It's been a while....

Almost a month since the last post. Kind of says it all really. It's been a tough past month and i don't think its over yet. But whilst there's break in the dark clouds hanging over me i thought i'd take the opportunity to post a few photos of things i have managed to do in the last month.

The sweetcorn has finally been cut now, at the farm, i noticed when i drove past last week. There's nothing really to do on the farm itself now, so there'll be a little office work up to Christmas and then work will begin again in February.

I really do love it up there when the weather is good. It can be so peaceful - depending on the wind direction and time of day, but even when you do hear the motorway it is just a background hum and although the planes are annoying they've flown off before you get a chance to get worked up about them destroying the peace. The sounds of the buzzards crying, the jays and woodpeckers calling and at the end of october there was the most magnificent sound of a rutting Stag chasing the does in the woods. They were so close you could hear the rustle of the leaves when they were moving about. It would have be even more magical if they'd appeared out of the wood, but sadly they stayed hidden.

One of ladies at the farm was telling me about her 4 year old grandson, who was critically ill in hospital. He was born with a heart condition, for which the surgery hadn't been totally successful and then on top of that he had contracted pneumonia. He's been in hospital for a long time and by the sounds of it was very fed up with being there and being ill, so i put together this little craft kit, something they could do together, a spoon friend for each of them to create. I haven't heard how he is recently, however i do know they were extremely concerned and sadly not too hopeful. I'll ask the others when i next go down to the farm, they hadn't heard anything last week.

Now something totally crazy! It November. A few weeks ago this area (although not precisely here) had snow. Yet despite the cold i have sugar snap peas growing and forming!! Admittedly very very slowly, but still it's just madeness!

The cold and frosts mind you are good for one thing at least. They really enhance the flavour and sweetness of the parnsips, which seem to have become giants this year! I pulled this monster which fed all 3 of us as part of our sunday roast a few weeks ago.

Then came Mum and D's wedding anniversary - How many years was it again D??!!

I saw this idea in a Christmas book i picked up at a charity shop. But having left things a bit late, and then fighting to get it done at all, it wasn't quite as i'd hoped, and infact i didn't manage to do dinner for them in the end, but i managed to get the present/pudding done, which in fact lasted for 3 days! I didn't manage to get a cone of Oasis foam, so ended up carving my own from a rectangle.
The traditional English theme for the 4th wedding annivesary is fruit and flowers (american is linen and modern is electrical appliances) so i decided on an edible themed present! With a rose for each year on the top.
Served with 3 dips - melted dark chocolate, melted milk chocolate and vanilla yoghurt. Some thing we (ok, so more me) could all share.
With the evenings dark now by dinner time we have to remember to get any veg in from the garden during the day while its still light! This carrot had my name on it, almost literally! And is now in fact a nice "J" avatar on one forum!

And so to halloween. Again because i left things a bit late, i only managed to get very small pumpkins, and the first supermarket i went to didn't have any left at all! Seems the shortage due to poor pollination from damp weather really did affect supply. It kept my amused nevertheless. The sunflower pattern was a design i found online, but because of the size of the pumpkin my other design i had chosen didn't fit so i made up my own shooting star design.

Lidls have had some great special offer on recently including some stunning 2 spike orchids for £6!! so i picked up one for mum's collection - and for me to photograph!

And finally another great deal - a whole salmon for just under £10, from which i got 14 (!!!) decent sized fillets for mum and D. Ok so after descaling, filleting and pin boning i can understand the justification of the price difference between what i bought and the prepacked fillets. But as i had an afternoon free to do it i thought i'd save some pennies and do it myself. It worked out to 70p a fillet in the end!

i don't know whats going on with photo sizes and who knows what will happen when i hit publish, but thats me for the last month. I think i might look into some blogging events, maybe that will encourage me to post a bit more often.

It's show time!!

Well, the day is finally upon us. In fact it has been for me for an hour and a half already! I really don't sleep well when i have things on my mind. It was the same yesterday morning too. Today is the first day of the Countess of Warwick Show - judgement day!

So yesterday i spent all day in the kitchen, literally the only break i had between 10am and 5pm was about an hour and a half over lunch. It started with the cherry cake, which despite baking at the right temperature (cooler for a fan oven unlike my practise run!), still decided to errupt in the centre but there's nothing that can be done about it now.

Then i moved onto the Honey and Banana Tea Bread, which again rose in the middle like last time.

Then came the Cheese and Olive scone bake as the final one before "half time", we also all had a bit of this for lunch as it was still warm plus you only need 4 squares for the show and the recipe makes 12. Well it should do, if you can roll out a perfect rectangle, but as i can't there were a couple of triangle corners, half size portions just right for me!

After a lunch of a tuna version of the lunch i had in Milan, it was back to the kitchen where i started on the Bakewell. It didn't bubble up too badly like last time, although my pasty seemed to shrink this time however luckily the filling didn't overflow! Frustratingly though, when i removed it from the flan tin i found a small patch on the bottom where the pasty wasn't cooked properly - lets just hope they don't cut through that bit when they judge it!

