Funny face challenge

My friend's brother in law has been diagnosed with Parkinson's at the age of 32.

One of the more distressing effects of the disease is loss of facial muscle control.

In order to work towards a cure him and his family have started the #funnyfacechallenge

Pull a funny face, post it on Twitter or Facebook and get your friends to join in!

Donate £5 for each face by text or just giving.

Text TFFC82 £5 to 70070 or go to www.justgiving.com/funnyfacechallengeto donate.

Thanks for reading and for your funny faces!

Two more baby blankets!

Two more baby blankets off to their new homes.

For the first, we don't know the gender yet (although that will change any day now!) so I made a rainbow blanket.

It's worked in a blackberry / bobble stitch as well as rainbow colours.

The blackberry stitch is really easy, you do 4 or 5 of your stitches into the same base stitch, each time leaving the final loop on the hook. Then to complete the stitch, pull the yarn through all of those loops on the hook.

Do you like my tag? It's a made by me tag to try and make my work look that little bit more professional. I used a freezer paper stencilling technique to create the design on fabric (and made a cute bag from it!). From that fabric I took a high-resolution photograph and printed it onto some shiny card. I'm really pleased how they turned out, and with the effect on the overall gift.

The second blanket is for a lovely new baby boy. I hope the colours are boyish enough without being overpowering.

This blanket is worked in half trebles all through and looks and feels lovely, I think perhaps my own baby will get one of these! See how nice and even the blanket looks without being too fancy.

It folds up pretty small, too, so will be good for the spring.

I packaged this one with a bunny bow too, but I am afraid I did not take any pictures of the parcel before it was posted.

Glassblowing in Bristol

I have been bought for my birthday a voucher for a trip to Bristol Blue Glass to try out glassblowing.

Unfortunately the voucher company 'Go Vouchers' went bust last April and hadn't paid the glass company.

Still, my hubby wanted me to go (and I was enthusiastic to do so too!) and paid (again) for me to do the course. No chance unfortunately of getting our cash back in any way. Boo and hiss, and a massive rip off.

So I booked on for August (they're popular courses and were booked up for some while). Unfortunately I really was not well the day before the course and had to defer.

I began to think that perhaps fate was telling me glassblowing was not for me!

Anyhow I re-booked and the staff at the centre were so nice about it. I eventually got to do the course in November.

I took a lovely train trip down to Bristol and set off for the course. It's not far from Temple Meads train station, but I took a taxi there as I wasn't too sure of how to get there.

The day itself was great. An introduction first on how glass is made and a tour of the furnaces and tools of the trade, as well as a safety briefing.

From there we moved on to gathering glass out of the furnace and controlling it by gently rotating it on the glassblowing poles, and then shaping it to try and get into a position to be able to take the blown glass off the active pole. This is apparently called a patsy!

The tutor then showed us how to make a small vase, which we all did.

We then moved on to making a bauble for Christmas.

All in all we were guided through making 4 pieces, and each got to keep one of the demos.

I collected my items the next day, still warm from the annealing (slow cooling) process they had undergone overnight. They were really well packed for my journey home.

All in all I was really impressed, the tutor was engaging and capable and we got to take home far more items than I'd have thought we would be capable of in a day. We were all independently able to gather and shape a patsy and take the blown glass off a pole on request by mid way through the day which is amazing.

I'd definitely recommend it!

Here is what I made:

I have a friend who lives in Bristol and had a lovely evening out. We went to a beautiful golden restaurant which is apparently part of a department store, but had a lovely view of the Christmas lights from the window. The dinner was really good, I had a braised beef dish.

We also went to a really popular bar, underground and serving a really wide range of beers. It's called the beer emporium. Not being much of a beer drinker I had some Orchard Pig apple juice with various minty additions (really like a non alcoholic mojito - result!).

A really great weekend over I caught the train back to Notts, although I did have a 40 minute wait scheduled in Derby. My lovely hubby therefore came and got me from Derby train station so I could get home quicker. He was impressed with my glass, and the big wine glass I'd made for him.

Life's good.

A season of DIY

I'm impressed with my DIY this season!

Before winter truly kicked in I made my porch and front door weatherproof and shiny, see:

I found some tiny pots of actual paint (not testers) which were sufficient to do the job without having a gallon of paint left over and useless, slowly deteriorating over time under the sink.

Then Dad and I laid a lovely new carpet in the spare bedroom. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, especially since we'd had no end of problems in B&Q with the carpet coming off the roll wonky. We actually managed to get the carpet nice and straight in the room without too much messing about. My Dad was paid with the usual DIY currency, a dinner out at a local pub.

