As I’m sure I have mentioned before, Bob was diagnosed with severe dyslexia earlier this year and I’ve been trying to find ways to help him with his particular issues. Specifically, Bob’s dyslexia manifests itself in processing – you could give him a list of six things to do and by the time he’s done the second, he’ll have forgotten the rest. This makes things like going shopping great fun because unless it’s written down he will remember maybe four things out of a list of ten. So! I got him a diary and notebook, knowing that he’d only use them if there was a way to keep them together.

It’s just a very simple sleeve with a pouch on each side to accommodate the A6-sized diary and notebook, with snap closures. It’s small enough that it’s not an encumberance and big enough to do what he needs it to do. He seemed pretty pleased with it but whether it gets used is another thing entirely

It just dawned on me too that I hadn’t mentioned the other new additions to the house. Our cat, Sia, had a litter of kittens (underneath Nairn’s bed, ugh) on Erica’s birthday. This is the only kitten left that we haven’t secured a home for yet, and he’s been named Horatio. I always wanted a ginger cat I could name Titian but I was heartily overruled by the kids.

On a final note, Bob and I had a big conversation last night about ethics and cheating. What spurred this on? Well, in this photo Bob is embroiled in a water fight with approximately ten kids…

…standing behind a 7ft+ wall with an umbrella and a hose. Ah well, Findlay seemed to enjoy it.

Posted under family, sewing

Okay okay so I know that none of you have particularly been awaiting this moment with bated breath but it’s a big day for me! The ever lovely Amanda from KitschyCoo kids asked me at the end of February to test a pattern that she’d designed. “Sure,” says I, “No problem.” Hmm. It’s only six weeks later and I’m finished…

This was the first KitschyCoo pattern that I’ve sewn. I also have a coat pattern which I’m hoping to sew up before Christmas, but I’ll admit happily that my novice sewing skills really put me off even though when I flicked through Amanda’s instructions it all looked straightforward. I shouldn’t have worried. In the end, the actual construction of the entire garment was done in less than an hour and believe me when I tell you I’m irritatingly meticulous and therefore slow. The one thing that held me up was that no matter how hard I tried I could not master the buttonhole function on my sewing machine. TURNS OUT that’s because I’m missing a vital part from my sewing machine accessories – namely a buttonhole foot. Doh!

Anyway. This jacket (which is fully reversible by the way) has been semi finished for over a week and yesterday Kat came to visit and whilst Bob kept us supplied with tea and cake Kat did it for me showed me how the buttonhole function works. So! I’m proud to unveil my version of the KitschyCoo matinee coat.

Side one -

Side two -

Erica absolutely loves it. It took a bit of bribery with a new nightie to get her to take it off! I’m extremely happy with the way it’s turned out and I’ll be making another one very soon so that she has a spare when this one is in the washing.

We also owe a wee thank you to Sam from Incy Wincy Stitches. You might remember that in this post I’d mentioned the first hat and booties set was going to Sam and in exchange, Sam sent up the gorgeous blue bag that Erica is clutching in these pics. It’s a crocheted clutch and was filled with hair bobbles and slides for Erica which she was just thrilled with. All in all, a very happy wee girl yesterday – just look at that smile! (She was actually laughing at Nairn and Findlay who were hanging out the window shouting to her)

So what do you lovely lot think? A passable first attempt at following a pattern?

In other news I’m looking for a little bit of input from you lot. It’s Erica’s 2nd birthday in less than two weeks, then Findlay’s 8th birthday five weeks after that. I’d really like to make each of them a handmade gift but I’m looking for suggestions. What are your go-to handmade gift ideas for children? Or as a parent, what would you really be happy for your child to receive?

Posted under for the kids, recommendations, sewing

Today it’s my wonderful husband’s birthday. Not a particularly special age, but a very special man.

In our house, it’s almost always Bob who makes dinner. In fact, I think I could count on both hands how many times I’ve taken a turn while we’ve lived here because we cook the vast majority of our meals from scratch and Bob is very quick at putting meals together whereas I am distinctly not. The usual exception to the “Bob cooks” rule is birthdays and Father’s day because really, that’s only fair. I asked my dearly beloved what he wanted and he told me, “lasagne and crème brûlée”. Easy enough, I thought, before remembering that I also needed to make a birthday cake. Hmm. I had decided on a pavlova because Bob had mentioned in passing that he really liked it but I had NO IDEA it was going to involve so much work! Luckily for me he changed his mind about dinner and decided he wanted pizza instead so I didn’t have to spend the entire day in the kitchen!

The most time-consuming and annoying part of this entire process was having to separate nine eggs. I hate separating eggs but luckily this time I managed all nine without breaking any yolks. Hoorah! Following this pavlova recipe I made the meringue first, put it in the oven for the alloted time and opened the oven as recommended to allow the meringue to cool down and dry out before realising that it was only cooked on the outside. I turned it over and put it back into the oven for another hour but I suspect my error was that the egg whites weren’t whipped firm enough before I shaped the meringue (perhaps worth noting here that I used nine regular sized egg whites from our own hens and not the nine large whites called for in the recipe). Delia Smith recommends baking your meringue the day before and leaving it in the oven overnight to cool and dry out, I may do that next time.

In the meantime, I was extremely happy with how the crème brûlée worked out! I made it after I put the meringue into the oven and it was easy as pie. The one aspect I wasn’t happy with is that our grill isn’t really good enough to caramelise sugar so I’m going to have to get my hands on a little kitchen blowtorch. Which seems kind of pointless when I can use it on one thing that I don’t make very often!

