Little words of wisdom

 

Only 361 days until Christmas.....

So how was your Christmas?  We had a quiet day with our friend Phil ~ and Bonnie, of course!  Adrian made a yummy lasagne which we had with some salad and garlic/crusty bread, followed by Tesco's Tarte au Citron.  At teatime we snacked on cheese and crackers, along with some stollen and panettone.  It was nice to just sit and blether for a few hours.

We didn't have a white Christmas but it did snow the day before: 

 

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Merry Christmas!

I know that Christmas this year will not be "normal" for many of us, but nevertheless I'm sending you my love and good wishes for as merry a Christmas as possible

xxx

No more digging...

 for this year, at any rate 😉

The fruit trees we ordered from Pomona Fruits arrived a couple of weeks ago and we got them planted the weekend before this last as it was dry for a change!  It was jolly cold that day, though, and by the time I'd finished attaching them to their stakes with the tree-ties my poor fingers were frozen, as it was too fiddly trying to do it wearing my gardening gloves.  Still, they are in now and have so far stood up to the high winds we've had.  Hopefully they will be somewhat sheltered here, although the downside is that they won't get as much sun as they would had they been planted in the lower kitchen garden.  We'll just have to see how they get on.  

The last couple of plants from my J. Parkers order also arrived: dicentra Burning Hearts and dicentra Sulpher Hearts.  They are cerise and sulpher yellow respectively; I've put them in the nursery bed until next spring.

The crocus bulbs on the kitchen windowsill are really coming through now ~ I'm really looking forward to the splash of colour they will provide in a couple of months 😊

And moving back into the warmth of the house, I thought you might like to see the blooms on my schlumbegera ~ they are so pretty and add a cheerful burst of colour during what can sometimes feel like very long winter days 😍

Well, that's Christmas dinner done!

We had our Christmas dinner last Friday as Beverly won't be here on the day.  She is working Christmas Eve and Boxing Day and, of course, there is no public transport on Christmas Day.  As Adrian's birthday is on the 18th we decided that would be a good day to have our Christmas dinner instead.  

So here's Adrian and I about to tuck into our very tasty (even if I do say so myself 😉) dinner ~ it wasn't until Beverly sent me the photo that it dawned on me that we didn't get a photo of her, too!  And there is Bonnie, over near Adrian, being a very good girl but hoping for a piece of the action ~ well, a piece of turkey at any rate 😄  She watched intently whilst we ate but didn't pester us for anything at the table; her reward was a tasty slice of turkey in the kitchen later.

I know that Christmas 2020 is going to be very different for so many of us but I guess we just have to make the best of things that we can.  Regardless of the Covid situation it would have been just Adrian and I (for the first time in the 38-odd years we've been together!) this year due to Beverly's shift patterns.  Because of all the restrictions, though, our friend Phil (Bonnie's "Dad") can't now travel south as he'd originally planned so we've asked him to join us 😊

Rather than having another traditional Christmas dinner, Adrian is making his yummy lasagne instead 😋  I don't think I've ever not had turkey and all the trimmings on Christmas Day in all of my 59 years!  We're still having crackers, though, with the hats that don't fit (I don't know if it's that I've got a big head or just lots of hair LOL) and the jokes that are so corny 😉  

Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014) 

Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014) 

Kate & Sidney pudding...

 ...aka steak and kidney pudding 😉

I've made plenty of steak and kidney pies over the years but I kid-you-not, it must be over 30 years since I last made a pudding. For some reason we seem to have rather a lot of packets of suet in the cupboard at the moment, so I thought it would be a good idea to use some of it up! 

I stewed the meat on Tuesday, ready to make the pudding on Wednesday.  Suet pastry is simple enough to make, but I still managed to add a little too much water.  Thankfully, it's a very forgiving pastry so a good dusting of flour on the board and my hands brought it all back together again nicely.

The pudding gently steamed away for a couple of hours or so.....

and we had a portion each with a handful of chips and a pile of green beans.

