Eva

Eva was christened on Sunday.

Here she is with mummy before the event.

With daddy, both parents looked very proud and they have every reason too - she is a beautiful little girl.

After the event. She was very good and sat for quite a while as pictures were taken.

Actually she was very well behaved all day.

A rare photo of me. Ellie doesn't get as jealous of me as she used to but she still likes to check out what's going on.

Eva and Grandad. The two girls are so different, Eva is like a little dolly and Ellie is a bull in a china shop.

The lucky little girl had two christening cakes. This one was made by her great grandmother.

This one was made by her grandmother.

The day was very enjoyable and went without any hitches.

Cookies

I know it's not normal for me to do two posts on consecutive days but these cookies are lovely so I thought I'd share them with you. I followed a link on Dotty Cookie's blog after she had made some sheep with her children and found the recipe on The Pink Whisk blog . Dotty Cookie found The Pink Whisk courtesy of this lady who made the most perfect looking macaroons. I may have to have a go at making some.

I saw the heron this morning while I was out walking and could have taken a great picture except I didn't have my camera with me - I bet if I take it tomorrow I won't see him. That's what's known as sod's law or just typical of my luck.

Spectrum

Last Wednesday was the monthly meeting of Spectrum. We are doing a Round Robin within the group. We       

all had to produce a piece of work in black and white. The work is then going to passed on 3 times. We can use any media/style of our choice.

This is my piece which was passed onto Anne.

This is Janet's that was passed onto me. I think I'm going to concentrate on making the piece bigger rather than adding any more decoration as was my first thought.

The first of this week's baking is Apple and Sultana muffins. I made them with normal flour so I shan't be eating any but they smelt so nice when they were cooking that I wished I'd used gluten free flour. Never mind there's always next time.

I went to Zumba class last night with Nicki and my legs were aching so much afterwards that I thought they would be achey today but surprisingly they aren't. It's a good laugh and everyone has a great time while getting some some exercise. Roll on next week because there isn't any on Wednesday.

Oooops!

I hadn't realised it had been more than two weeks since I last posted, I've obviously been very busy and time has flown by.

We had a real family easter this year with all the children, grandchildren and parents. Last Saturday was Neil's birthday so the children and grandchildren came over and we had a takeaway (see blog title) with homemade cake to follow. I made Millionaire's Shortbread and grown up Rice Krispie Squares.

Nicki and Ellie also made Rice Krispie squares.

Trying to get a photo of all three little people was a nightmare. Eva looks worried, Ellie has obviously had enough and Freddie is just a happy little chap.

There has been some making going on, I spent far too long on these crocheted cupcakes. I won't be making them again as cute as they are, they are too fiddly. I have also finished the border on my crochet blanket made a bag for Steph and layered and wadded a quilt, so I have been busy.

I'm keeping up with my walking. This was the view at Ferry Meadows first thing this morning.

The sunrise was beautiful.

The swans were graceful, unfortunately I was too slow to get a picture of the heron.

Last but not least I made raspberry and white chocolate muffins for afternoon tea today.

 I'm hoping to have some time to catch up on some blog reading this weekend. Enjoy your weekend.

Old and Achey

You would think that as I got older I would acquire some common sense, well  it would appear not. I let Nicki convince me that it would be fun to go to Zumba with her for an hour last night. I wasn't quite as energetic as she was so I didn't feel too bad when I got up this morning for my stroll around Ferry Meadows. But after half an hour's walking my legs were aching and feeling very heavy - as the day went on my arms started aching along with other body parts. But that's not the end of it I haven't learnt my lesson because I agreed to go with her again tomorrow evening. 

I'm very pleased with my dyeing results, in fact, I'm quite excited. The colours are crisp and vibrant even when I over dyed a printed fabric.

I'm keeping notes on my dyeing for future reference.

Right now I've got this quilt on the basting table so that I can get it ready for a show on Create and Craft TV on Sunday. It won't be quilted, but I will be able to show in more detail how a quilt should be layered and basted. 

Early Morning

I was up at 6 this morning to go for a walk, I nearly got back into bed but once I was out and about I was so glad I hadn't it was a gorgeous morning and the sun was lovely and warm on my back.
This was Ferry Meadows at about 6.30.

The ground looked like it had been sprinkled with icing sugar. A very pretty frost. So far this week I have walked just over 23 miles, I know this because I have an app on my phone that tells me so and of course it's accurate. Even if it isn't I've enjoyed my walks.

Now yellow isn't normally a colour I choose to work in but I've used it twice in the last couple of weeks. Once to make myself a new needle case as the one I use at the moment isn't big enough so this one has six pages and is rather pretty looking for yellow with a splash of red. 

The second time I used yellow was last week at our Spectrum meeting. Gina asked us to take along some fabric and thread in preparation for some hand stitching. We had to choose one stitch and one colour to work in. Again I choose yellow and Fly stitch. The first bit of embroidery that I did was to make a frame with the stitch, which is quite boring although it probably wouldn't be if there was something in the centre, something to bear in mind for the future. Next I worked the stitch in varying shades of yellow over itself again and again building up the surface. I really like this little piece I just love the texture it has created. This will be finished and turned into something I just don't know what at the moment but it would go nice with black.

