making winter

This is my contribution for this month to the making winter project, co-hosted by Silverpebble and Thrifty Household.

This months blog hop can be found here

and my message for the month;-

Make the most of what you have.

if it snows when you are having a party (my Dad's 80th) then why take up room in the fridge chilly the bubbly!

verification

the characters you have typed don't match the word verification.

the most frustrating sentence in blog land.

Blogger those new two word verifications are Dreadful. and unreadable.
the characters I typed don't match because I can't see what they say. 
and oh and they are utterly unnecessary.I turned off verification months ago. and the spam (almost) all gets filtered happily for me, no worries.

oh and while I'm moaning I'm not in love with threaded comments either. I never go back to a blog, to see if someone replied to my comment. and they always come in those horrid embedded boxes, which have a scroll down bar so you can read the really really annoying verification words (see above)

ok moan over. please forgive me this indulgence.
what is frustrating you right now?

British Heart Foundation Day

in the supermarket at the weekend.

me: any idea what all these things with Valentines on are for?

J: I think it must be some Italian promotion.

me: so what's the deal with all the red, and the hearts everywhere?

J: oh that. It's British Heart Foundation Day on the 14th I think.

me: oh...... so why do we never celebrate it?

J: we're more of a Cancer Research UK or a Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research family..............


so for us here, it's just a normal Tuesday, to the rest of you, who are probably a bit more normal in the celebration traditions, have a very happy Valentines Day.

valentine heart lavender bag tutorial

I have to say thank you for all the kind comments about my valentines lavender bags.

If' you'd like to know how I made them read on. otherwise go make a cup of tea and come back another day.

take a piece of fabric (I used some cream cotton) 10cm x 20cm.

cut a small heart from a scrap of fabric or felt and position it on the right of the rectangle, about 15cm across the fabric.

stitch around the heart to attach it, and then stitch a stem and a few leaf shapes.

I used an embroidery foot and dropped the feed dogs on my machine to do this, but you can easily do the stitching by hand (see further down for an example) with little running stitches and embroidery thread.

cut a piece of ribbon 15cm in length, and fold it in half (wrong sides together) then place the ribbon 15cm across the rectangle, so the ends are just sticking out over the top. take a pin and pin the ribbon in place in the middle of the rectangle (well away from where you will be sewing)

fold over length ways and pin.  Sew around the edge, leaving a gap at the bottom.(I marked the gap I leave with the pink pinheads) I always reverse and go back over the ribbon at the top, making sure it's really well secured. I sewed this by machine but you could it by hand using back stitch to make sure it was very secure.

clip the corners to reduce bulk, and then turn it inside out, watching out for that pin on the inside.

I stuffed mine with lavender, but you could use any dried flowers, or stuffing scented with some essential oils, or even just sprayed with your perfume.

I stitched this one by hand using some embroidery thread.  The fabric was fraying terribly so I made a feature of it and frayed it some more, before sticking it onto a piece of card.

one valentines card. 

hope that all makes sense, let me know if you make one.

lavender bags and a winner

Brrrr it's cold out, and it's gently snowing/sleeting/hailing outside. Hope you are all safe and warm and cosy.
Time to announce the winner of the Handpicked Collection giveway, and thanks to a random number generator the winner is
Lisa from Periwinkle, let me have your address and your caterpillar vase should be on it's way to you soon!

I've been making lavender bags this week, just in time for Valentines Day.

making and baking winter



this post is for Silverpebbles making winter, it's supposed to January, but time got the better of me....

anyway, she wrote about baking, and comfort food and a "go to" recipe, one that never fails you, a perfect me pick for a cold winter day. I was about to make a batch of rock buns, to my favourite secret seven recipe, but then I remembered that I'd already posted a variation of them here - cranberry and orange rock buns.

so I reached for my notebook of recipes and looked inside, and the striking thing I noticed was that it wasn't just full of recipes, it was full of friends.

there are Val's dottycookies

then there is Nancy's fruit and almond cake. never fails.

Lucy's lemon drizzle

and Silverpebbles portable crumble.
and then there's Sue's bread, Laksa via Coffee Lady on pinterest, and soooo many more.

so my recommendation for how to cosyify  and survive winter, take a large group of friends,
add tea, cake and chat. enjoy.


oh and just so you don't think I haven't brought any cake to the party, here's a real quickie recipe for jam buns (sometimes known as thumbprint buns I think...)

8oz Self raising flour
3oz margarine
3 oz sugar
1 egg
2-3 tablespoons of milk.
jam

rub flour and marg together to resemble breadcrumbs, mix in sugar, beat egg and add along with a couple of tablespoons of milk to make a stiff dough. place small blobs of dough onto a baking sheet, press a dent in the centre and add a small dollop of jam. bake at 180C for 10-15 minutes till golden.

warning the jam is Very hot when they have just come out of the oven. I know this as hubby stole one off the baking sheet as they just came out of the oven. and then leapt about the kitchen saying "hot hot hot.................."