Finally, the chocolate chip cookies, which as before worked well apart from one which was a little darker than i would have liked (but who's to know if one is missing! Sshhhh....).

Then all that was left to do, having sorted the crafts and photos earlier, was pull up some veg. After pulling about 20 carrots i finally decided on 5 that were good quality and roughly similar, the beetroot was easier as there were 3 decent sized ones and they were luckily all a very similar size too! All thats left is the cherry tomatoes, which i will go and pick then select in a minute (it was a little dark at 5.30am when i packed up the baking!) and at the last minute, so it keeps fresh, pick the chard. I'll add photos of those two into the slide show at a later date.

Only an hour and a half before i have to leave at the latest, time for another cup of tea to calm my nerves i think! Wish me Luck!

Hatfield Heath Festival Weekend - Day 1

Yesterday saw the first day of the Hatfield Heath Festival weekend, with the school fete from 12pm until 2.30pm, the church flower festival and a history exhibition in the URC Hall on postcards and pictures of Hatfield Heath both running all day (and all day today as well). But the bit i was involved in was in the Village hall from 11am to 5pm (and the same again today) - The Art exhibition and craft fair - although when i say craft fair there were only four of us who had book tables for crafts in the end. So we each took a corner of the room whilst the paintings and art work hung on boards in the centre and on the wall around us.

I set up on the friday night, so i could plan my table and it's layout which i was quite happy with eventually. I purposely chose a corner that had space where i could hang things behind me too. So yesterday morning i arrived at 10am to add to magnets to the board and lay things out with out too much stress. Adorned with my own 2 badges, a hair clip (not that people could see that unless i turned my back to them!) and a pair of earrings, i was ready to go.

The day started well with one of the other stall holder buying my largest cross stitch before we'd even opened to the public.

I had taken a cross stitch with me to do however i didn't seem to get much done, as with still feeling ill i spent most of the day picking at my lunch trying to slowly eat something, hiding behind my stall! good view for people watching though....

It was very quiet though and i think the door count my the end of the day was no more than 80 people, but then this was kind of expected as today is the main festival day on the Heath with much more going on, starting with a fun run at 10.30am. Other things include a classic car show, dog show, fancy dress, punch and judy, falconary, a little fun fair and other stands. The Salvation army is doing a song's of praise on the heath at 5pm and as i mentioned earlier the church flower festival and history exhibition are going on today as well. So there's a lot more to attract people.

However despite the quiet day yesterday, as well as the cross stitch i also sold 2 keyrings

and a bookmark.

so i had covered my £10 stall fee and thats even after i have donated 10% of my takings to the village pre school which is this years chosen charity.

So now to watch Casualty before mum and D wake up, which D kindly recorded for me last night as i ended up joining them at his friend's 50th birthday bash and we didn't get back until 11pm.

Finger's crossed for another good day, the sun is shining which always helps matters. I must just say a quick thankyou to some wonderful Swap-bot members who have been replying to my panicing and worrying posts about this event, Spinjeny and Mojo, you've been super support. Thank you.

Rachael Herbert - Sweet Nothings

I came across this blog via another, Cuteable. I love the way rachel adds little faces to things to tell stories, like when her TV died.

Rachael Herbert - Sweet Nothings: Wee carrot - this was the post that Lyndsey featured and lead to her flickr album here. Due to copyright i can't add the photos to my blog but they are certainly worth a look if you like something cute.

No photos....sorry

Just a little note to mention the lack of photos this week. 2 reasons for this really - firstly it rained all day sunday and monday, and then by tuesday i was stuck by illness and have been pretty shattered since then. Don't think i'll make it to town today, certainly won't be driving there! And with the buses running once an hour through the village it means i would be able to just leave town when i wanted if i started feeling too rough.

Hopefully i'll make it to the post office in the village, i managed the 20 minute round trip yesterday but Tuesday i made it the 10 minutes down the road but then had to get a lift back after my legs decided they didn't want to walk any further, however after 2 days of rest and lots of fluids my legs seem to want to get me places again. It's given me a good chance to get lots of cross stitch done, ready for the Craft fair in a couple of weeks.

I need to get all my energy and strength back though, with a 20 hour day planned/booked next week, then the 2 day craft fair (and the possibility of joining mum and D at a party on the saturday evening), the my grandparents staying for 2 days (starting to regret that suggestion now the way i feel) and then a week away on a canal boat.......

So i think another few days sitting on my backside doing cross stitch may not be a bad thing. I've finished 3 cards so far. i will take photos of them before the fair, but just because i hate plain text here's a photo of one of my other cards that i will be exhibiting and selling.

My Favourite Colour ATC Magnets - recieved

After a particularly bad morning, i arrived home to find not only the 2nd lot of blue ATCs but a small jiffy bag too, on the door step. The customs sticker on the front said it contained 4 magnets, which confused me slightly, in fact almost worried me, as the envelope rattled when i picked it up.

So i opened it up to find a lovely package:

The first thing i went to check was how many ATC magnets i was supposed to have made as i had only sent 3! but on logging onto swapbot i found that the swap description did say 3 ATC magnets. She made them using air dry clay, and i have to say they made me feel that my attempts that i sent were pants! but i know that everyone's artist/crafty talent is different.

