Flowers for Me

February arrived in all of it's sunny glory this weekend and with all of the snow finally gone, I can really start to feel that Spring is not that far away now. I always look forward to this time of the year, when the air starts to feel warmer, the days slowly get longer and nature seems to wake from its long slumber and colour returns to the world around me. It really is such a happy, rejuvenating time of the year.

To celebrate this joyous occasion I decided to make myself a little something flowery to wear when out and about on a sunny day. I had a rummage through my box of yarn and found some gorgeous King Cole Merino wool that I bought a little while ago. Feeling inspired, I immediately grabbed my trusty 4mm crochet needle and before I knew it, I had made this sweet little flower.

Elated by my own creativity, I kept on going and within no time at all I had one in each colour.

For several days I spent every possible moment making flowers and soon enough I had used up all of my wool and was very pleased to see that I had a whole bundle of colourful flowers to sew together.

I am neither neat nor tidy with a needle and thread and sewing has never been one of my strong points, but I didn't let that stop me. Slowly and lovingly my flowers started to sit in neat little rows, all joined together to form a beautiful, colourful, happy scarf.

I just know that as the year goes on and the days get warmer, this scarf is going to be slung around my shoulders or wrapped around my neck on a daily basis and will be well and truly loved. It is already hanging by the front door, waiting to go on it's first outing. :)

Snowy Treats

Amazingly enough we have been living in our new home for nearly a month now, it's crazy how time flies when you're having fun. We have been doing a lot of exploring in our new area and have found a lot of great things along the way. The weather has certainly taken a turn for the worst over the last couple of weeks and there is still quite a bit of snow on the ground, but we braved the cold this week to go for a walk to the nearby town. It really is a lovely walk, winding along the river bank and crossing over the wash lands.

 The bridge across the river is something special in its own right, well over a hundred years old and adorned with beautiful metal work, I can't help but smile every time I catch a glimpse of it.

 

It stretches all across the river and the surrounding wash lands, and even has a little shelter if you need to take a rest.

Once we arrived in town with our rosy cheeks and numb fingers, we headed straight for the town market to get something warm to drink to warm us up. We lingered a nice long while in the warm building, admiring all the goods for sale on the stalls, sipping our steaming cups of tea before heading on to the rest of the shops.

I found a little gem of a yarn shop and treated myself to a bag of happiness. Finally, I have a local shop that stocks that Holy Grail of acrylic yarns, Stylecraft!! If you are an Attic24 fan, you'll understand my excitement, and even if you don't, just look at those bright and happy colours...

After a very happy day walking around, doing a bit of shopping, we headed home to go and defrost our frozen noses and toes. We did stop at the supermarket on the way though as I had to pick up a very important ingredient.

I don't buy this caramel very often as I can very easily eat the whole tin by myself in an afternoon, and that can not be a good thing. But, seeing as it was P's birthday, I thought that was a very good excuse to treat us all with some serious sugar. I obviously turned to the queen of easy yet fabulous cakes for the rest of my inspiration and baked Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake to slather in that caramelly goodness.

It goes without saying that I had a few spoonfulls of the caramel while I was decorating the cake, and a good thing that was too. It made me realise very quickly just how sweet and rich this caramel is and that you really don't need any icing on top of the cake.

It may still be freezing out there, but when I have a slice of cake to eat, a warm mug of tea to drink, a happy toddler playing at my feet, a box full of colourful yarn to admire, and a lovely place to call home, I am as warm and happy as can be :)

In with the New

I know I’m late to the party again, but Happy New Year!!!! I hope that 2013 is being good to you all so far and that you are all getting back into the swing off things after the holidays.

We have now left London and started the New Year in our new home in a new town and so far we are very happy here. It is quite an adjustment from the hustle and bustle of the busy city to the slower, quieter pace of the little town, but one I can certainly get used to. It is absolutely wonderful to wake up in the mornings and look out over our lovely new view of the river, to go for relaxing walks in the countryside and to explore all of the little markets and quirky shops in the nearby towns. It is what we have been dreaming of for some time now.

I have also been getting to know my new kitchen better and have been cooking and baking up a storm in there. With this freezing weather we’re having at the moment, it is certainly a good idea to have the oven on I think. My crochet hooks have also been busy with a few small projects to brighten up our new living room. 

A burst of colour is always welcome when the world is grey and frosty outside.

 

Happy Endings

This last week has been a crazy, manic, busy and most off all productive week. After many weeks of stressful house hunting, we have finally found a place to call our new home! We are still waiting on a few administrative things to be finalised, but we are hopeful that we will be on the move just after Christmas. Relieved doesn't even begin to explain how I feel at the moment :)

I also realised with a jolt that there are very few days left until Christmas and although we have started packing up our flat, we have put up our Christmas tree. It seemed a bit silly at the time, but seeing Little T's face of pure wonderment and joy when we switched on the lights made it all worth it.

I haven't done nearly as much Christmas baking as I would have liked to though, but I fully intent to rectify that in my few spare minutes this week. I have a wonderfully spiced, citrus cake in mind for our Christmas Eve dinner...

To top off this amazing week, I managed to finish my Giant Granny Square blanket!! Using seventeen different colours of yarn, I did fifty-nine rounds of treble clusters to make a blanket big enough for all three of us to snuggle under. I had a bit of trouble choosing a border for my blanket, but in the end I just did what felt right. A few rounds of double crochet in two of my favourite colours and it's all rounded off with a gentle scallop in a girly pink (for me).

