Sunday 25 November 2012

pincushions and petticoats

pincushions

You may need to sit down...I actually did some sewing this week! I have an almost finished Ellen Mouse (just waiting for a sweater, two eyes a nose and some whiskers) and I made my first pincushion:

my first pincushion
The pattern came from Joelle Hoverson's 'Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts' and was really quick and easy to make. I added the button, because I like it and I think it finishes it nicely and gives it a little extra weight.

I was googling to find out what people usually use to stuff pincushions. Some people use wire wool, but I was concerned it might get damp and go rusty. A lot of people recommend using crushed walnut shells (sometimes used as litter for reptiles and sold in pet shops) - and I did buy some - but this one just uses polyester fibre filling, as it is my first attempt. I am quite pleased with it, and I think the lovely buttons I bought a while back from Vanilla Kiln on Etsy work really well.

I also made a Christmas card. Most of my Christmas cards use photos, either of the cats or of last year's Christmas tree, but I wanted to make a special one for a friend who sews...and who can make use of the buttons when Christmas is over (which makes parting with my beloved buttons that bit easier).

button tree Christmas card

petticoats...and the other clothes in the 'spare' wardrobe

As some of you may know, Mark and I have been calorie counting since we were inspired by the Hairy Bikers and it is going well. I have now lost 13kg (2 stone), but inevitably weight loss slows down as time goes on and I was struggling with how far I still have to go. I decided it was time to swap Summer clothes for the Winter ones that had been put away in the wardrobe in the spare room. Along with the warm clothes were all the clothes that no longer did up, so I thought I would see if any fit me again now. I was chuffed to bits to find they all did! I now have so many clothes that fit, I can barely shut my proper wardrobe! I also decided that my really comfortable jeans are so comfortable because I no longer touch the sides - I can take them off without undoing them. It is time to pop them in a hot wash and then turn them in to a shopping bag!

the other half

Did I mention that Mark's parents and I gave him money for his birthday to get himself an iPad? He loves it, and so do the cats! He doesn't like having his photo taken, but I managed to sneak this snap of him and Rio enjoying the iPad:

man, cat and iPad in perfect harmony
I didn't do so well with this one...!

camera shy

the American Museum in Britain, in Bath

My oldest (well longest standing) friend came to visit this weekend; we've been friends since we started secondary school at 11. She got the train from London and met me after choir on Saturday. Lunch at Bea's Vintage Tea Rooms - I'm still spreading the word about how great this place is -  then a potter around town (in the pouring rain!). We had intended to have a look at the Christmas market, but the swarming mass of people and umbrellas somewhat freaked me out and I dragged Karen to Country Threads instead - I know I am weird, but I swear the rows of fabric and ribbons and threads is like a tranquilliser to me. I really don't cope well with crowds of people. After that I got to relax on the sofa in Wool while Karen drooled over the yarns. The walk home in the rain turned us in to drowned rats, but the exercise showed in the scales the next day...!

However, I have probably had more than my usual calorie intake today. We went to the American Museum at Claverton, where they decorate the period rooms for Christmas each year, put up an enormous Christmas tree in the hallway and sell tempting Christmas goodies in the exhibition hall. We had lunch and then a wander round (and a cup of tea and piece of Mrs Conkey's gingerbread afterwards!).

We have had awful weather this week. So many places have flooded (including our garage). I feel so sorry for people suffering from flooded homes - often for the second or third time this year. Driving to the American Museum the extent of flooding was clear. The river is the highest and fastest I have ever seen, Bath Rugby's training ground is completely under water and huge swathes of countryside have become lakes. It is hard to think that at the beginning of the year we were being warned of drought conditions and it has hardly stopped raining since.

The American Museum had not escaped entirely either, but at least the water running off the higher ground was not going in to the house:

wet conditions at the American Museum
The water, however, did not dampen the Christmas spirit, with the decorations starting before we even got in to the house.

Christmas at Claverton
I am not sure of the rules regarding photography, so thought it best not to take photos in the period rooms, but I reckoned photographing the beautiful Christmas tree by the main stairs was probably allowed. It looks wonderful every year, but I particularly liked this year's glittering red, white and blue bunting:

Christmas tree at the American Museum

American Museum Christmas tree
If you get a chance to visit, I highly recommend the museum any time, but particularly at Christmas (although I think Karen disowned Mark and me as we competed to see who could spot the three peg-doll fairies hidden in each of the period rooms first!).

hyacinth-cam: day 15

All is going well with the hyacinth - roots starting to fill the glass and green shoots appearing in the top:
hyacinth day 15












Sunday 18 November 2012

More cats than crafts...

