Granny Squares

...and LOTS of them!

Having seen this little beauty over at Hopscotch Lane.......

I formulated a plan to redecorate our bedroom (after I've done the other 4!) and I told you a bit about it here.

I chose my colours......

 

...after some deliberation I changed the Stylecraft Minty Green for the James Brett Leafy Green and the Cream for Peach....

.....and started.

Once started I asked The Hub to work out how many squares I would need to do for each colour to be used in each square but no 2 squares the same......confident it wouldn't be that many.

Misplaced confidence I can tell you when he came up with the number....120!!!

Oh my!

So here's progress so far..........

 

that's forty squares, eight of each colour for centres (need 24 of each! So that's another 80 to go!).

 

And I plan to follow Becky's row 4 and 7 in white, the last will be join-as-you-go, so here we are with one square at the join-as-you-go stage...only another 119 to go!!!!

Guess I'd better get on with it then! 

Are you hooking anything?

See you soon,

Nora
xxxx

The Jitters

My gorgeous little Tiddly Toes was 4 in April.

She is still so little and chubby.

She only gave up the before bed breast feed in January.

She realised the other day that it had been a while and asked "Why don't I have bub anymore....I miss it". Oh how my heart strings tugged, longing for those days back again.

She is off to school in September, my baby!

She is VERY EXCITED!!!!  Mummy less so.

I'm having those twinges of how I shall miss her and hate the silence, how there will be no more snuggling in bed in the morning when everyone else has left, no long days cooking or playing magnetic fishing, no spontaneous trips to the farm.

And then that is balanced by those days when she has a right royal strop on and I think...Dear God, I can't wait 'til she starts school.

But on the whole it is the strop-less days of fun and smiles and snuggling that will be gone forever.

Not that we can't do them, but that she will grow up quickly and won't want to do them in quite the same way ever again.

So there's a few more weeks of squidgy playdough, delicious baking, cutting and sticking, snuggly film watching, giddy spinning, puffed out running, tractor riding, sand digging and boundless bouncing left, and we're going to have some fun and make the most of it!

 

Happy days.

 

Love

Nora

xxxx

Bunting

I had a special request to make some bunting co-ordinated to a rather beautiful and very special bedroom.

It is for my God-Daughter (who you will often see me write about as Tiny Angel) and her name is.......

 

This was the special request that required adding some gorgeous gingham to my stash that I told you about here.

 

Well, it is still a work in progress, but I wanted to show you the progress........

 

 

The first 4 pennants made (of 13) and the appliques applied but not stitched in any way (as I can't decide whether to do them by hand or machine!)

 

But it is progress nonetheless.

 

I'm off to make a cup of tea and get my mind churning over the applique embellishing possibilities....happy days!

 

Until the next time......take care, xxxx

Nora

Scones....

....with jam and cream!

Delicious and VERY English!

....and VERY easy!

Recipe:

225g (8oz) of self raising flour
1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
a pinch of salt

all sieved from high into a bowl.

Add 50g (2oz) of butter or margarine and roughly chop, then get your hands in there and lift the mix up above the bowl (as high as you dare!) and rub the mixture lightly.  This sort of squishes the fat into the floury mix and after a few minutes it'll look like fine breadcrumbs.  But be light.

Stir in 25g (1oz) of fine or caster sugar

then add 150ml or 5floz of milk.  Bring this together with a knife into a dough.  It will be quite sticky.  Dollop it out of your bowl onto a lightly floured surface and as far as you can avoid adding any more flour, it will make your scones heavy.

DON'T roll!  Just gently push down on your dough until it is still about 1 inch (2cm) thick, dip your cutters into some flour and cut your scones.  Pop them on a baking tray, brush with egg-wash (an egg beaten up) and cook in a pre-heated oven at 230 degrees (that's high!).

They only need about 10 minutes.

You can use any size (or shape) of cutter...this monster was at the request of my husband!!

 

It's burning my hand!!

 

But it smells fab!

 

The cream is whipped and later I shall add a 'with jam and cream' shot...but right now, this recipe is needed urgently by Tiny Angel Mummy!

 

I used the rest of my egg to make 6 little cakes..... happy Tiddly Toes when she can decorate those later!

 

If you make some (scones or cakes!), please photograph and link back to me or add your photo to my facebook page.

 

Enjoy!

 

Love

Nora

xxxx

ME! Buy more stash!?

Ah!  OK then, guilty!  Yes Guv it was me!

It IS for a wonderful make though!

It is a request, so I couldn't refuse............

I'm not going to tell you about the request BUT I will share my stash buy.

Here it is............

 

I did get a little more fabric than I needed, coz you never know, right?

 

I shall share the whole thing very soon when it is underway.