Whilst at Spectrum we also spoke about dyeing, something I haven't done since my City and Guilds days. Jenny told us about the recipe that she uses and I thought I'd give it a go. I have dyed four fat quarters four different colours but two reds just for comparison, wine red, scarlet and the other two are olive green and golden yellow. The fabrics are on the radiators drying at the moment but I'll show you the results in due course.

Last week I covered a folder to keep my recipes in. I have two drawers in the kitchen full of bits of paper and it drives me mad when ever I want a recipe and I have to look through the whole lot so after however many years I've finally done something about it. That doesn't mean the drawers are now empty, oh no! Only the recipes that have been tried, tested and approved (which means edible in our house) made it into the folder. So that means there may be some experimenting going on in the kitchen while I try the others out or I could just say bother and bin them.

Time Out

I've had a blogging break for personal reasons and considered giving up my blog but have decided to carry on so here I am again.

I haven't been idle during my break, there has been some experimenting in the kitchen. My first ever gluten-free cake, a ginger cake. The kitchen smelt lovely whilst it was cooking so I was hopeful and I could see through the oven door that it had risen. It came out looking perfect, tasted lovely and was liked by everyone who had a piece.

On Thursday afternoon I looked after Ellie for a little while so I took her into the office to see Grandad. I think she was trying for employee of the month.

Her drawing skills were good. 

However her skills at eating do-nuts were excellent.

See no problem.

Freddie with mummy.

Yesterday after my early evening walk I made mushroom soup. It's one of my favourites and of course it was gluten free. The only disappointment was the gluten free bread roll, I'm glad I don't eat a lot of bread.

Wednesday was the monthly meeting of Spectrum and just for once I had been a good girl and done my homework. I'm glad Gina made me stick with my original design as I'm much happier with it now. If you remember my theme is Circles, which I have taken literally in this instance. The colours are representative of the hydrangeas in my garden. Or should I say that used to be in my garden I think I might have killed them off, time will tell.

This is just a working sample I've abandoned my sketchbook temporarily but I will have to go back to it. I painted some pages from my sketchbook (knew it would come in useful sometime)  cut out lots of circles using a punch and stitched them together using invisible thread. I was really pleased that the invisible thread worked in the bobbin it needed a little coaxing but I got there.

Then I strung them onto these frames with some help from Neil. It took almost two hours just to do the small one. I intend for the finished project to be hung in circles. So now I have lots more sampling to do starting with fabric for the circles, although I might not use fabric I spied a bag of Quality Street wrappers this morning and thought they might work.

Oh and yesterday evening I made a Mars Bar and Rice Krispie cake for the stitching ladies at the shop today.

Finished, Nearly Finished and Started

I have finished the table runner, and I'm very pleased with it.

It fits nicely on my table but I don't imagine I will use it as it's not really my colours. I like brighter colours and I only made it to use on Create and Craft if ever necessary.

I've not only managed to sew in all the ends on my blanket but I've also gone all the way round working the border. I'm not sure how many rows I will do at the moment I'm thinking 5 might be good.

On another good note I have started on my homework for Spectrum. I'm going to work in 3D this time, I think I might like it more if I work that way rather than in a sketchbook. I've never been happy working in sketchbooks, maybe it's my dislike of drawing.

After my previous post I've had a couple of emails about the wool I'm using for my shawl. Which goes to prove that people do read my blog but just don't leave messages. If you are one of those said people please do leave me a message. Anyway back to the wool. It came from Boo's Attic and is called Ethereal Serenity, is a lace weight (2-ply) and the colour is Jewel. The fibre content is 70% Baby Alpaca, 30% Silk and it really is a dream to knit with.

I thought I'd show you these flowers because they are so pretty. They are left from a bunch that I was given last week. Unfortunately the other roses have hung their heads in shame and are now in the composting bin.

Now I know it's some considerable time until Christmas but I have made a start on my pressie shopping. There is no way I'm going to leave it until the last minute again it was a nightmare last year, never again. So when I saw this sketchbook in Paperchase I knew Steph would love it. The only thing I have to do now is put it somewhere safe that I'll remember. It's safe for me to put it on here as she doesn't read my blog.

Wool

This weekend Neil, Dawn and me have taken the shop to Cottenham for Textiles In Focus . We are now two thirds of the way through and all three of us are tired. It has been very busy and good fun. We've had time to catch up with  friends and of course Dawn and I have made a few purchases.

 The stall next to us is Boo's Attic, run by Clare who hand dyes the wool she sells. The wool is gorgeous and a delight to knit with, I know this because it was one of my purchases. Clare has got some beautiful shawls hanging up and I obviously need a new shawl. If you fancy making one for yourself the pattern can be found here and is called Radiance Shawl by Helen Stewart. It's very easy to make, no complicated stitch patterns.

 I've nearly sewn all the ends in on my blanket, it hasn't taken as long as I thought it would. Hopefully I'll get it finished this week.

If you're planning a visit to Textiles In Focus tomorrow then do pop by our stall and say hello.