It was a very poignant moment when I finished this project as it made me realise that many things are now coming to an end for our family. Not only is it nearly the end of another year, but it's also nearly the end of my time being at home with Little T, the end of P's long employ at the wonderfully crazy workshop and of course it's the end of our time here in London! As scary as all of these things might be, we are looking forward to a New Year full of new experiences and adventures, and at least we're getting a good night's sleep under our new lovely blanket :)

 

 

I am sure to be very busy over the next few weeks and most likely won't have time to blog. So I will wish you all a very happy Christmas now, I hope that you will spend this Festive Season with the ones you love, eating plenty of good food :)

I will be back in the New Year, with plenty of stories to tell!

Back to Baking

For a little while there I had completely lost my baking mojo. I just couldn't find the inspiration or desire to bake anything and found myself buying chocolate bars and packets of biscuits for those moments we wanted something sweet. It didn't feel right though and I knew that I had to do something to get myself back into the baking spirit.

Luckily I got to spend a few wonderful hours walking around Covent Garden with a friend last week and we immersed ourselves in all things Christmas. The smells of mulled wine, gingerbread and chocolate wafted towards us from all of the beautifully decorated stalls and by the time I got home I was feeling very festive indeed. With my senses still buzzing from all of the Christmassy goodness, I headed straight to my kitchen to see if I could create my own bit of Festive cheer.

 

 

Dried cranberries always feel festive to me, and I immediately knew that I wanted to use some of these ruby red jewels to bake some cookies. There obviously had to be some chocolate involved too, and I had the perfect swirled choc-chips waiting in my cupboard still left over from my trip to Canada.

 

 

 

After a very joyful hour of mixing, scooping and baking I had the pleasure of eating a still slightly warm, gooey, scrumptious cookie. No store bought biscuit can hold a candle against that! Oh how happy I was to be baking again :) 

 





 

Festive Cheer Cookies

 

• 175g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 175g soft light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs (beaten)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 175g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 175g rolled oats
• 100g dried sweetened cranberries
• 100g mixed choc chips (milk and white)

Preheat the oven to 180 °C/350 °F/Gas 4. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
In the bowl of a standing mixer (or using held held beaters), cream together the butter and sugar and pale and fluffy.
Add the vanilla to the butter mixture and then beat in the eggs until the mixture is smooth.
Slowly beat in the flour, mixing well and then add the oats, cranberries and chocolate chips, making sure everything is evenly distributed.
Use a small ice-cream scoop to spoon the mixture onto the baking sheets and flatten the cookies slightly using a fork.
Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes until they are lightly golden brown and starting to crisp around the edges.
Leave the cookies to cool for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Of course, they are simply delicious eaten still a little bit warm.





Baby It's Cold Outside

Winter has most definitely arrived. We are once again greeted every morning by a pale and frosty world, trees bare of all their leaves and a watery sun trying it's best to brighten up the short days. It's not all bad though, we have been blessed with a few sunny, though very cold days over the past week and I managed to take Little T to the park on just such a day.

 

 

He was very happy to run around the playground, still wet from the melted ice and in spite of the biting cold, we were both really enjoying being out of the house for a while.

When the weather turns cold, I always start craving citrus fruits. Bags of clementines, oranges, grapefruits and lemons regularly fill my shopping basket and make up most of our snacks at the moment.



They can make any winters day bearable with their brightly coloured, richly scented peels and their wonderfully juicy segmented insides. Whether I'm eating slices of fresh clementine or a slice of lemon and lime drizzle cake, they are all my perfect winter's treat.

I haven't just been eating though, I have also been making most of the long nights by adding to my colourful blanket. It has grown quite satisfactorily over the past few weeks and is already doing its job in keeping us warm. It's very nearly big enough to cover the entire sofa and therefore the entire family. I am just not ready to stop working on it yet. A few more colours should do the trick though and then the all important border will keep me going for another short while.

Right now I am off to the warmth of my kitchen to make a pan full of lemony risotto for dinner that is sure to keep us cosy and warm on this cold and frosty night :)

Stress Busting

There are some major changes coming for this little family of three in the next month or so and as a result we're all a little bit stressed out at the moment. House-hunting, job-hunting and finding childcare is taking up nearly all of my time and has left me with very little energy to do much else. Quick and easy dinners fill out tummies most nights, hardly any sweet treats have come out of my oven and blogging once again went out the window.

I also took a brake from my crochet projecst and didn't pick up a hook for nearly a week. I tried to keep going with my mini hexagons, but found them too fiddly and frustrating for my current state of mind and they have ended up in a box under the bed until further notice. Sorry fellow Tuesday Tallies folks! Happily my fingers did start to itch for yarn and hook again after a short while and I dug out all of my left over balls of Double Knit. The pile of happy colours did what it always does and immediately brought a smile to my face.

I jumped in without too much thought and started with a granny square and just kept going. The mindless, repetative pattern of treble clusters was exactly what I needed to relax my mind and is the perfect stress buster. Picking a new colour to join in after each round requires nothing more than a snap decision and my blanket is growing at a very happy pace.

 



We still have a crazy month or two ahead of us, with too much to do in too little time, but I'll keep my bag of yarn within close reach for when it all gets too much.