Special Treats

My 10 Christmas Treats

1. Gingerbread Lattes
2. Mince Pies with Cheese
3. Christmas Candles (especially Sparkling Cinnamon)
4. New Pyjamas
5. Boxing Day Sandwiches (with lots of salt, mayo and crispy lettuce)
6. Playing Board Games (every year me, my mum, my brother and anybody else who fancied it used to have a running game of poker all Christmas Day)
7. Bucks Fizz with Lox and Bagels for Christmas Morning Breakfast
8. Christmas Bedding and Linen (all as cheap as chips but I love my reindeer pillows)
9. Merry Christmas...from complete strangers
10. All the wonderful Christmas Music (I restrain myself until December and then it is all Phil Spector all the time in our house!)

Oh Christmas Tree

I have been sorting Mum's photos for her for her Christmas present so I have been looking at photos of Christmas past for a few weeks. I have such vivid memories of our family tree. At our first house Dad went and cut down branches from the pine tree in the garden and we decorated those. There were big multicoloured bulbs that intertwined with angels choirs and disney characters. Always with a Barbie to top it off. 
Some of those decorations live on with my Dad. He has collected decorations from all round the world and whenever we go on holiday we buy one for him. They come from Brazil, all over the states, the far east and from European markets. All in the worst possible taste. The Boston Baked Beans in a Christmas Stocking is still my favourite. 

Sensory Overload

I think because my focus is on food so much at Christmas I forget my other senses. The smells of the Christmas markets at work, the burning in my fingers when you come in from the cold, the Christmas songs. Oh the Christmas songs...the way they lift my spirits is amazing. The ability of a song to change the mood is transformative. But even I must admit to being tired of Slade and Wizard by January. 
I am burning my Christmas Yankee candles again. At the moment it is Pine and Apple to celebrate the putting up of the tree (which WILL happen this week) and next I cannot wait to burn something good and spicy. 

Journal Your Christmas 2013

I have been receiving prompts for Journal Your Christmas from Shimelle since 2009. It is a fanatstic project to take back Christmas from the stress and commercialism which has become part and parcel (pardon the pun)of the season. It is such fun to get a little message in your inbox everyday of December and the forums are a great source of inspiration. Lots of people do beautiful scrap book pages but that defeats me at this time of year.

I am trying to focus of my not letting my perfectionism stop me doing things so I am simply aiming on doing a blog post each day and I am jumping in today on the 6th prompt.

I think Christmas Cozy is under a blanket, with the big light off and the tree lights on, watching a movie with a drink (preferabley fizz) with snacks to hand. It doesn't even have to be a Christmas film. It is just having the 2 hours to sit down and watch a film. I have spent today making bread sauce, cranberry sauce, apple sauce and red cabbage while watching Season 8 of Dexter. Having this leisurely time at this time of year is a secret pleasure. Getting these things done early allows Christmas to be Cozy and a little less stressful. I am really not stressed this year as I have done Christmas with Mum already and Dad etc are all being seen in February. Just friends and the Boy to shop for and that is all fun! 

Crochet Camp

I am taking part in Crochet Camp! Not quiet the same as getting away into nature but about the same amount of fun. 

http://slugsontherefrigerator.com/

There is loads of info suitable for beginners and also tips for those of us that have been doing it for a little while. Also some mega cute patterns including a fab potholder I made last week. It is completely imperfect but I take great pleasure that I made it!

New Year's Resolutions

1. To exercise 3 times a week.
2. To finish watching Mad Men

Not too hard there. I have been keeping up with the exercise since the new year started but no progress made on the Mad Men. I belong to a gym which is literally at the end of my road, about 3 mins walk away. The gym also has a pool so I have been using those liberally. I also have rediscovered Dance Central on the Kinect. It is amazing how sweaty you can get just jumping around in your living room. 

My newest exercise motivator is the NHS Coach to 5k podcast. They have a very calming woman telling you to walk and run in 60 and 90 second intervals (well the first week does anyway) and the music could be much more annoying. 

The Day to Day

I have just finished reading The Happiness Project . It is a brilliant book about how to make your life happier without changing your life. It focuses each month on making resolutions to do with one area of life such as Work or Family. It is a really personal account from one women who is definitively not perfect and lives her real life as she goes through the book. It is really inspiring as she is not unhappy and is just working towards making herself happier on a daily basis. My desktop background is a quote from her "What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE'. This really appeals to me as I feel what makes me happy and makes a big improvement of my quality of life is what I do everyday, the small things like the food I eat and the people I talk to regularly. It isn't the big things like holidays or moving house. It is the small things like stroking the cat or having a great cup of coffee. 