See the results below, I'm impressed even if you're not!

And over christmas I fitted a new tap to the sink (I must admit I used this you tube video to do it, but still you've got to learn somehow!):

I've been quite lucky with the DIY, the tap went well once I'd gone to B&Q to get a new spanner to fit the nut. I did have to put it together and take it apart again though. It was really wobbly when I tested it for use. I rattled the box round and found that I'd missed including the plastic support underneath the sink. I managed not to curse and went through dismantling the tap and starting over again. Grr.

Still, the finished article looks good and is performing well!

Long may DIY lead to success not disasters. Cheers.

Granny square baby blanket in blue

I have been working pretty long hours recently as there has been a lot of staffing changes in the department.

I tend to feel the need to get creative under such circumstances and have been quite busy lately with crochet baby blankets and some homemade cards.

It's hard to find the time around work and the general running of a house but I find a few stitches a night go a long way.

So here's the first one for the maternity leave of one of my friends at work a baby boy giant granny square blanket.

Worked exactly as you would a regular sized granny square - but I just kept on going!

A spiral crochet scarf, or two

I saw these on pinterest and thought that I would have a go at making one.

One turned into two (they're slightly addictive!) and I am pleased with the outcomes.

I'm currently selling them on ebay as despite being lovely, I have more than enough scarves to last me a lifetime, and sometimes the pleasure is more in the making rather than the wearing.

Look me up - I sell as kew20k - and I had a massive clear out on the weekend so have many items up for grabs, including some of the rather lovely but unfortunately unseen and unpurchased items from our disastrous Summer Fair. But back to the scarf for now...

Scarf 1, the original. I followed one of the many tutorials that are available. I can't find the specific one - but the one at the link here looks similar. It looks great on.

Scarf 2,  the skinny. Worked using the same pattern idea but in a silkier thread and with fewer rows of crochet in each spiral. This one is more of a necklace / scarf combo as it won't do much for keeping the cold out but looks pretty good on.

Hope you're enjoying the blog catch up posts!

I'll include some contemporary restaurant visits in the next few posts too, just to make sure it's not all historic.

Holiday in France, and a bit of Switzerland

Ok, so Summer holidays were good. We had a lovely time around Morzine.

Mountain biking, walking and making the most of our Summer season multi pass for the ski lifts was good fun. We got over the border into Switzerland one day, thank goodness the bar for lunch took credit cards as we'd not got any Swiss francs with us.

You know it's a steep ride when it takes 3 hours to climb to your lunch, and 20 minutes to get back down the valley.

In the swimming area of this beautiful lake I swam with tadpoles just getting their little legs. They're called 'tetards' in France.

We stayed in clean and basic accommodation with Alpine Elements and were fed really well. Cake every day to accompany watching the Tour de France and a varied 3 course evening dinner menu.

Good fun had by all, and a few achy muscles to remember it by!

Lemon and lime squash and my home-grown redcurrants

I made home-made lemon and lime squash to use up some fruit which we'd bought for juicing and which hadn't got used.

I can't find the recipe I used, but it's very similar to one used by Hugh of River Cottage (see below)

http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/lemon-orange-squash/

Some recipes use cream of tartar and citric acid, but as a) it was so tasty it got drunk in a flash and b) the fruit was sharp enough I found it wasn't necessary.

I have posted before about making redcurrant jelly. It's a firm favourite with my family as it's not too sweet and keeps its fruity tang after being made into jam. It's also good with sweet or savoury.

I have previously been given the red currants I have used, but was given a redcurrant bush last year. I was hoping to include a home-grown element this year.

So I have made these lovelies:

Using my usual recipe of choice, a wonderful Delia concoction. And what about the home-grown element, well maybe next year. I only got this many currants....go on, can you spot them?

Ginger cake for Macmillan cancer 'Big Coffee Morning'

I have been busy, but not blogging, since our Summer Fair.

The Fair was a total crash, it was a baking hot day and there was no-one about in the town centre. We had a trickle of people in who knew us, and managed to pull in a few people for home-made cake and coffee. We didn't make a loss, but for the time and effort put in we'd have made more money rattling buckets or packing bags at our local superstore. Boo and hiss.

It's not all to waste, though, we've got a ready prepared tombola for our next event and I've listed a few items on ebay to see how they go.

I'm intending to catch up over the next few weeks with my blogging activity, and pull out a few of the highlights from recent months. It's not going to be everything, and it's not going to be in chronological order!