The Tea House Emporium, Bath

I am going to start with one of my favourite subjects; tea shops. Well, just one actually - the Tea House Emporium in Bath. I first visited this tea shop the week it's cellar tea room opened and I have been steadily working my way through the extensive selection of teas (and coffees) ever since. It has Moroccan style lanterns, displays of tea pots I can only dream of owning, wonderful staff and amazing cakes (honey layer cake...mmmmm!). This visit I had a pot of green chai - the tea pot and cup are always chosen to complement the tea ordered and are brought to the table along with a timer set for the perfect infusion, so when the timer goes off you can take out the filter with the tea leaves so it doesn't stew. Some of their teas open up in hot water to look like exotic flowers, and these are served in glass tea pots, so they can be admired. I mentioned to the waitress on Thursday that I had n't been sure I liked green tea because it is often too bitter and she took the time to explain that the water must not be boiling, or it will release too much tannin, and then let me sniff canisters of different green teas. I tell you, this place is a tea-lover's dream!

Note the Christmas stockings hung by the chimney with care...

Bath Tea House Emporium

Bath Tea House Emporium

A sea of golden leaves

We have a beautiful sycamore tree in our garden. In the Summer it provides welcome shade and in the Autumn it turns golden. Unfortunately, every time we clear up the leaves, within a couple of days the lawn is covered again.

sycamore leaves in the garden
They do look lovely though - and Rio the cat loves them! He dives in to them and chases the leaves around the garden...







..and Max just watches, superciliously.

Max the (smug) cat

On Friday I cleared up as many leaves as would fit in our green bin and left the others in tidy piles around the garden. Or at least tidy for now until Rio gets his paws in to them...!

our garden in Bath
This morning it was wonderfully frosty, so I was out there with my camera. This blog is a perfect excuse to take loads of photos...my 'public' needs to see frosty leaves! tee hee.

frosty Autumn leaves

frosty clematis
frosty sycamore leaves

Christmas preparations

Yes, I know it's early but it is easier to wrap presents now than risk Mark or his parents stumbling across things for them. The cats had other ideas...

Rio the cat in the way
Rio the cat tries his paw at gift wrapping
cat at work
cat complaining when the ribbon is taken away
And - as usual - Max sleeps through (and on) it all!

Max asleep on wrapping paper

More cats: Leo and Tiberius

Last year we gave our friend Lesley a copy of our Max and Rio calendar, and she asked if we would go over so I could take photos of her beautiful bengal cats for this year's calendar. Leo just wanted to be fussed and stroked rather than have his photo taken, while his brother posed shamelessly for the camera.

Leo contemplates tea time
Ti poses on the car roof
ooh I recognise those eyes...keeping fingers clear of the claws!
we can see you!
lovely Leo

Ti shows what he can do
amazing jumping cat!

Hyacinth cam: day 8

I confess I started last week's hyacinth cam as a bit of a joke, but I am finding myself fascinated by the speed of its growth. Look!!




Sunday 11 November 2012

Winter quilt, cats, curls and hyacinths

A quilt...an actual finished quilt!


 I have blisters on my fingers (yes, Annika, I did try to use a thimble) and achey fingers, but my quilt for the charity auction to raise funds for Bath Minerva Choir is finished and delivered to the lovely Christina. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that it sells..and for more than £5!

As I mentioned before, the first quilt I started for the auction felt a bit too homely so I started again, attempting to make something a little understated and classy. I thought pale shades of white, cream and green would have a Wintery feel, while the red, green and gold backing fabric would enclose the pale quilt top and add a Christmassy feel.

So please keep your fingers crossed/offer a prayer that people at the charity auction like my quilt! Is there a patron saint of quilters? Perhaps Saint Anne (patron saint of seamstresses) or Saint Claire of Assisi (patron saint of embroiderers) would help out...

Winter quilt

Winter quilt

Cats are odd!

I am sure you have realised that our two cats, Max and Rio, play a big part in our lives. At the moment food is the problem. Max keeps getting cystitis so the vet tested his urine and found it was not sufficiently acidic and was full of crystals. Now both cats have to have special urinary food. It is very expensive, although we have tracked down some cheaper suppliers online, and the flavours are quite limited. Mark ordered a load of alternative brands so we can feed them the brand the vet recommends most of the time but, if they start getting bored and won't eat it, we can give them an alternative every now and then. I now find myself spending 40 minutes or so every morning sitting with them while they eat, coaxing them to eat the new food. A little bit of warm water squished in to the wet food not only helps increase their fluid intake, it warms the food a little so it has more smell, which apparently makes it more appetising. I often put the food on flat plates, so their whiskers don't touch the side of their bowls, as that can put them off eating. We also bought some urinary dried food - they like this, but the wet food is better for them. So I get them to start eating with a few pieces of dried food, then put a little more on top of their wet food and slide it under their noses, and most times they continue eating the wet food too. And where is Mark while this is all happening? Well may you ask! The snoring from upstairs is a clue... It's a good job I love all three of them so much!

The cats - Max particularly - do like to find unusual places to sleep. Mark has an exam on Wednesday and is busy revising...with help from Max!