I would really recommend the book to anyone. She is an intelligent, well read, fun woman talking simply about her life. I am just starting on her next book about being happy at home. We will see if it is as good. 

Baby Blanket Number 2

So this is the blanket I made for a very special Canadian/Libyan/Welsh/Mancunian baby who was born this summer. It is the 2nd ripple blanket I have made and it was much better than my first one. Sorry Baby number 1!

This is it while making. I absolutely loved the process of making this blanket. It took about 30 mins a row and I made it bigger than the 1st too after seeing how quickly babies really grow. I can't give specifics I am afraid as this actually got goven away in the middle of the summer when the baby was born. Sorry!

It is made with Special DK again and has very similar colours that Lucy at Attic24 and Heather at Little Tin Bird use. I am massively inspired by these 2 women who use colour beautifully and create lovely, snuggly things. Looking at it now it could really have done with some kind of border. I learn every time I make something. 

Ooopps!

I have been away...for longer than I wanted. I have a new job which has been taking some serious training, pushing me in all my "stretch" areas. I haven't had any time or motivation to make anything above dinner. It doesn't make me happy.


What does make me happy:

1. Receiving a cushion I won from Alice at JustAThought. It is brilliant and looks great in my craft room. My plan for today is to tidy that room so I can take some photos for her.
2. Making more delicious veggie recipes from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. Last night was a pilaf made with slow cooked onions, sweet spices and loads of herbs. Every recipe from this book has been a great success. 
3. Discovering a new beauty blog. Beauty's Bad Habit is brilliant. She has loads of great looks and as she is student they are all doen with bargain products. She is local to me too!
4. Finding a great food shop just down the road from my new job in Liverpool. Mattas is full of bargain spices, interesting chocolates and unusual veg. 

That actually makes me feel a lot more positive about what is going on at the moment. It has felt like the job is taking over everything. I am enjoying it but it is a lot of hard work!

Frivolous fun

So I saw this trim about 6 months ago on Lucy's brilliant Attic 24 blog. I genuinely thought "I'll never be able to make that. It looks so complicated and there are so many different stitches". 


After finishing a baby blanket (yet another ripple, more on that in the next post) I wanted something quick and easy that I could finish in an evening after a stressful day at work.  I remembered the lovely little trim for going round a jar. So I started and it was great! It was hard enough to be able to concentrate all the way through but not too hard to make me feel like I couldn't do it.
So ta da....

I am completely in love with it. I have had it burning with a little, green, fresh smelling tea light. I can see this being Christmas presents for people this year. Just need to start collecting more salsa jars. 

Rocket Garden

So I got a Rocket Garden for Christmas from The Boy's mum. Basically it is a box full of baby plants all ready to go into your garden/pots/planters. It arrived on Thursday and today has been the first chance I have had to get them in. Coincidentally it has also been the first nice day we have had in ages here in rainy Manchester. There were so many plants I have had to put some int random plastic pots from the shed. I have:

• Mizuna, 3 types of lettuce, rocket, spinach and chard in planters.
• Strawberries in hanging baskets.
• Peas, runner beans, french beans and courgettes in the raised bed at the end of my garden.

It doesn't look much typed like that but it has taken me about 3 hours to do it all. I am going to take loads of photos tomorrow when my camera is charged. My back is killing me but I have definitely earned the beer I am now having. 

The gym has been going brilliantly. I have been 3 times and it has gone really well. It has been hard but I come out feeling strong and like I have worked. Plan is to go for a swim tomorrow as I don't think my back is going to let me go to the gym!

Baby blanket number 2 is going great. A ripple bunch of rainbow goodness. 

New year fun and games

So it is now a new year, well for me at least. I turned 29 on the 2nd of May and was spoilt rotten. I got an amazing new food processor and a 4 day trip to London full of musicals, family, amazing hotel views, friends and HARRY POTTER! We went to the new studio tour which was amazing and a complete surprise. I may have been a little emotional at various times. I am such a cry baby when I am happy!


