Sparkly things always cheers me up

Apart from the knitting, I've also been making bits of jewellery in a bid to cheer myself up. Making and wearing sparkly things really does lift the spirits.

This is my amethyst and rose quartz necklace.
This one is made from mookite.This was made for Keira who chose the beads and had the vision/inspiration for the necklace. I was merely the maker.

Winter blues

I can't quite believe half the month of January has gone. One day it was New Year's Eve, next thing I know it's mid January. Where does the time go??

I think I'm suffering from the winter blues. We didn't go anywhere during the Christmas break and it has been cold, grey and snowy for the longest time in London. The only good thing about the cold weather is that it's encouraging me to knit again.

Just look at how grey and snowy everything is....

Somewhat belatedly - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Ready for Christmas

I know it's nearly mid Dec but I have literally lost 2 weeks of my life. Kids have been really ill. I've been really ill. It's only now that I'm feeling like myself.

My major achievement this weekend - putting up the Christmas tree. It took about 2 hours because the children were helping me. Zoe insisted on carrying every breakable glass bauble and dropping quite a few but luckily not breaking any. Here's our tree in all its glory.

Little angel I made years ago.....Rudolf ornament
Angel
Beautiful bauble from Chicago

Off the radar

I was feeling quite please with myself with regular updates of the blog. Then 10 days of nothing. The reason for that is the children - they're all sick! Coughs, colds and fever. Luckily, nothing more serious (swine flu, anyone!) but it has meant that I've had 1, 2 or 3 children at home with me. So,time for me has been more limited.


Even so, I did manage to start and finish 1 thing for me. It's a litte shrug, Bella from Kim Hargreaves book, Amber. I knitted this in Rowan Big Wool in Merry, a lovely warm red. It took hardly any time and it's very warm. A success!

Baking with little helpers

Everything I do that involves the children, just takes 6 times as long. Take for example, when I decided to bake a joint birthday cake for hubby and Aidan, the children were desperate to help. I let them but the mess that they created took forever to clear up! Actually, I don't mind - they really like baking!


Here's the final product - a very decadent, almost flourless choclate cake.
If you have good cholestrol, please feel free to try out my version:

150g of butter
200g of plain (dark) chocolate, broken into pieces
125g of caster sugar
4 eggs, separated
142ml of double cream
4 tablespoons of plain flour

1. Melt chocolate in a bowl over some simmering water. When the chocolate is almost melted, add in the butter. Stir until all melted, taking care not to overheat. Leave to cool slightly.
2. In a separate bowl,whisk egg yolks with caster sugar until thick and creamy.
3. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until stiff peaks are formed.
4. Stir in the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Add the double cream, mixing well. Gently fold in the whisked egg whites.
5. Grease a 10" round loose bottomed cake tin. Pour in the mixture. Bake in a preheated oven (180 deg Celsius) for 25 minutes. Don't worry if it sinks a little as it cools.
6. Finally, enjoy!

Dotty day

The children's school encourages them to be aware of different charities around and to participate in the fund raising activities. Tomorrow the children are fundraising for a charity for the blind and they are to go to school wearing some dotty accessories (braille) and to make a donation for that privilege. I was going to buy my children some spotty socks but the both of them actually requested that I make them something instead. What's a mum to do except answer the request.

I didn't have time to knit them something but I had time to sew them a few things. First up, a yoyo flower brooch with a dotty Kaffe Fassett fabric. It took all of 10 minutes and it looks so cute that I'm going to be making lots of them.I also made scarves for them. I found more dotty fabrics in my stash (I have a lot of dotty fabric in my stash - I might add!!) and some white polar fleece fabric, cut 2 long strips, sewed them up on the sewing machine, cut the fringe and voila! - spotty scarves.

Halloween

Halloween -one of the children's favourite holiday (after Christmas and birthdays!) As it was half term, I had devised a few Halloween activities to pass the time with the children. One of it was make Halloween cookies, which was a success. The only problem was that we couldn't find any bright orange icing for the pumpkin - so they look a bit pale and washed out.
The next thing we made was a Halloween wreath - from recycled plastic bags, old wire coat hanger and some black card. I think it makes a good Jack-O-Lantern.

Finally, I made some food for a Halloween party - severed fingers (sausages with cheese fingernails, wriggly worms (more sausages!) and deep fried eyeballs (mini scotch eggs). It had great reactions from the kids.

