Stash

The postman has been rather busy, visiting our house 3 times today. Most of the stuff was Christmas presents, which I have since wrapped and hidden away ready for the big day, but in amongst the parcels was one for me. Thread Bear have been extremely quick and got the order I placed late on Wednesday afternoon to me already.

There is some more linen, three lots of backing fabric, along with some ribbons and braid which I expect to use over the weekend.

Anyone who is from the UK is surely, by now, aware of the flooding that has taken place in Cumbria. I have both friends and family who I was unable to contact earlier, so forgive me if the Christmas wrapping seems a little early, but it, like blogging, was keeping my mind distracted from worrying about them. I have now heard that my sister and her family are all safe and well, with the children quite pleased that they got to miss school today.

On a Christmas note if anyone, like me, makes their own Christmas pudding and cake be aware there is a shortage of currants, apparently the crop failed in California and so Sainsburys and Morrisons don't have (m)any in stock. It appears that Tesco gets theirs from Greece and so as Son has just bought some for me I can now get my puddings started tonight.

I love the smell of the house when the fruit is steeping.

Xmas is Coming

OK so I accept that for some of you the title of this post will be far too early for mentioning the festive season but I love it. It's the only time I year I enjoy shopping and I've been getting my Christmas plans into place now for the last couple of weeks. Mind maybe one reason why I love the shopping is that I will have it all done by the first week of December, so no crowded shops for me. In fact, if I'm honest, the postman will be bringing most of my shopping to my door as it is largely done online these days.

Anyway back to some stitching related talk. Monday was the date for posting on the TUSAL so I took this photo yesterday of my latest additions to my collection

There aren't many threads added as I was so late posting last month. The few that have been added are from an exchange piece I'm working on.

To be honest I really have had very little stitching time as I seem to be incredibly busy with work at the moment, even more so since I picked up the paid employment I mentioned a few posts ago. Not that I'm complaining. After the year we have had it's so nice that all of a sudden Husband has websites coming in on a regular basis and I'm busy with a variety of different jobs. I've had to register as self-employed but as that would have been on the cards for next year anyway it's hardly a hassle.

Do you remember me saying I had plans to start my own business well I've ended up doing just that it's just not the business I expected to be running. All of a sudden the notion we had of setting quizzes has taken off and so I'm now a professional quiz setter. Along with that all of a sudden I've found myself doing some book-keeping for someone other than Husband and they pay me in money instead of raspberry turnovers!! I'm still hoping to get my original idea of the ground but for now it's simmering away rather than being brought up to boiling point.

As part of my Christmas preparations I made sure this year that I got on the Jane Asher website early enough to order a load of edible Christmas decorations ready for my Christmas baking. last year when I tried to order them at the start of December they were out of stock. I ordered a variety of Christmas coloured sparkles as you can see below.

I was going to show you them on the fairy cakes I made and decorated on Sunday but by Monday they had gone. They clearly tasted alright.

Finally here is my Christmas Ornie Exchange from Angela P. She posted them out early and mine arrived on Friday. It really is very pretty, especially as the fabric is all sparkly.

Cranberry Christmas by Prairie Schooler

She has finished it so delightfully. I just need to finish stitching hers now and hope that the finishing materials I have ordered for it arrive in time before I need to get it in the post next week.

I've set myself a target of getting all my commitment stitching done by the end of the year. The way things are at the moment I doubt I'll achieve it but I shall try. On that note I'm off to grab a few moments of stitching time.

Green Shoots, Brownies and Valentines.

A funny week, with a lot happening, that has nothing to do with the blog but stopped me doing any real sewing or blogging.

Last week I had a go at making Chocolate Brownies, it's a good few years since I've made them and having tasted them I now know why.

To say they are rich and sweet is an understatement, even Son commented on how much chocolate there was in them. I hadn't actually put in the recommended amount and had to mix dark and milk chocolate just to make up the amount I did put in. I think they would have been untouched if I'd used the recommended amount of dark chocolate.

After nearly 3 weeks of checking on them everyday my sweet peas are starting to have green shoots.

I lost all of the geraniums, which wasn't really a surprise, now I just have to avoid killing the sweet peas. As the snow is going and the weather is maybe going to start to warm up I shall turn my attention to sewing some more seeds.

The only stitching I have done this week is the Valentines' Day card I made Husband.

Broken Fairy

Be Mine

18 count White Aida

DMC threads

It's based on a design Rachael did, although I changed the lettering to some I found in one of my cross stitch books. I received a card from Husband and a bunch of flowers which he gave me on Thursday. Tonight we are treating ourselves to a take-away and a bottle of wine, a real treat these days as the last time we did this was the night before he lost his job.

Clementine Cake

Daughter has returned to university and we were left with a lot of satsumas that weren't going to get eaten so I used them to make a Clementine Cake with. Maybe that should be a Satsuma Cake.

