Lavendar bags and crockery love

I finished up some of my lavender bags I was embroidering as Christmas gifts. I still have to do a couple, particularly for the lovely lady who donated all the lavender to me. I am pleased with how they have turned out, but I don't think I will embark on production line embroidery again, it is too time consuming and rather takes the fun out of it. I'm now longing to embroider something else!

They smell lush too.

And the other day I was in the charity shop looking for Christmas gifts when I came across this gorgeous set of crockery. I spotted the jug and bowl first as they were priced together, then priced separately on another shelf were the plates. I'm becoming pretty choosy in charity shops now, but these I had to have... and, for myself! I'm also struck by how seasonal they are with their snowflakey pattern and colours.

They are Alfred Meakin, Morning Star. Yum.

Pretty Cookie Mix

I am going to be carrying on with the Christmas theme for a bit, as I get my gifts sorted. Next is these great Cookie Mix jars from Bakerella. I haven't tested the mix so I really hope they bake up alright. The jars were a bargain 99p from our local hardware store. I have been buying them like mad as the lady there says she can't get any more and once they are gone, they are gone...

And, the Advent Calendar is working a treat. I had a long day at work and left the bowl as per the previous post with envelopes and pegs and ribbon with B and asked him to put it up somewhere and look what he did! I would never have thought of doing it this way! Brilliant.

Advent Calendar and Sloe Gin Labels

I am full steam ahead with Christmas planning right now. We are off to London at the weekend and need to drop off 90% of our gifts, and I only really realised this a few days ago. We are getting there though and it will be a great relief to be a little ahead.


Also, I've been doing Mil's advent calendar. That's what that little preview on the last post was. I have numbered 24 little envelopes and drawn and coloured a Christmas themed token for in each one, as well as a written activity for each day. I am going to peg them to a ribbon, in an as yet undecided location. I'll show you pics when they are up.

If you would like to use the sheet I made for the 24 advent tokens I have made it available as a pdf here. You could use it for colouring-in fun, or gift tags too. I warn you, some of the drawings are somewhat primitive! I have also put our activities here as a pdf too. A lot of these are the same as those that are all over blogland at the moment.

I also made some labels for our sloe gin, as we are giving these as gifts. I have done these as a download too, but not sure how many of you will be using Mendip sloes! I'm rather pleased... it feels like things are coming together!

Oh, and look, my hyacinth is flowering and smells glorious.

Christmas is coming

A little preview of some Christmas related crafting... what could it be?

A short post as we've been away visiting relatives. Pretty much all our relatives live in Cambridge, and as we aren't going to be there over Christmas we have just spent several days catching up with folk there. A very restful weekend was had with walks along the towpath and at Wandlebury. Lovely.

I'm glad to be back and happily have Christmas on my mind.

Pebble vest

I finished my vest! I actually finished it 10 days ago, but it has taken me a little while to get it up here. I really enjoyed this knit. It was simple and satisfying and I love the yarn which was a bargain. I am going to knit another, but try and size it up so that it will last a little longer.

Ravelry link to my project here, the free pattern is Pebble by Nikol Lohr, The Thrifty Knitter. I used the DK yarn Sirdar Escape in colour 0187. I used just under a 50g skein.

Not sure who this is for yet. There are babies due to pop out all over the place so I'm sure it will find a good home, and then I'll be able to have the satisfaction of seeing this on somebody.

And to end, here are some pics of the kids enjoying carnival on Friday night. We had a great time, the power stayed on, and we were able to cook our lasagna (which was yum!).

Kitchen Poetry 05: Friday

Tonight is carnival night here in our little city, and seeing as we live on the route, we have friends over so the kids can press their noses up against our front window, and the adults can skulk in the back room drinking wine.

I was going to post some pictures of general merriment from this evening, but we were struck with a power cut in early evening and this has become the story.

It is lasagna, salad and garlic bread on the menu tonight, and luckily B had made the red sauce earlier on today, but I had to make the white sauce and construct the things. Power cuts don't usually last long around here, so I was pretty confident we would be able to get them in the oven, but did need to make this other sauce. Now, you would think the gas hob would work, but it has some safety cut out, so here I am cooking on the camping stove.

All back on now, after an hour and a half which is the longest I've known for a while.

Happy carnival all!

Kitchen Poetry 4: Thursday

Now, this really is poetry. Well, poetry to me anyhow.

Welcome to our kitchen... it NEVER looks like this. This morning we have been cleaning like mad things as this afternoon we have an agent coming to value our house. (And, frankly the place is a tip, so it's a good excuse).

We are not going to put the house on the market, but recently have started to think about the possibilities of moving and would like to know the value so we can start looking with a bit more sincerity.