The reason the envelope rattled was due to the 2 extras my partner had included.

2 packets of seeds! One of green beans which i though mum might enjoy as the beans seem to be her thing (despite her saying the veggie gardening is my domain) and also chilli peppers - which is i sow now but keep inside in the heat of the porch might grow and even ripen too! i doubt they would go red and ripen if they are outdoors even in the warmest of spots, as i found that problem with the sweet peppers. Something else thats new to try!

It certainly brightened my day.

Colour Blue ATCs received

I recieved my Blue ATCs from one partner a week or so ago and i put them away before taking a photo but then yesterday i got the swap from my second partner, Amybelle.

Along with the 2 Blue ATCs she sent to blue tea bags too. According to a little translation and research, "Harmonia de Ervas" is "Harmony of Herbs" in Portuguese. i haven't tried that one yet but i tried the Lady grey, a tea i hadn't actually tried before, or at least not that i recall, anyway i think i'll be sticking to Earl Grey in the future.

Art Nouveau ATCs

not my best ATCs by far. each of my 3 partners had one of these:

and then i made another one but used the initial of each partner:

T-shirt Tote Bag Swap

The brief for this swap was to create a bag from an old t-shirt using a simple tutorial which meant all you needed to do was sew a seam along the bottom of the t-shirt, cut off the sleeves and cut a semi-circle round the neck to create the handles.

So i found an old t-shirt i didn't want anymore, set up the machine and successfully sewed the bottom edge a few times to give it some stability, cut off the sleeves and cut round the neck. This is what i came up with:

Then i couldn't find another t-shirt that needed to be thrown away so i decided to have a look in the charity shops. My partners profile said she like bright colours, and i found a strappy top, which meant i didn't need to cut the sleeves off or cut the neck so there would be no fear of the edges fraying. However my machine skills let me down this time. i managed to sew the bottom seam the first time but after that the thread kept bunching. i think it was the material which was slightly elasticated, anyway, after the 3rd attempt i gave up and finished it my hand. Machine sewing is certainly one skill i haven't yet mastered. The finish bag was ok tho.

ATC Magnet Favourite Colours Swap

These ATCs were created for the swap host who was my partner. The swap brief was to create 3 ATCs using your partners 5 colours that they had listed but the were to be magnets too. My partner was Weeatcrayons - the name came from her arriving home to find her cats eating a packet of crayons one day! her listed colours were:

1. Silver


2. Black


3. Turquoise


4. Purple


5. Dark Green

so here's what i came up with!

she also mentioned that she liked monkeys on her profile.

So there will be on their way to the USA later today with a few packets of milk bottles. I was surprised how hard it was to find milk bottles prepacked, but then they were originally they were designed as penny sweets in the good old days. I found them on a pick 'n' mix counter but i thought i should try and get them prepacked as i was sending them abroad. in the end after searching the larger supermarkets, i found then in the little newsagents in the next village!

Colour Blue ATC Swap

I'm getting slightly more into ATCs but i think my problem is that i won't pay for pre cut and pre made blank ATC cards. instead i reuse old cardboard and cover it with my own white card. Using materials i already have basically rather than wasting money on new stuff.



One set of these went to the USA and one to Devon in the UK.

Bottlecap Blue Bloom

Blue Skies

Happy Birthday Nan!

Well my initial idea of a funky bag made from Capri Sun juice pouches started well but i just couldn't figure a way of trying to finish it by adding handles etc.

So i decided a cloth bag from the curtain off cuts would be nice.

mum showed me how to do a french seam to make it neater. anyway i'm so proud of it and can't believe i made it! so some of the lines aren't too straight.... i seem to have issues still with machine sewing in straight lines and i had to hand sew on the handles. but it still looks super and i know she loves anything i hand make or decorate.

!
Previously i decorated flower pots, oven gloves and she uses both:

Here's the card i made for her too, as she has loads of these lilies in her garden.

Sewing - practice needed maybe?

I bought some curtain offcuts for £1 each with a couple of things in mind to make. The first was a cushion so i can display my bottlecaps when i finally get round to taken them to Daisy M, the gift shop in the village, to sell there. I've made a cushion before - a fews years ago - but i knew the theory of how i was going to make it.

By pure chance someone was offering a cushion stuffing/filling on freecycle and when i collected it - it was amazingly almost a perfect size. It went inside my cover with a bit of encourgement. But i did struggle big time with getting the machine set up and working in the first place, however it seems that this was due to the cheap cotton i was trying to use, and since then i've managed get it working on my own on more than one occassion. So here is my cushion:

Perfect for what i had in mind for the keyrings and brooches!

Fruit and Veg ATC Swap

Mojo pointed this swap out to me on swap-bot (thanks jen!) and i must admit ATCs aren't my favourite craft/swap but the theme won me over on this one!

So here are 2 going to goodies2shoes in the USA:

"Beetroot Bliss"

"Fabulous Fig"

and then these 2 are off to Canada to Wacky Stuff who prefers digital ATCs:

"Strawberries are hot!"

"Eat Beet!"