The web....

Not the world wide web....I'm talking spiders!

I have a friend who likes to take photos, as I do myself. I wouldn't say either of us are good photographers, but we try.

Last weekend when it was foggy, unbeknownst to each other, we were both out in our gardens taking photos of the spiders webs all covered in the mist. Only one of mine really came out well, but my friend had one right by her door, with a great big spider in it. She emailed me the photo and my comment was, that if the background had been darker it would have been really good but as it was you couldn't really see the web. So she came back to me with another picture....

"I thought I would take it from a different angle" she said.....this is the result....

Is that a scary spider in that tree or what?!
Just to show off, this is mine...no scary spiders though!

Too clever for it's own good...

I had to buy a new TV a couple of weeks ago. Nothing wrong with that I hear you say, and you're quite right. I got a nice one just the right size at a fairly reasonable price as these things go. Plus I can get £50 cash back from Sony! Plus I no longer have to watch green people like on the old one!

Far too clever for it's own good though this TV. It has a sensor which can tell if there's no movement in the room for a set period it then switches itself to standby. Good idea, I hear you say...saves power...indeed, except that I very often am at the other end of the room on the computer and I'm still listening to it and all of a sudden it all goes silent! Going to have to look at the instructions to find a way of switching that off!

More UFOs...

I was at the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace on Sunday. I used to go every year, but have such a lot of stuff now and not as much time to use it that I stopped going so I wouldn't be tempted to buy things unnecessarily (and also to not pay out the extortionate amount of money for entrance fee!). So for several years I've only bought odds and bits when I have specifically needed them to finish a project. But I thought I would go this year for a change. Although before I go on I have to say how much I cursed the North Circular. It's always busy at the best of times, but there were roadworks and the road I usually turn on to to go to Ally Pally was closed completely and there was a detour...so the journey which on a Sunday morning should only have taken about 20 minutes, took me three quarters of an hour!! So I got there about 11am and all the car parks were already full...I had to drive out of the park, which, if you know it, is huge and Ally Pally itself is right at the top of a very very steep hill, the car parks are at the bottom of it! I found a space out on the street not too far away, but too far for me to walk. So I had to get a bus up to the exhibition centre, boy , was the air blue....I was exhaused before I even started!

But....Oh my goodness, how I've missed it! I was very restrained though and didn't buy too much. I've just taken up knitting again, after getting sucked into an offer on Create and Craft TV, so I now have a new little list of UFOs.

I bought: a couple of balls of sparkly yarn for trendy narrow scarves for a couple of friends for Christmas.

a couple of balls of soft cotton and a pattern book for a little cardi for a friend's daughters new baby

How cute is that?

a set of buttons to brighten up an old black cardi that I wear at work all the time

and a couple of other balls of yarn....just because! (At the back of this little cluster) (Edit to say...I've just noticed my empty jam jars in the background....oops!)

Plus I have the yarn I bought from Create and Craft to knit a little cardigan with, which I've already used some of to knit a scarf for a friend's birthday....well....that's my winter taken care of!

I did have to tear myself away from some of the stalls, with fingers twitching and eyes goggling, and all sorts of ideas running round my head! If you've never been to one of these sort of events it is so easy to get carried away, but they are really great. A lot of the crafts that I do I have started by buying a kit from the show for something I've never done before, and just getting hooked!

Continuing the saga of my little baby quilt

Managed to get one completed block. Thought I would complete one after trimming up the huge centre that I'd managed to make. Luckily it came out exactly the right size.



not a very good picture but you get the idea. I went on to make the rest of the centre blocks, so it's now all systems go.

Hmmm...I'm note sure that I like the border fabric now, I don't think it's got the right tone to go the centre fabrics. C'est la vie....can't afford to buy more fabric!

Oh Christmas Tree....

No, I haven't started early for Christmas!

Year before last I bought a growing Christmas tree in a pot. It seems to have been quite happy in the garden between Christmases and the other day whilst surveying what was going on in my postage stamp size garden I noticed teeny tiny cones starting to form....I was so pleased. (it doesn 't take much!) Here's a picture of the biggest one so far, but I don't think fully formed yet...


and the tree showing some others

GRRR....

Only just got around to starting sewing the baby's quilt. Merrily joining triangles, and then thought, "Hold on. Let's just make one complete block and make sure it's OK"

I'm doing a block called Windows which I got from Quilters Cache
an excellent source by the way!

I can't find a picture of it, but it's a very simple block with four triangles in the middle making a square and then a border....so there I go four triangles joined, and pressed. First border piece in hand and....o-oh...there's no way this is going to fit it's far too small! To cut a long story short....the triangles should have been cut from 5.25" squares, but my square was 6"! Duh....so I must have totally mismeasured all the squares that I made my triangles from!
I haven't got enough fabric to cut them all again, so I'm going to have to trim them up to the right size...good thing I have plenty of time!!

Quilting is good for you...

It's official! Have a look at this article in the Daily Mail....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2002862/Why-quilting-uniquely-good-us.html

I don't know why but this reminded me of a friend at work, who doesn't have a creative bone in her body. When I showed her the quilt top I was working on and explained briefly how it was done, looked at it in puzzlement, and simply said "But isn't that very time consuming!" I think she missed the point!

At last....something crafty!

At last I'm getting round to doing something crafty....it's been such a long time since I did anything remotely involving a needle and thread!

In true form this is another new project not a UFO (roll eyes)

It's going to be a little quilt for my cousins daughter (I can never figure out if this is my second cousin or removed or whatever!) who is expecting her first.

I have the fabric all cut out....



I hope to start piecing it this weekend...I've got plenty of time (famous last words!) as she's not due till August. I don't know if she knows whether it's a boy or a girl so I've put in a bit of everything! I couldn't believe how difficult it was to find suitable fabric for a baby quilt! I went to two shops, one of which was almost an hours drive....I searched on line and in the end I just had to compromise. The only one I found that was babyish was the blue one which has tiny teddies on it.

I am so bad.....

I have been trying to get back to low carb eating without much success. I might have to admit that I am a carboholic! (are there support groups for that!)

I had an awful day food wise yesterday…I had nothing but carbs!

An apple and cinnamon muffin thing for breakfast...biscuits with tea...chips for lunch, then a tube of fruit pastilles, and some more biscuits...I might even have had a cake as well but I’ve blocked that out...then I had pasta in the evening, with veggie tomato sauce and a couple of sausages. The sausages were very low carb so that, and the veggie sauce (which was actually ratatouille) were the day’s only saving grace.

Must try harder, must try harder, must try harder, must try harder....

Yummy....

Made some great stuffed chicken breasts for dinner today. From Dana Carpenders Low Carb Cookbook. Very simple, if a bit fiddly.

Mix some cream cheese with chopped spring onion.
Butterfly a boneless chicken breast and bash it out a bit so that it's thinner.
Spread the cream cheese on it, and tuck in the sides and roll it up. Wrap it with a couple rashers of streaky bacon.
Recipe says to chill well and then put on the "grill" that the BBq to you and I. I put mine in the oven till cooked through!

It was delish, and I had some leftovers cold with Salad for lunch although I did scrape out the cream cheese. Definitely one to remember...and so simple. I love cooking but I'm getting lazy about it now I'm on my own. Anything with more than a half a dozen ingredients gets the heave-ho!