Autumn

Cold nights = more knitting! (I sincerely hope)

Teeny, tiny blankets

for Kathy for the neo-natal ICU where she works. These blankets are tiny - 9" x 13". I've really forgotten how tiny premature babies can be. Aidan was 6 weeks early and he was tiny (4.5lbs) but we saw lots of much younger and smaller babies in the ICU, which made us very thankful for our little man. I've got Zoe's little baby modelling the blankets!

Look who's knitting

She's been pestering me to teach her to knit and sew for ages now. I've finally relented and I'm teaching my little girl to knit. I guess being surrounded by yarn and fabric and little homemade goodies does encourage the love to learn. She's making progress. So far, no dropped stitches. She's very excited to be making a blanket for her dolly.

Alexandra Palace

I had a lovely few days doing a few things for me. On Thursday, I went to Origin and had quite an inspiring time looking at other people's work. There were lots of textile artists and jewellery designers with amazing work. Speaking of which, I really must dust off the loom and practice some weaving.

On Friday and Sunday, I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Alexandra Palace. There was just so much to see and buy (although I didn't do too much damage to the credit card!). I was very well restraint and didn't buy and yarn, I'll tell you why in a second. I did buy lots of fabric for more quilts. I love making quilts. One of the kits I bought was the Hungry Caterpillar quilt kit - I've been looking at it on the internet. When I saw the shop sample hanging up, I knew I had to have one. The kids are fighting over who should have the quilt, as it's one of their favourite children's book.


I also bought a few beads and findings for more bead crochet.Now the reason I didn't buy any yarn because there was a yarn mountain in my home. I mentioned to my mother-in-law, on her way to Hong Kong, to keep an eye out for a good bargain. Guess what turned up at home - 12 bags of yarn with 6 balls in each bag and weighing 500g in each bag. That's enough for sweaters for everyone twice or three times over. OMG!!
And this is Zoe at Ally Pally - having a great time charming the stall holders and visitors alike. She was so well behaved and patient eventhough she was being dragged around looking at more yarn, books, fabric or beads by mummy for about 3 hours!!

Projects galore

I have been so busy working on loads of things, one or two things in secret, one or two things which I forgot to photograph and they've gone to new homes, but everything under time deadlines. In fact, a few things are still under some deadlines.


I've been bitten by the quilting. In fact, I have 5 quilt projects on the go at the moment. They are all very similar. Here's one I finished this week. It's for my baby niece, Celeste who turns one this month. The quilt measures approximately 1 metre by 1 metre. It's just strips with some hand quilting (and some quirky little details!) Hope she likes it.


Next up, some cute and creepy little fellows from The Cute and Creepy Crochet book. These are for my brother in law who bought me the book. This is the corporate zombie - as he is one!And an army of ninjas, for protection!

Hello again

It feels like I've fallen off the planet - a whole month with no blogging updates. I do apologise.. It's them pesky kids. They just create this time black hole......

Having said that, the two big ones are back in school and I only have one little one to distract me. And the little one turned 2 in August and she's just started nursery (preschool) for 2 mornings a week. That means I have 3 hours of mummy time, 2 mornings a week. Hallelujah!!! Have a glass of champagne on me, wherever you are.

On the knitting front, I've been working on Blithe, from Kim Hargreaves book, Breeze. I have nearly finished the front. It's a summer tank. The weather is definitely autumnal in London, so much so that I'm contemplating turning on the heating. I guess, I won't be using this much until next spring. Oh well.

On the beaded crochet jewellery front, look at what I made for a friend's birthday. I crocheted the necklace with 2 different beads, so that it spiralled. Then, I found the focal beads which worked so well with the necklace. What do you think??

Finally.....

A post, not only a post, but one with some craft content! I finally finished mum's cardigan. It took approximately 5 weeks ( I was distracted other craft bits during this time). I finished it on the second last day of the holiday. Mum's happy with it. She's got to find 3 buttons and wash and block it. It's not a bad job considering, I "winged" the pattern.

Ahh the joys of a holiday

I haven't got much access to the computer or the internet at my parents in KL. When I do manage to get on, the kids are continually bugging me to let them get on it too for games etc....


We're having a great time in KL, eating too much and catching up with old friends and shopping (sadly not yarn shopping - too expensive and not that I need anymore yarn!!)


On the crafting front, mum requested that I knit her a cardigan as she had 16 balls of yarn just lying around. So what is a dutiful daughter to do, except do that!! I'm just knitting a top down garter stitch yoke cardigan. I'm at the point of knitting the widest bit and the boredom of knitting 300 over stitches for one row is killing me!!!! Not bad progress for about 5 nights of knitting.Also, I've been practising on my bead crochet, I'm making a necklace for me! Going great so far!