Although the cake is called a Clementine Cake I haven't actually yet made it using clementines, the previous time I made it I used up an excess of oranges, either way it tastes great. Yet again it is another Nigella recipe although I have only ever seen this one on one of her TV shows and not in any of her books, and I have them all.

It's just as well I took the picture almost as soon as I'd got it out of the tin as Husband has already had a piece with his afternoon cup of tea.

Ingredients

4-5 clementines about 375g in weight
6 eggs
225g sugar (I use caster sugar)
250g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder

Method

Oven: Gas 5 or 190C

1. Put the clementines in a saucepan of cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for 2 hours.
2. Drain and leave to cool.
3. Cut each clementine in half, remove the pips and then skin and all blitz.
4. Add all the other ingredients and blitz again to pulp.
5. Grease and line a 21 cm spring-form tin.
6. Pour the mixture into the tin and place into the oven for an hour or until a skewer comes out clean. you may need to cover the top after 35-40 minutes to stop it burning.
7. Leave to cool in the tin on a rack until it is completely cold and then take it out of the tin.

I've never tried it but the recipe I found on the internet does say you can make it using lemons, in which case increase the amount of sugar to 250g.

My Oven Blew Up

Yesterday (Monday) when I had 8 people for dinner my oven packed up. Having put the pork in the oven to cook I went and sat down to talk to my guests for an hour. I returned to the kitchen around 5:30 pm to put the potatoes in and thought; "This oven isn't very warm!" Felt the pork, which was warmish and got a little worried, removed it from the oven, cut it in half to find it was still raw and that yes my oven had stopped working. The pork was hurriedly moved to the top oven to cook and Husband was dispatched across town to his Fathers with instructions on how to cook both lots of potatoes.

Now no doubt you, like me, are now thinking; "What about the Christmas Dinner because there is no way the turkey will fit in the small oven?" This is one of those times when having a Husband who knows everyone comes in useful. Before disappearing across town Husband rang his cousin who immediately diagnosed the problem as the element having gone and confirmed that he would be round first thing tomorrow morning (today) with the replacement part. Not sure who was meant to be first on his list for visits that day but I suspect he was very late for them. I'd apologise but it wouldn't be in any way sincere as I was more than a little worried I'd have no oven for Christmas Day.

Thankfully I now have an oven that is working. I'm sure you can imagine my relief.

Dinner, although an hour or so later than planned, was enjoyed by all and my guests eventually departed at 10:30 p.m. to drive home. Husband and I finally sat down at 11:00 p.m. having just finished the washing up.

My parents, who were 2 of the guests, having dropped my aunt off, called into Tesco in Coventry on their way home to find that it was very busy at MIDNIGHT!! They only called in to get the last minute bits for Christmas Day because they were passing and it would save them getting up early today mind they did expect it to be quiet, but no, apparently they were queuing at the tills. How mad is that!!

Well I doubt I'll be posting on the blog tomorrow,as there is plenty to do in preparation for the big day so I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas.

My First Exchange

I took part in the Stitched Christmas Card Exchange on Jayne's Attic and today was the day for opening our cards. As I know Ursh has opened hers I'll post the pictures of the two cards.

This is the card I stitched for Ursh and its the only card I actually got around to stitching this year. Try as I might I couldn't get all four sides of the border to line up with the edges of the card. Next year I'm setting myself the target of one Christmas card and gift tag a month.

Prairie Stars
Prairie Schooler
Linen 32 ct

This is the card I received from Angi whom as far as I know hasn't got a blog. Isn't it pretty and I picked up a few tips from her as well. I shall be on the look out for all the gold bits she has used inside the card and on the front of it for any cards I do in the future. It also has lots of beading on it which is extra useful as I've got to start the beading on Celtic Autumn soon and as you may know I've not done any beading before so now I have an example to follow. Thank you Angi it's lovely as are the two little pins you sent with the card.

No sewing today. Husband and I were at Sainsburys for 8:30 to do the big Christmas shop and that was after a night when I had less than 4 hours sleep, no reason for it, just one of those nights!! We have also put the tree up this afternoon which involved an interruption to buy new lights as the old ones had finally given up the ghost. Fortunately I'd made the meat pie before we started so it was then just a case of putting the pie, croquet potatoes and jam tarts (spare pastry always turns into jam tarts) in the oven before I collapsed onto the settee to watch Strictly Take Two. Later we will be watching the original terminator on Sky although I suspect I'll actually be asleep on the settee long before it finishes.

Go Tom Go.

One Day of Stitching

As planned yesterday afternoon was spent working on Celtic Autumn and as you can see I've made quite good progress.

