A birdie in an evening

Isn’t he cute? He’s my crochet birdie, made thanks to the creativity and pattern writing skills of Lucy at Attic24!

I’m currently in the thick of sock-knitting again and whilst it’s fun, it can get a little repetitive and takes quite some time. It takes me a good fortnight to knit up a sock (that’s one sock, not a pair) in the spare moments caught between work and all the other busyness life contains, so it was great to find a quick, new, fun project—a “finished object” in an evening. And of course, half of that time was trying to find my bag of toy stuffing and tin of spare buttons in amongst all of the boxes which we still haven’t unpacked yet. Oops.

Ah, but there’s plenty of time for unpacking. Now I’ve made one birdie, I think I need to make a few more. The unpacking can wait until another day.

The ever changing landscape

Somehow it’s November and the rains have arrived. How did we get here? And how come I haven’t posted for so long?

Well, it’s been a funny few weeks. We had some very sad and difficult news to deal with at the end of September which saw me with a brief visit to hospital at the start of October. But there wasn’t much time to dwell on that as our lives have been so consumed with the busyness and chaos of moving house.

2009 has been a long and trying year full of the stresses and strains that anyone trying to sell a house during a recession will be familiar with, but we’re finally here and are settling in nicely. The Internet’s connected up, most of the boxes are unpacked and we have a whole new place to make our own.

One of the best things (just one of them, you understand) about our new home is that it has a garden! I am a balcony gardener no more. I’m just about resisting the temptation to fill it with plants before I can find out what will pop up in the spring time, but there’s plenty of head-scratching, thumbing-through of books and gardening magazines and planning going on. I definitely need a raised bed for veggies and lots more flowers than there seems to be at the moment. There are some exciting times ahead!

Of course, now it’s back to work and the spare moments are few. But there’s crafting crammed into each spare moment and hopefully a few more posts than there have been recently. Fingers crossed!

How does your garden grow?

Of all the edibles I’ve grown this year in the little space that is my balcony, one of the most surprising successes has been beetroot. I would never have considered growing beets if it hadn’t been for the free seeds I received from the BBC’s Dig In promotion but they were easy to grow and have produced a few great meals, even though the pot I planted up was tiny. The leaves are super in salads, too, or substituted for spinach in cooking, so scarcely any of the plant goes to waste.

Pictured is our effort at this Warm mackerel & beetroot salad, which was so good that the last few ‘roots will go towards a repeat performance in a few days. Thank you, BBC Dig In, I’ll be planting lots more next year!

Slowly growing hex blanket

I wish I were just slightly better at organising my projects. With at least three on the go at the moment I feel I should complete at least one before starting on something new, but what with working extra shifts, trying to move house, the voluntary work for the fan club I help to run, and, you know, all the other commitments that everybody reading this will have in one form or another, that never seems to happen.

So for now, it’s another work-in-progress shot of the project which will probably take the longest of them all – my hexie. I’m about a third of the way through the yarn I bought for this project and I’m a little sad to see that it won’t turn out as large as I’d originally planned. It may have to become an oversized lapghan instead of the bedspread I’d originally hoped for — but at least it will be a lovely, cuddly, cheerful, hexie lapghan!

Low Fat Tea Bread

I don’t bake often — don’t worry, this isn’t about to turn into a food blog — but for some reason I’ve had a craving for tea bread for a while. As a little ‘un I was given a slice by a friend and liked it so much I asked for the recipe. It turned out to have been from a Blue Peter episode and I scribbled it down on a piece of paper which I kept for years, pulling it out every once in a while when something quick and easy was the order of the day. And then it got forgotten. Until now.

Of course now it’s many years later and I completely failed to find the recipe, despite going through every cook book in the house looking for any loose scraps of paper. So I came up with an approximation, based partly on memory and partly on surfing around the web looking for anything similar. It cooked up just great — although my (electric, fan-assisted) oven tends to burn everything waved even slightly near it, so it’s turned out possibly a little on the crusty side on top this time.

So here’s my recipe. It’s quick and easy, it’s lovely warm, you can butter it if the fancy takes you, and with no butter or oil in the mix it’s a completely fat-free treat. Do let me know if you make it, or if you have any modifications to the recipe!

Low Fat Tea Bread

Ingredients

2 cups of mixed dried fruit
1 cup of hot tea
1 cup of soft brown sugar
2 cups of self-raising flour (or plain flour + 2 tsps baking powder)
1 egg

Soak the dried fruit in the hot tea (I’m sure the Blue Peter recipe used to suggest leaving it over night — but I left it for just half an hour and it was fine).

Add the sugar and stand for a few minutes.

Fold in the flour.

Whisk the egg and fold it in.

