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.

Homemade onion and feta tart

For this post the title says it all.

I made some wholemeal pastry and filled it with fried onions topped with feta cheese and a balsamic drizzle.

For a first try it tasted ok, but just ok so I am going to need to work on the recipe.

Sleep(!) overs

Had a fun evening and morning with the 1st Meadow Covert beavers. Lots of activities and up early for rounders and playing on the park.

No quality food or sleep, but the sky looked good this morning!

Baby season begins....

Before my mum has a heart attack, not my baby season! From my previous posts it will have become obvious that the are many babies on their way amongst my friends and colleagues. 

Well, baby number 1 was born on Tuesday. Mum and baby are doing well, but are both pretty tired. We went to deliver a blanket and some booties the other day and to visit the new arrival. She was very calm and coped wonderfully well with being passed round the room.

Here are the baby gift pics now the element of surprise is no longer required :) I didn't know the gender of the baby so went for the well - known baby neutral colours of red and white.

The blanket is of my own design, and these little beauties are from the pattern from the purl bee. I think they turned out great, and so cute! Link to the pattern.

We also took along an Andrex puppy toy for the baby's big sister, although she spent more time with the great ribbon I used to wrap the gifts! 

Let's hope the remaining arrivals of 'baby season' go well. We've got new arrivals now almost monthly until February.

I have now finished my crocheted blankets so can get on with the mix and match granny square blanket for our bed. At a double size I only need about a hundred and fifty more squares, this is a long term project and not one I am expecting to finish this year. In a post in a while I will take a few pictures of my progress.

Ok diner, A1 Northbound at Tickencote

A day trip out finished off with dinner at the diner!

As usual mlh (my lovely husband) had a banana milkshake, apparently there is no other kind. I went off-milkshake with a coke float in an effort to be able to eat the dinner. The diners milkshakes are so good as they use 4 scoops of ice cream to make and you get two big glasses full. Yummy.

We have visited the diner before (See this post) and were inspired to visit by a series on the food network called Diners, Drive ins and dives 

It remained fantastically neon.....

For dinner I had a barbecue pulled pork bap and mlh had a chilli cheeseburger, his with curly fries and mine without. We have never got to try the puddings, although they sound great on the menu, we are always way too full.

Mlh is keen to try and visit all of the ok diner chain and is planning a motorbike tour round it. We have so far been to three, A1 northbound and A1 southbound (at colsterworth) and the A38 southbound.

And are they any good?

Well, we've joined the loyalty card scheme ;)

Find the ok diner near you here. Ok diner website.

It's not food you would want to ( or rather your arteries would want you to) eat very week, but for a milkshake-tastic neon occasional treat it's worth finding one near you!

The Glades Restaurant, Melton Mowbray

A sunny Saturday calls for a trip out! We hopped into my car and went for a drive to Melton Mowbray's Saturday market. The sky was beautifully blue and, although cold with the roof down on my Eos we both needed the sunglasses on. I think in the uk you need to take every opportunity to have the roof down to make the most of the car, and that's what we did. 

The market wasn't that busy so we were able to get all of our bread, meat and veg quite quickly. Then off to dinner. Our favourite spot is the Glades, think fixed plastic chairs and tables, really friendly waiting staff and massive all day breakfasts. 

For this week, the food will do the talking. look at these lovely all-day breakfasts. At £5 each (including the mug of tea) you can't go wrong. 

That's me on the left, poised to dive in, and making a start in the second. Just look at the lovely fried bread.

Contact details and location on here, someone else is obviously also a fan!

Link to phone and map