We had some lovely people at work organise a bake sale for the Macmillan coffee morning, and I'd like to proudly show off my efforts:

I was really pleased with it. The recipe was from all recipes uk, I just increased the ginger content.

It was quick to pull together and looks pretty much like the picture - result!

Summer fair preparation

The 1st Meadow Covert Scout Group summer fair is coming to the West Bridgford Community Hall on Saturday 6th July 10.30 to 2.30.

We're fundraising to update the Scout hut in Edwalton, and to fund the ongoing activities of the Group so that we can provide scouting activities for as low a cost as possible. We've already had great support from the people of Edwalton, Gamston and West Bridgford in our collection of the Sainsbury's active kids vouchers, securing over 1500 vouchers. That's not bad for being in an area surrounded by collecting schools where loads of people shop at Morrisons.

update...... after counting up the vouchers from last week - we've topped 2000!

We'll have a tombola, home made cakes, children's games and a craft stall all run by the Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Sea Scouts.

We're also delighted to be joined by some professionals! We've got the Black Acres Soap Pantry (as featured in my previous post from the Handmade Boutique in the Mailbox) and Katherine with her Phoenix cards. If you can't come on the day but wish to help out the Scout Group card orders placed with Katherine using the reference 'SCOUTS' will earn a donation to the Group.

The Beavers and I are running the craft stall so I am getting ready with preparing some wares to sell on the day. As work is in progress I therefore have all sorts of things round my house currently!

We're going to have felt flowers, felt and shrink plastic magnets, brooches and iron-on clothes patches for starters. I've worked out most of the designs now, it's just getting into full-scale production mode. I think there may also be some room for some bookmarks made by the Beavers. 

Here's a little taster of what we've got on offer.....

Felt corsages (with pins on the back for easy attachment to coats, bags etc)

 

Patches for ironing onto the holes at the knee in children's trousers or for decorating bags

 

Hair bobbles

 

Happy anniversary! Afternoon Tea at Stoke Rochford Hall

Today we had a lovely afternoon tea at Stoke Rochford hall near to Grantham. It was a little odd to drive past a pre-fab conference centre to the hall, but MLH read some literature that it was once a teacher training college so that made a bit more sense.

The tea was beautiful....

Sandwiches (beef, crab, cream cheese and cucumber)

but the cake was better......

Scones, jam and cream ( and butter too if you're MLH x)

Chocolate brownie

Fruited tartlets

Fruit cake

Far too much for one sitting, but the lovely people there gave me a doggie bag to bring home. So I have lovely cake for tea time tomorrow too!

The hall itself is rather lovely, as are the variety of animals we saw on our drive through the countryside home (ducks, lambs, lambs mums, a hare, pheasants and a deer's bottom disappearing into a hedge - presumably there was a deer's top somewhere in the middle of the hedge, but that's pure speculation).

I'd also arranged for us to go and see the local theatre group's production of 'Ghost Writer' and I can thoroughly recommend it. The team always put so much effort into their productions and it really shows. At the interval you're left willing for the time to go quickly so you know what the end of the story is! I really like the way they had the ghost materialising from strange places, great lighting effects and several 'play within a play' moments where it was difficult to know where to look as there was so much going on on stage.

We had front-row seats and a lovely half-time cuppa for the bargain price of £7.50. Funny and with a bit of suspense, Ghost writer is a definite must-see. Thanks WB Theatre team. Although, shows are all sold out so unfortunately unless you've already booked you won't be going.

Catch the sunshine between the showers

Here it is!

What a lovely place I work at :)

A project in progress

I've rediscovered my crochet hook now with all of the babies arriving over the past couple of years, and have begun a project for our home too. My hubby has asked for a king sized granny-square blanket for the bed. I have been working on the project since last winter and now have 250 granny squares. Phew.

That's taken a lot of scraps and a lot of time. I like multi coloured grannies so switching in lots of different colours takes a while.

There are two shoeboxes full of squares in the loft and another in progress.

The granny itself is straightforward and there are loads of tutorials online.

This is part of my work in progress....

and a selection of my favourite squares...

I'll eventually join them all together using a plain colour. I haven't decided whether to use white, like this example, which looks fresh and modern, or go for the traditional black.

I've calculated that I need a few more squares yet so it may well be next year (at least) before this gets finished!

Birthday party

A birthday party in this post, one of our friends was....

this week. I painted the card using some lovely new paints from Reeves I got for Christmas. Great clarity and very smooth.

The party was held near Birmingham, and I got to have a bit of a boogie. Indeed, there ain't no party like an S Club party! Love it. 