Pour the mixture into a greased loaf tin.

Bake at 180°C / gas mark 4 for 1.5 hours.

Enjoy!

Refashioned kitchen stool

This old stool used to belong to my parents but it was old, dated and worn out. The varnish was chipped and the nasty, brown, wood-effect vinyl top had cracked at the edges from use. I should have taken a “before” photo but I’m sure you get the picture anyway.

It was destined for the scrap heap when my folks moved house (some years ago now) but I rescued it — I have back problems and need to sit down for all those household chores like the ironing or spud-peeling and it looked like just the thing. “I’ll make a new cover for it!”, I said, and never did.

Until, that is, I was inspired once again by Lucy from Attic24 and her lovely crocheted stool cover.

I had some lovely cotton DK yarn stashed and waiting for a project to come along (“Essentials” by Rico Design), and my plan came together from there.

I took the seat off the stool, pulled off the cracked vinyl covering, sanded it down and gave it a lick of paint, and made a big granny square for the top. It’s about an inch and a half larger than the seat all round, and I threaded a cord around the edge and pulled it tight to secure it. I also tied across-wise in a kind of flattened-out figure of 8 shape in both directions to pull the middles of the sides further under and keep the cover on tightly.

And I’m pleased as punch with the outcome — it’s good as new. Better than new, in fact!

Yarn sale

I treated myself last weekend, to lots of lovely yarn. I’d been given some John Lewis vouchers for my Birthday earlier in the year, which I had been keeping for something special. We walked into the store to look for something else completey different to find they had an amazing yarn sale on, and what’s more special than that?

So here is the start of a new project which takes advantage of one of my new purchases. Can you tell what it is yet?

Balcony in bloom

After two years of summers which were wet, wet, wet, the sunshine has arrived! And isn’t it welcome?

The plants on my balcony are full of joy at the warm weather’s arrival and are flowering and flourishing.

In the way of edibles, I’ve had a great crop of mangetout, the lettuce is sprouting, the carrots-in-a-pot are doing very well (but need a little more time), the beetroot are looking promising and are providing some lovely sweet leaves while the roots get a little larger, and I’ve even got some runner beans on the go this year. I’ve planted one to each pot, each with its own bamboo pole, all tied together at the top into a teepee. I’m not sure how well they’ll do in containers but they’re shooting up the poles and starting to put out flowers so it’s looking hopeful so far. The tomatoes are promising us with a bumper crop this year too.

In the way of flowers and other plants, I’m squeezing them in as tight as possible. There’s lots and lots of french marigolds — keeping the bugs confused — pelargoniums, nasturtiums, diascia, lobelia, nemesia, busy lizzies, dianthus, a couple of miniature sunflowers, a trailing petunia, aubrieta, sanvitalia, campanula (two varieties) and some snap dragons. Not forgetting the miniature potted Christmas tree that cones in each winter and a lovely little olive tree that I hope might flower one day. Is that everything? I think so. Naming them all like this I’m amazed myself at how many flowers in such a small space. It’s a mish-mash of colours and styles but it doesn’t seem to matter.

I love watching things grow, from tiny seeds to brightening the world. I love it when passers by call up to me as I’m tending my plants to say how lovely it looks. I love the mixtures of colours and smells and the way it cheers the whole block of flats. And I love it that Ziggy loves it up here too!

Finished cardigan

Ta-da!

It’s nothing particularly fancy but making garments (other than socks or wrist warmers) is a first for me. I’d normally go for something brighter and more cheery but the yarn was a snip and I didn’t want to spend too much when I wasn’t sure how it’d work out.

The pattern just seems to be called Spring Crochet and was no trouble to follow – although I had to make things up rather when it came to attaching the sleeves (it took a while to work out how they should fit) and joining the seams – I used this woven seam method. I also added a couple of extra rows to the body length as it was a little too short for my liking.

I have that finished-object joy and my cardi is keeping me cozy this evening as I’m sitting here with the doors flung open, looking out at the runner beans I’ve just planted in pots on the balcony, and beyond that the good old British rain watering the world at the end of a sunny Saturday.

Now, back to those hexagons…

A break from the old routine

I’ve been taking a wee break from the hexagons for a few weeks to do something I’ve never done before. I’ve been wanting a new summer cover-up cardigan for a while so why not make one myself? It’s sad but true – I’ve never knitted or crocheted anything wearable that’s larger than socks or wrist warmers. Not even a scarf.

Progress has been slower than I would have liked due to work commitments, family commitments, trying-to-move-house commitments – but they’re all good things to be busy with!

I’ll leave you with this sneak preview for now but as it’s really nearly finished it shouldn’t be long before I can post a finished-object shot – and hopefully have a snuggly cardi to keep me warm.