee afternoon at work

Cath Kidston granny stripe cowl

The start of another new project, this time a Cath Kidston inspired snood.  This has been on my to-do-list for a very long time. I was lucky to find 4 balls off wool in my local knitting shop sale bin for £1.50 each plus I bought one at full price. The pattern suggests 13 rows but I may make mine a bit wider. Here is the pattern link if you fancy making one  the beginning adding the blue curled up under my granny stripe blanket

September Sunshine

Saturday night knitting spot What's up with the weather? Four days of lovely sunshine and today's temperature was 21 degrees, perfect. Perfect for a spot of knitting in the garden. I bought some Louisa Harding Akiko yarn last week, it's beautiful, soft and the colour is just lovely - denim meets Aqua. It's knits up well and the blackberry stitch beanie is just perfect, soft and snugly. You can find the pattern here I'm off to the Broads in October and although I've already knitted two of these for myself, it's always good to have a new colour and it looks great in the sunshine. knitting in the garden I've now gifted the latest granny stripe blanket to my niece Megan who's off to Bath next week to start her first year in uni. She loved the blanket which was such a relief, I've been making it on and off for almost six months alongside my granny square blanket and I managed to finish both of them in the same week. I'm sit

Hedgerow jam (blackberry jam recipe)

I found this great recipe on Friday. My next door neighbours daughter had been picking blackberries and I offered to make her jam from her harvest. It worked a treat and tasted lovely. Obviously I had to keep one large jar to sample with uncut bread and real butter! the finished jam one large jar for me   about to start

Do you Tunisian crochet?

I had the hooks, the basic patterns and this week I've had the time. I took the week off to chill out, do nice things including of course lots of crochet time. I crochet in the Beth Chatto Gardens on Wednesday, more about the beautiful gardens in another post. If you've never been and you are near Colchester, Essex you should go it's such a tranquil place. crochet granny squares at the Beth Chatto gardens So earlier this week I found my Tunisian crochet hooks, popped over to Pinterest and taught myself in under 5 mins and now I'm hooked, I love it. It's sort of a combination of crochet and knitting. I experimented this morning with a bag full of merino scraps left over from my granny blanket and here is my stripey snood in progress.  I made up the pattern, here it is.  Start with a foundation chain of 30 on size 6 hook, use DK that would normally require size 4 pins. Then change colour on the return pass. It gives you a nice contrast row a

Ta dah moment

Not one but two granny blankets finished in August and I'm almost up to date with wips, just two scarfs and one granny scrap blanket and one summer jumper to finish. I think I'll leave the summer jumper for now as its pouring with rain and I'm far too focused on my new granny square blanket. And I bought myself four new crochet books to get more inspiration. a new granny blanket My nieces (Megan) uni blanket is finished and boxed ready to gift later in September (photos later) and I finished my large granny square blanket on Saturday night which I am really happy with. I have a large tub full of left over yarn and I've now started another blanket. I've worked out its better to sew in the ends as you go along which saves heaps of time at the end. This one shouldn't take very long to make. I've already made 30 squares, well with two rounds out of 4 but I'm working in batches this time. Not only is it quicker but I can work out which c