The cake was fabulous, the birthday boy having made a trip to Antarctica and being taken by the lovely penguins there.

Sunshine and a baby hat

Continuing along with baby season this week saw another selection of offerings off to a new home. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the blanket before it went, but I did add another little gift in the package last minute.

I fell in love with this really cute little turban hat from this mama makes stuff, Carrie has come up with a great pattern. Here's my version (please excuse the terrible lighting):

Once on the baby it looked lovely, to the extent that her Grandma has asked for the pattern to make some up in her craft group for the local Church (where they sell gifts for Church funds or make gifts for local charities). Carrie has very graciously given her permission for her pattern to be used in this way, so that was really lovely.

We also went on a shopping trip to nearby Melton Mowbray, after some yummy pork pies (no horse in these local specialities). 

The church in Melton looked beautiful, so here's a snap.

The Lakes and Coniston

We had a lovely weekend away this weekend in the Lake District.

The journey up was a bit hairy, with snow sweeping in gusts on a busy M6, but we got up to junction 36 safely. I can say my nerves were a bit jangled though when we got off the motorway!

After travelling for a little while it became obvious that the main road to Windermere was going nowhere fast, so we diverted off to Kendal.

We stayed (last-minute!) at the Shakespeare Inn in Kendal. MLH (my lovely husband) did a fantastic job of squeezing the car through the arch of the coaching inn, there were inches to spare and it was quite slippy getting the car lined up. You can see the tyre tracks through the arch here:

The locals were very friendly, within minutes of arriving I'd been asked for a hug by a tipsy lady!

Not fancying a long walk for tea, we ate at the nearby Thai restaurant. My pad thai was exactly what I needed, filling, hot and flavourful.

Back to the Inn - we had a lovely room, with a cosy bed and hot shower. Breakfast was great - full English with plenty of tea and toast. It was a very good decision. The next morning started beautifully, with sun against the snow:

We were back on our way to Coniston, and the decision to stop in Kendal was reinforced by the number of abandoned cars on the main road. It's not a long road (maybe 8 miles the whole length) so I can quite understand choosing to walk, rather than spend a cold and uncomfortable night in the car.

Our ultimate destination was the Crown Inn, Coniston which was no problem taking the roads slowly. We were doing well with nice rooms, and our one here had a lovely bath.

We managed to walk round a bit of the lake, and back over the lower hills in the remaining part of the day. 

I even managed to get a paddle, in one of the streams leading down to the lake. It's one of my favourite things when we go walking. The snow melt was cold, but not the coldest ever paddle (that was from glacier melt in Switzerland!). I really enjoy having cold feet and warm everything else when you out your walking boots back on.

It got a bit drizzly later, but we didn't get too cold. It was great to sink into that bath, though!

Another full English later (MLH had kippers) we set off back home, and managed a speedy journey thanks to the overnight rain. There was a lot of water coming off the hills, though...

Playing with photo editing

I've been playing wit my 'snapseed' app on the computer. I am quite pleased with the results. 

This rather dull industrial junk turned into a mad max style shelter.

What do you think?

Winter cooking

Cold weather deserves some comfort cooking, and I made these biscotti as a gift for a friend when I went round to visit their lovely new house.

I used a recipe from All Recipes to make them and they turned out really well, lighter in texture and softer than the rock-hard commercial versions you find in coffee shops.

I lightly spiced the biscuits with allspice and cinnamon, and as they were a gift wrapped them in some of my special Lakeland presentation bags. I really feel it makes the difference, and at £3 a package for 50 bags they aren't too costly.

I also used the All Recipes site for the Christmas biscuits I made for my family - they had the gingerbread biscotti version!

Baby boy gifts off to their new home

The baby boy blanket has now gone to its new home.

It's based on the traditional granny square stitch, but worked in stripes of red and blue.

You can see the detail here, that it's just three treble crochets into each gap then a chain stitch (and repeat, and repeat).

I did the stripes in countable rows, so that we go from 1 red row, up to 5 on the left.

To go along with the blanket, and to try my hand at a new skill (buttonholes) I also made these baby dungarees following a great tutorial at Me Sew Crazy:

I made a plainer version than the tutorial went for, omitting the front placket, but I was still pleased with the result. They're made of nice soft denim and lined with white cotton so that the legs can be turned up for baby if needs be.

The gifts went down well at the baby shower and will hopefully be useful and used!

On the train

That most dreaded time. On the train and completed all my email and reading work.

It's even too dark to window gaze.

This is Sheffield . . . .

Fortunately the rain in the south of the uk making transport hell there has not yet hit! It has even stopped raining.