Max the cat helps revise

Often Max has a Harry Potter complex and likes to sleep overnight in the cupboard under the stairs - and sometimes he prefers to sleep in the bath! Does that make him a Bath bath cat?

Max the cat in the bath: a Bath bath cat

Curls, curls, curls


I don't often post photos of myself, as I really don't like seeing myself - but this morning I had a sudden urge to heat up my old curling tongs, and thought I should share. Ta da!


me - with curls!
When Mark smelt the bacon cooking for breakfast and appeared in the kitchen, he just stared with disbelief and muttered, "that's mad!". I have decided to take it as a compliment...despite the look on his face.

Hyacinth-cam

As a little weekly extra, I have decided to share the progress of this year's windowsill hyacinth. So here we go with day 1:

hyacinth: day 1


And finally...a Scandinavian Christmas request

I am fortunate to have a number of Scandinavian friends and have become something of a Scandiphile (if it's not a word, it should be!) over the years. So the Sunday before Christmas I have invited my family over for a Scandinavian Christmas celebration. I treated myself to a copy of 'Scandinavian Christmas' by Trine Hahnemann, but would love to know how my Swedish shipmates (four of us have booked a weekend on a canal boat in March), Danish and Norwegian friends celebrate Christmas...and of course anyone else who may just stumble across this blog! Thank you!












Sunday 4 November 2012

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...!

Yes, I know it's only November, but I have been making Christmas cakes and the whole house smells of cinnamon and cloves and ginger...plus I opened the curtains this morning to find it snowing. This is not usual weather for South West England in early November.

Halloween


Before I get on to Christmas, I think I should cover Halloween. On Wednesday I abandoned my beloved to look after the cats and hand out chocolate to the neighbourhood thugs children (actually they are not bad kids, just lack the football skills to keep the ball away from our car, garage door, garden etc), and I crossed the bridge and headed West. My nephew enjoys celebrating Halloween (as do I) and we had a lovely family dinner.

The house lends itself to eery decor...and the lights and cobwebs and candles could only help.

green hand lights
My sister and nephew decorated cupcakes with 'stone' roses and made good use of the spider cupcake holders I found.

edible stone roses and spider cakes
 I hadn't had toffee apples in years - and they were as good as I remember! It's the sweet crunch of the toffee against the cool freshness of the apple...mmmmm!

toffee apples

spider cupcakes
This is Mary - my very favourite almost niece (my brother-in-law's brother's daughter), and her dad trying to get in shot!

Mary and Kimbo
 Mary always throws herself in to any event and bravely tackled a spider cupcake, only to find it turned her teeth a greeny-black!

black-tooth Mary
It was a good evening.

Christmas

You may have noticed that I enjoy a bit of baking. I particularly like cake decorating - and Christmas is such an opportunity. There are those who may call me stingy, but I like homemade gifts. There are number of friends and family who get a Christmas cake every year (like it or not!). So I made four cakes on Friday and another on Saturday. I soaked the dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, currants, apricots, cranberries, cherries etc) overnight in chai tea to make sure the cakes end up moist.

mixing the Christmas cake batter
 To stop the outside cooking too quickly, I wrap the cake tins in newspaper or brown paper - the smell of the warm paper somehow adds to the smell of fruit and spices in a really good way. Sorry about the colour of this photo - I failed to correct it; the cake mix didn't really look like coronation chicken.

Christmas cakes ready for the oven

Christmas cakes fresh from the oven
Once the cakes are cool, I attack them with a small skewer and then pour over alcohol.
pricking the cakes
 I like to 'feed' the cakes this way once a week until I am ready to decorate them. By Christmas they are good and boozy. Some years I use brandy, in others I use sherry or port or marsala. This year I am using ginger wine.

feeding the Christmas cake

all tucked up in kitchen foil

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Actually, I don't really like snow. Yes, it looks pretty (before it turns to muddy ice) and, when you don't have anywhere to be, it is fun to make a snow man or go tobogganing, but I hate driving or walking on ice. However, today's snow was here and gone before you could say Jack Frost.


snowy garden

Getting old!

On Friday I went to see a physiotherapist about my aching, non-functioning shoulder. The physiotherapist at the RUH couldn't have been nicer - even when telling me the problem is that I slouch. I have been doing the exercises she recommended this weekend, and the pain is sooooo much worse! I am assuming it is a case of things getting worse before they get better, but I feel like I am 80. Today, after popping in to the Bath Apple store for Mark to get his birthday present (the new, upgraded ipad), I spent the rest of the day sewing. It was very productive - I changed my mind about the colour thread to use for quilting so have to unpick and re-stitch 4 rows of sewing, and then just hand-stitch the trim - but I really ache. I have been using our dining table and chairs for working/sewing, but I believe my Christmas present from Mark will be a proper work chair; hopefully then I may feel a bit younger again.