The yarn arrived for the first of the baby blankets which is looking beautiful. The ripples are going well and the edges are almost even! A little wonk is part of the homemade charm I think.


Day off tomorrow with a gym induction. We shall see how my very unfit body copes!

Keep on going

This time of year has so much going on.


Busy at work and only getting busier. Babies on the way and all that goes with that. The Boy's birthday done and mine coming soon.


I have ordered some serious yarn to make a baby blanket inspired (well will be directly copied from to be honest) by this amazing blanket. I am still going with a Granny Squares blanket for our living room but it is taking forever. I have worked out I would like to end up with a blanket of about 100 squares. That is a lot of end to sew in. 

This can't be March?

This is amazing. The weather is so warm and beautiful. Me and mum have been in the garden all morning is t-shirts. The sun has been warming and life affirming. We have put in a hedge (well it will be when it grows a bit), moved a big plant out of the raised bed into the back of the lawn and moved the chives and parsley back into pots. Mum had planted the herbs out but I have decided to put them back into pots so I can move them to the back door if I need them.

When we were working on the garden last year we dug a lot of water retention compost into the beds. It has made such a difference to the soil. There are so many worms and the soil is super rich. Hopefully it all makes for brilliant vegetables when the Rocket Garden goes in later this month!

Family time

At the moment I have my mum to stay. We haven't lived together so about 10 years. As you can imagine there have been moments of immense stress and annoyance on both our parts but the majority of it has been a complete joy.

She has cooked, gardened, created and cleaned her little heart out. I have had homemade swiss roll, île flottante, thai green curry, meatballs...the list goes on. We have had the garden tidied and she has added edges to our very undefined borders which has made a massive difference. It is starting to look like a real garden!

She has been creating and making her own pillowcases which are the basis of her new business (more on that later!). They are things of beauty with intricate whitework and crochet edges. Puts my counted cross stitch to shame. Saying that she always comments on how she could never do the things I do, she has no patience.

Also I haven't touched the washing up since she came!

So here's to mums and all they do.

Baby Blanket Completed

I have finished the baby blanket for the baby girl of 2 dear friends of mine. We went to their wedding in Belfast on New Year's Eve 2010. It was an amazing time and The Boy has known them for about 10 years, he was an usher. So I wanted to make them something special and my new love of crochet came out to play.

So this is it! In their homeland's colours. I got so sick of these about halfway through but looking at it

now I love it and am a little bit proud of myself. It is a ripple pattern from Attic24, which is where I got the original inspiration from. And then I have just edged it with 3 rows of treble crochet in the green and white (preferable in my mind to the orange).

The vital statistics:

Size: 72cm x 48cm

Weight: no idea, completely forgot to weigh it before I packed it up.

Time: It took me about 2 months but could have been done a lot quicker if I cracked to it! I wanted to get it done for when she was born. Now going to be a 2 month old present.

Wool: 5 balls (ish) of Patons' Fairytale Dreamtime DK Pure Wool. £3.49/ball of 50g.

Cost: £17.45

Now I am moving on to Valentine's day cross stitch.

Granny Squares on the bus

You know you've hit the ultimate level of cool when you are crocheting Granny Squares on the bus listening to Harry Potter podcasts.

Especially when the podcasts are over a month old, all about the launch of Pottermore. X

Holidays are coming, holidays are coming...

Everybody has their own triggers for the beginning of the festive season. The Boy's is the infamous Coca Cola advert. The one with the massive trailer and little boy running through snow covered pine forests.

Mine is the Starbucks red cups which signify the return of their Gingerbread Latte. Saying that this year's first one was disappointing. No as creamy and delicious as I remember. But just seeing people wandering around with the red cups makes me feel all Christmassy.

The Christmas markets in Manchester will be up and running from next week. The cottages are up but no people selling their wares. There is a winter themed pop up bar right next to my work so might have to have a little sample of their Manchester Mulled Wine (spiked with Vimto).

So I really let this completely slide...oh well...I am now picking and choosing the pages that I do. The ones that I have already started or the ones that inspire. I really need to get out and start taking some kick ass photos to add to the pages.

This one was from the 8th and I will add a photo in the top right corner when I find (or take) the right one!

xxx

The 3rd

I have finished my page for today which is all about the cards and letters. I am going to write to my Grandparents today. Grandad is getting winter bugs and I want to send them some Christmas decorations I have made that I know they will love.