Adrian was a very happy bunny as it's one of his favourite meals ~ and it was very tasty, even if I do say so myself 😋  

A new WIP

No, I haven't finished the elephant but you should know by now that I like to have more than one project on the go ~ and in my defence, at least I'm whittling down the stash of shame  😉

I don't think I've mentioned that a couple of months or so ago we decided to switch back from a duvet to sheets and blankets.  You may be thinking that we must have lost our minds, but to be honest I was tired of wrestling with the duvet cover each time I changed our bed ~ it's bloody exhausting!  And for some reason our duvet would never stay in the cover properly, so one of us always ended up with a bunched-up section of duvet and the other with an empty bit of cover 😒  So the decision was made and I have to say that I love how cosy the bed feels with sheets and blankets.  I bought a pair of cellular blankets and a lovely old-fashioned candlewick bedspread from Ebay but the last couple of weeks have been pretty cold at night, so I added another (pre-loved) cellular blanket that I already had.  It's really meant for a double-bed so is a little small for our king-size but will do the job until I get this latest WIP finished. 

So this bundle of yarn from the infamous stash is destined to become a blanket to lay over the top of our plain candlewick bedspread.  It's Deramores Vintage Chunky (which has been discontinued, it seems), a 50/50 mix of merino wool and acrylic yarn.  I thought long and hard about which blanket pattern to use and in the end decided to make one with individual squares, rather than one made as a whole like the chevron blankets I've recently finished.

The pattern I've chosen is the Spring Garden Baby Blanket by Lullaby Lodge ~ obviously I shall be making rather more squares than are in the pattern 😏 I'm also making all my squares using the same colours rather than a mixture as in the pattern.  I thought it would be nice to do something different this time ~ not to mention it being easier to juggle small squares rather than a king-size blanket 😄  I know I shall have the size issue to contend with at some point but at least it won't be all the way through the project!  

I made a sample last night, all in one colour, just to see what size square this chunky yarn works up to.  As you can see it's a simple circle-in-a-square motif, which works up pretty quickly.  The label suggests using a 6mm hook but I preferred the slightly softer effect a 6.5mm hook gave.  I did also try a 7mm hook but wasn't so keen on how that turned out.  The squares are 6.5" and I've decided to make the blanket 10x10 ~ hopefully I will have enough yarn!  That will make the main body of the blanket 65" square.  The whole blanket has a border of three rounds of granny shells in one colour (cream in my project), followed by a fourth round in a different colour and finally finishing with a scalloped edging ~ I shall be using grey for the last two rounds.  Providing I have enough yarn, I can always add an additional round or two of the cream and/or grey to make the blanket a little larger if needs be.

I thought it would be nice to make one complete square to see how it looks.  I like these "dusty" shades, it's a pity the yarn has been discontinued. I'm going to make all the squares one round at a time, not least because I want to make sure I have enough of the beige yarn to make 100 centre circles!  I have the least number of balls of the beige but hopefully 500g will be enough.

I shall alternate between working on this latest project and Mr Elephant.  Needless to say the poor sofa blanket has taken another step back in the queue, but once I've got that first elephant finished I'll add it back into the crochet projects merry-go-round whilst I try to get my brain wrapped round altering said elephant pattern 😉  

Little words of wisdom

 

How do you make an elephant?

One stitch at a time, of course 😄

Well, I finally girded my loins and got started on the elephant Amanda (my sister) has asked me to make for a charity event.  I did a Google search for crochet elephant patterns and came across quite a few but I found this 1940s Crochet Elephant pattern rewrite very appealing, so decided to give it a whirl.  

This is my progress thus far.  I'm using Aran yarn leftover from the Christmas Gift Blanket, and a 4mm hook instead of the recommended 5mm to make a tighter fabric.  I'm quite pleased, to be honest, with how it's working out ~ as I've mentioned before, my crochet projects are usually very simple affairs!  This is a pretty straightforward pattern but when I read through the instructions before making a start, it did occur to me that I could perhaps make some slight alterations.