 

Toodle-pip,

Nora xx

Our romantic weekend away...

..turned into a family weekend away!

Partly because we don't mind sharing, partly because a weekend away from our girls would have been less enjoyable than it sounds and partly because Teenage Daughter is going through a very rough time with stress and anxiety at the moment, so although it was stressful to come with us and be away from home it was less stressful than not being with us AND being away from home!

It started at Christmas with a promise to The Hubs of a romantic weekend away, we couldn't decide where to go and life took over.  Then I looked for all of us to go to London and see a show BUT...my budget wouldn't stretch to that!

I had a look on the Cottages4you website that we used for our lovely Barn Holiday last year and realised they take Tesco Vouchers!

Signed up, got my code for £100 off of our 2 day stay and managed to get 2 nights for less than a London hotel for 1!!

Want to see....

It is lovely.........

 

It's called Five End Cottage.  The white building on the right of the photo is a 15th Century Inn called The Artichoke, we decided to have our evening meal here, good decision.

 

We arrived Friday afternoon and had our picnic in the local play park opposite the village Church and were fortunate to hear the bells being rung for a wedding...what a start to a rural 'get-away' weekend!

 

We got to the house and met the lovely owners who showed us around this little gem, take a look at these pictures of the inside........

 

 

An open fire *sigh*......

 

A lovely spacious room for me & The Hubs........

 

 

The little door on the left went down to the lounge, the little door on the right went up......

 

 

....to this!  A wonderful little room in the roof for the girls.

 

Usually when we go away there is always something that you wish you had taken that's not there, a minor problem, something not as clean as it could be, you know....something.

 

Well, I can honestly say, that there was nothing amiss with this little home from home (well better than home, coz we've got 'stuff'!)  There was tea & coffee, milk and eggs in the fridge and English muffins and crumpets in the bread bin, cereal for the morning and........oh!.....chocolate biscuits! Yummy!

 

Best of all for me and The Hubs was a lovely bottle of wine which we cracked open before our evening meal and sipped whilst sitting on the patio in the sun! Bliss!

 

There is a right of way to the neighbours house through the garden, but the neighbour was a gem and celebrated her 80th birthday whilst we were there (not that you'd have ever have guessed she was an octogenarian!!)

 

All in all a lovely break away from the hurley-burley of life and highly recommended.

 

Next time I'll show you around Canterbury.  Unfortunately, they are not very exciting photos as it was a very cold, grey day and then Whitstable.  I'll be back soon with those so until then...... bye-eeeee,

 

Nora

xxxx

 

Can't seem to find a post where I told you about this......

Let me start with this....................

 

the view our visitors get through our front window.

 

It is of this..........................

 

Here we go.....TA-DAAAAHHH!!!........

 

 

a Stripe-y Blanket made from all sorts of odd scraps of double knit yarn, mainly Stylecraft, but some that are donkeys years old and others a little more recent.

 

 

The very vibrant colours (neon green, neon orange, red, yellow, pink, turquoise and purple) are from my stripey bag inspired by Lucy at Attic24 and made from Stylecraft Special Double Knit, if you click the link to Wool Warehouse, you can buy any of the 55 colours at only £1.69 per ball!

 

There's a magenta and pale mauve which were from a beret I knitted, some colours from Mother-in-Law when she stayed and was knitting squares for charity, some baby yarn from eldest son, Teenage Daughter and Tiddly Toes some from my Aunt who knits baby blankets and squares for blankets, mostly for nieces and nephews....and some stuff that is so old (from when I first learnt to crochet at the age of 8-10 years!!), I have no idea how I acquired it, but most likely my Mum and my Aunt!

 

There was no method to my madness how I chose the colours, it was a random 'pick-a-ball-out-of-the-bag' method and if I pulled a colour that had been in about the last 6 rows I pulled another!

 

Remember this blanket edging, a job I acquired from Mother-in-Law?  Well I used the same pattern on this blanket.

 

I asked Tiddly Toes to pick three colours, she chose apricot, salmon and pink.  I did a round of double crochet (DC, UK terms...think that's SC is US terms) in the first 2 colours and then the shell edging in the pink like this...........

 

It was a it hard gauging the correct place and how many DCs down the sides, I didn't want too many so that is was baggy and not too few which would have pulled it together more, I think I got it just about right.

 

Love Tiddly Toes choice of colours, they go so nicely together.

 

So there you go, you're all up to date with that.

 

Oh!  I forgot to say that this also was inspired by a post on Attic24 and the pattern came from the hook of Bella Dia, follow the link to the tutorial.  There is also a Flickr group for any blankets made....so I guess that's my next job!

 

Hope it's inspired you...if not a blanket then why not a cushion cover....or a scarf!?

 

Until the next time....cheerio!

Nora

xx