Recipe – Lemon Raspberry crème brûlée (makes 8 )

750ml double cream
Grated peel of one lemon
170g caster sugar
9 egg yolks
2 tsps vanilla extract
pinch salt

8 tsps brown sugar
punnet raspberries
Chambord or crème de cassis (optional)

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4/180C. Mix the lemon peel with the cream, put in a saucepan and heat until the cream is simmering. Meanwhile whisk the egg yolk and caster sugar until thick – using a handheld electric whisk this took roughly two minutes for me – then add the hot cream gradually. Take your time at this juncture – I just about redecorated my kitchen at this stage! Add the vanilla extract and salt, then set your custard aside.

Get the largest roasting dish you can find which will fit in your oven and put eight ramekins in it before filling the dish with boiling water to roughly half the height of your ramekins. Pour your custard into the ramekins through a sieve to remove the lemon peel then carefully lift your roasting dish into the oven. Bake for 55 mins-1 hour before taking them out of the oven. Chill uncovered until your custard is firm which will take at least three hours.

About an hour before you plan to serve your crème brûlée, put your ramekins on a baking tray and sprinkle 1 tsp of brown sugar over each one. Put under the grill (or use your blowtorch at this juncture) until the sugar has melted and browned. Put back into the fridge to harden. Put your raspberries into a bowl and add enough chambord or cassis to let your raspberries soak then leave for the rest of the hour. Spoon your raspberry mixture onto your ramekins immediately before serving.

Posted under baking, dyeing wool, family, recipes, sewing

It’s my first wedding anniversary today! (And even more sickening, it’s the fourth anniversary of our first kiss. Awwww!)

I was a very precocious child and an early reader, the first book I remember being obsessed about was a beautifully-illustrated copy of “The Owl and The Pussycat” which has been lost in aftermath of growing-up-with-three-siblings. Bob gave me my present last night and I’m so absolutely thrilled, it was so thoughtful and just perfect. He picked a print by an American artist called Tanya Newberry and here it is (click the image to go to Tanya’s etsy shop):

Isn’t it gorgeous? I had a flick through Tanya’s blog last night and her work is beautiful – definitely worth a look.

This last year has been action packed for us. There’s a lot that I don’t post here but I’m sure my extended absence last year may have given up that things were going on – in our first year of marriage we have had to deal with so many stressful issues that could have driven us apart but which have brought us closer. The next year is going to be another eventful one for us with the birth of our fourth (and final!) child but I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to share this with. Here’s to the next year and beyond!

Posted under recommendations, retrospective

My husband is an absolute superstar, he really is. I’m really enjoying this blog at this location although I still have a bit of work to do in terms of designing the template, reordering my categories & tags and so on. I have also been keeping an eye on the visitor stats for the blog using Google Analytics and have had a really nice trickle of visitors over the last few days. Please, say hello! Otherwise I don’t know what you like and/or don’t like!

Anyway. Over the last couple of days I’ve also been exploring other UK-based crafty forums and blogs which has been really exciting. Of the 93 blogs I subscribe to with bloglines 35 of them are UK based. Why do I find this so exciting? Simply because our counterparts in other countries have access to a wide range of materials that we just can’t get here, and I like to see what the UK crafters are able to do with what we have available.

On that note, I was extremely excited to read this blog entry by Manda at Tree Fall Design. She is going to be editing a brand spanking new sewing magazine being published for the first time in October called Sew Hip. If you’re not a regular reader of Manda’s blog, I urge you to go and look – she is enormously talented and her blog is just a thing of beauty.

I’ve also joined a couple of UK crafting forums – Crafteroo and Crafts Forum after being linked to the latter by Jen of Flurogoddess fame. All very exciting and hopefully places I can learn great things.

So, in other news I am leaving work at the end of October. I love my job but it has been a very different job than I really want so when I was told the funding had run out for my contract it was actually a relief rather than a shock. There is so much I’ve had to sacrifice doing in order to work and once Bob & I worked out we were making less than £30 a week by the time we paid childcare and travelling costs we decided it wasn’t worth me going back to work for the moment. I have applied for a part time evening job but we’ll see how that pans out too. This of course means I’m finally going to be able to return to the knitting group at Tchai Ovna with Purple Jen and Angela which I’ve sorely missed with being at work.

My last interesting piece of news is I’ve dyed my hair pink! With the help of my good friend Kat, I’ve gone ‘Flamingo pink’. It’s… different, to say the least! You can see it in the last entry, that pink-haired demented looking freak is me clutching my new niece. Haha.

Posted under general crafty updates

I’ve neglected this poor blog of late; not through choice, just sheer lack of time. I haven’t really been crafting or experimenting with cooking recently because I’ve been back at work since January and we’ve had various family crises to deal with, including my lovely hubby being hospitalised this week for a suspected heart attack. Fortunately for us, it was in fact a nasty bout of pericarditis and he will make a full recovery as long as he listens to his Doctor and spends the next two weeks relaxing.

One aspect of our life I haven’t mentioned lately is that we’ve started keeping hens. Towards the end of March we collected our hens from a local breeder who has been very good to us in terms of support and providing us with advice (and hatching eggs!) and at the same time we collected some eggs. We now have seven hens, two ducks and 10 eggs in the incubator!

Last Sunday we got our very first egg. It was laid by our Silver Laced Wyandotte bantam and as such it’s the smallest egg I’ve ever seen, but the children certainly seemed to approve! I promise I will post some photographs of the hens, chicks and ducks soon but in the meantime I’ll leave you with our very first egg, and the happy recipient of that first egg.

Posted under family, self-sufficiency