As you can see, the elephant's blanket is crocheted after the main part of the body has been worked and I must admit that I found the head-end in particular a tad unwieldy during the process.  I would much prefer to make the whole of the body in one piece, and make a separate, removable, blanket.  I decided to follow the pattern for this first attempt but will see if I can get my head around making those little alterations that have popped up in there.  Methinks I have some brain-scrambling ahead of me, judging by the number of attempts I had to make to get that last tissue-box cover how I had envisioned the bloody thing in my head!

My sister-in-law has asked if I could also make one for her birthday in June and Amanda's charity event isn't until later next year, so at least I have a few months to work it out 😉

Did you succumb.....

.....to the Black Friday hype?  Usually it's an event that passes right over the top of my head but this year it just happened to coincide with me needing to top up my supplies of...

 ...loose-leaf Lady Grey tea, which I've been drinking since my conversion from tea-bags last year.  As it's only me who drinks the stuff I usually only buy one caddy from Twinings at a time but for Black Friday they had a discount of 20% ~ definitely not to be sniffed at, eh?  So, as you do, I bought myself.....four caddies!  Spending over £35 meant free delivery, too 😉

I've managed to squeeze all the caddies into my larder cupboard and am looking forward to many delicious cups of Lady Grey over the weeks (months!) to come 🍵   

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014) 

Some crochet procrastination!

I should really be working on the crocheted elephant that my sister has asked me to make, but I've been dilly-dallying around making lavender-filled sachets instead 😏  Truth be told, I'm a bit nervous about making a start on the elephant as it's the most complicated thing I've attempted to make in my crocheting career thus far.  My crochet, as I'm sure you will have gathered by now, tends to be for rather simple items!

Anyhoo, here are said lavender sachets, all made from patterns in Susan Pinner's book Granny Squares.  I had some little organza gift bags in my craft stash which I used to hold the dried lavender, then just made the crochet "covers".

The patterns all change colour on each round but I made them with just one colour instead.  I joined the two pieces together with double crochet, remembering to leave a big enough space to slip the lavender sachet inside before finishing the joining-up.  Once I got to this stage, the scent of lavender wafting up as I worked was lovely.

They are very quick and simple to put together ~ I see more of these in my making-crochet-stuff future.

This square is from the Cube Storage Seat Cover pattern.  I added another round of granny shells at round 5 instead of the double-crochet in every stitch as in the pattern.  Once the sachet was joined together, I edged it with a very simple additional round of double-crochet.    

The pattern for this is the Star Coaster.  After round 3, I added an additional round of half-trebles in every stitch including in the chain 3 spaces.  This one has a simple picot edging.

And finally we have sachet number three, which I think is my favourite.  This is from the Double Bed or Sofa Blanket pattern.  No additions or alterations were necessary to get the size I needed.  I finished off with a bobble-shell edging from Attic 24.  I'm going to send all the sachets to my Mum ~ you may have noticed that they have been made with the yarn I used for her pouffe cover.

Making the sachets was a lovely lavender-scented interlude, and as I say, I will make more in the future.  Meanwhile, in other news, I have made a start on that elephant.....granted, he currently has only half a front leg but at least I've made a start, eh 😉

Refining the Christmas puds

The Christmas pud baubles, that is 😄

I was fairly happy with my original attempt but thought that I could perhaps improve on it a little.  The crochet is done in two halves to cover the ball and for my first attempt I made the lower half using leftover brown Scheepjes Colour Crafter yarn. The top section was crocheted with a rather pretty white yarn that has a silky thread running through it, which I think is James C Brett Baby Shimmer.  This time I made two halves in the brown to cover the entire polystyrene ball, then made another half in the white yarn to go over the top.  I think this arrangement looks much better.

As I mentioned previously I did struggle somewhat with the leaves and holly berries.  For bauble number two I persevered with the original leaf pattern but still found it a tad difficult to be honest.  I came across a pattern for crocheted buttons and used that for the berries this time.  I was able to shape the berries with a few stitches through the base ~ I was quite pleased with how these turned out.

Bauble number three was refined a little more, although the pudding base and cream topping was done the same as for pudding number two.  The leaf pattern uses slip stitches but this time I used double-crochet instead and I'm really pleased with how they have turned out.  As for the berries, well the original pattern again used slip stitches in a magic ring; this time I used double-crochet in a four-chain circle and shaped them a little with a couple of stitches across the base.  I also sewed the leaves and berries closer together on the "cream" than I did on the second pudding.

I'm really rather surprised at how well this last pudding has turned out.  It goes to show that sometimes you just have to be brave and try out your own tweaks 😉

Busy as a.....

...well, a bird actually 😄  The starlings and sparrows sit in our neighbour's hedge, making a right 'ole racket, then they swoop down into the wilderness-masquerading-as-our garden en masse.  Despite appearances to the contrary, there must still be bugs and seeds for them to find.  We may, eventually, put out some bird feeders but are a little reluctant to be honest as we don't want to make the garden more attractive to rats and mice! It may be a better idea to stock the garden with plenty of bird-friendly plants and shrubs instead ~ lots for me to think about over the winter, methinks 😉  

The bird baths and pond are very popular with the birds and it's always a pleasure to watch them bathing and drinking.  This one is in the alpine bed near the house and I took the photo through the dining room window ~ hence the rather poor quality LOL  This little bath is very nice for the birds as it is stepped all the way round but it does need topping up more regularly than the simple dish-and-pebbles affair on the other side of the garden!  I must remember to give it a good scrub, too, before I next refill it.

Adrian has now cut up the willow branches from our neighbour ~ that's the little pile on the left of the log-store.  Hopefully it will be nicely seasoned by next winter.

Look at that!  I planted some crocus bulbs in the planter on the kitchen windowsill a couple of weeks or so ago, and they are just starting to show their little heads above the soil.  Just as so much in the garden has withered away, Mother Nature cheers us up with the promise of beauty just over the horizon 😍

Are you feeling Christmassy yet??

 

Personally, I find I'm feeling less and less "Christmassy" every year.  Perhaps it's because the kids are grown up ~ hard to believe that the gruesome-twosome will be 30 at the end of January!  For the last couple of years the "adults" in the family have pared back on Christmas gift-giving.  It gets harder and harder to think of things to buy for each other, although it does seem easier to find birthday gifts for some reason ~ mind you, my sister and I have even stopped sending each other birthday gifts too.

So my Christmas gift shopping is considerably pared back, with only having to seek out things for the kids, my parents and our two nieces.  The latter will be getting John Lewis vouchers (their preference ~ I asked my sister-in-law!) which isn't very original, I know, but they are both grown up and would I'm sure much prefer to choose something for themselves.  I've ordered hampers of Orkney goodies for Sam and my parents from Jollys of Orkney which will be sent to them direct from Jollys later this month, which makes life so much easier!  I've also ordered Adrian's birthday and Christmas gifts ~ always easy to know what to get for him as he has a list 😄

We are having our Christmas dinner on his birthday this year (18th December) as Beverly is working Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, so she won't be here on Christmas Day as there is, of course, no public transport.  It will be the first Christmas in the 39 years we have been together that it will be just the two of us!  Still, let's face it, Christmas isn't going to be "normal" for most folk this year.   

Sam has also had a delivery of Orkney beer from The Orkney Brewery to help lubricate December a little 😉  He would normally spend Christmas Day with my parents and my sister but has decided to stay home this year in view of my Mum's various health conditions.  I don't think he will be too bothered, to be honest, as he does tend to find Christmas a tad annoying 😄 

Beverly, on the other hand, may be almost 30 years old but she is showing no sign yet of being too grown-up for Christmas-every-day!  The bags in the photo above contain the 24 little gifts I gathered together this year, and I spent an afternoon turning them into..... 

this!  It takes a surprisingly long time to wrap 24 gifts and sitting at the dining table on a hard wooden chair made my poor posterior rather numb because, of course, I didn't think to sit on a cushion 😕  I was able to pack them very neatly into one, larger, shopping bag which Adrian took round to Beverly's when he went into Kirkwall on Monday ~ so she had the "pleasure" of attaching them all to the hanger.  She said that she found it surprisingly difficult not to hang them in an orderly manner ~ she most definitely hasn't inherited my "randomness" genes 😂  

Little words of wisdom