As there is so much gold braid stitching to do I always try to start by doing some of that and then moving onto some other stitching. At the moment I'm trying to fill in as many of the gaps as possible so as that I can avoid having to fix her to my roller frame for as long as possible. I'll also have to pluck up the courage to start adding the beads to the dress, something I've never worked with before, so that should be fun.

Not quite sure how I've managed this but I have another free day today so hopefully I'll get some more stitching done this afternoon, although I might let Husband drag me down to the pool this afternoon. Before then I think I feel the need to go and bake some chocolate chip muffins and maybe do a tiny bit of ironing so as that I don't feel like I've done nothing but stitch all day.

Edited: Here they all are before Husband gets home and has one with his lunch.
Click on the link above for the menu

P.S. It's very quiet here today. Son's telly is down very low in his room (next door) as he has a hangover after his works Christmas Party last night. To be fair to him he very rarely drinks so Husband and I are finding it quite amusing. Does that make me a bad parent?

Christmas Preparations

There has been very little time over the last few weeks for any sewing, although I have made some progress with both Love Songs and Celtic Autumn. As you might expect my time has been taken up with Christmas stuff. Most of my shopping this year has been done over the Internet with a massive order to HMV, several orders to Amazon and others to the clothes shops Daughter's presents are coming from. I actually got away with only spending half a day in town shopping. Apart from one parcel, which is on its way from the US, everything has arrived safely. Last week our poor postman had to knock on the door every day because he had too many parcels to get through the letterbox easily!! In amongst those parcels were two for me, two small additions to my stash.

Some 28 count even weave and two threads that I need for Love Songs from Country Designs and a chart from Thread Bear. The linen was bought using my £5.00 voucher, which expires at the end of the month, so I don't feel too guilty about getting it.

I have been busy doing or planning all of my Christmas baking. The cake was made a couple of weeks ago, it's a Chocolate Fruit/Christmas cake based on a Nigella recipe. Her recipe uses prunes which I replace with mixed fruit as the thought of eating prunes fills me with horror. For years I made a traditional Christmas cake which would still be here at Easter but since I've made this one it's gone by New Year. You can't taste the chocolate and it tastes just like a Christmas cake but is just that bit lighter. You can find the recipe for the cake here.

I will be adding the marzipan this week and icing it earlier next week.

The Christmas puddings were also made last weekend, although the second one had to wait as I needed to order a part for my pressure cooker after it boiled dry when I made the first one!! I didn't turn the gas down low enough - oops. I did the same thing last year and it didn't effect the taste and the pudding looked moist enough when I but fresh baking paper and foil on it so I think I've got away with it. These are based on Delia's recipe and for years now I have always made two, the second gets eaten on Easter Sunday.

I love Christmas pudding and Christmas cake and even made them when I was a single parent and Son and Daughter didn't really eat them. I can't wait for my Christmas dinner. Or even better Boxing Day breakfast, toast and turkey dripping mmmmmmmmmm.

I'm just about at the stage where I can really start to look forward to Christmas and all the get-togethers that we have planned. The presents are all wrapped, the cards are written and posted and all the food for the Christmas fortnight is planned. I spent Saturday afternoon surrounded by recipe books planning the various meals and putting together my big Christmas shopping list which I will be doing on Friday with husband. Once that is done Christmas will officially start. I'm so far ahead that I've even given the oven its pre-Christmas clean and already washed all my crystal, a job that is normally done on Christmas Eve. I'm feeling very virtuous at the moment.

On Friday evening we will put up the tree, Saturday will see Husband and I doing our traditional pre-Christmas walk and on Sunday daughter returns from uni for the holidays. On Monday my parents are visiting along with an aunt and I'm planning a special meal, pork in fennel sauce (Jamie Oliver) with all the trimmings, Chestnut Cheesecake and Bakewell Tart (both Nigella). I've even been able to purchase some gold sugar stars to go on the Bakewell Tart from a new shop in town. On Boxing Day we will make a return visit to my mums where hopefully I'll get to meet up with one of my sisters and my brother. The following Sunday Husband's dad is joining us for dinner as he is spending Christmas Day with Husband's sister. So lots to look forward to and lots of baking to come.

Of course all of this organisation could come to nothing if we should win the lottery next weekend or even the jackpot (£500.00) at the pub quiz tonight as then I'll be out shopping for presents for all the relatives that aren't getting any this year due to Husband's lack of employment. Keep your fingers crossed for the jackpot at the quiz as nothing would make me happier this year than to have to do some last minute shopping.

Being so far ahead with Christmas I'm now hoping to catch up on some sewing so maybe I'll have pictures to post tomorrow. I had planned on doing some sewing yesterday but woke up with the most horrendous sore throat and earache which preceded to get worse throughout the day. By the end of the day I felt quite achy and this morning felt even worse but strangely have felt a lot better as the day has progressed, maybe it was some weird 24 hour thing. I hope so as I haven't really been visiting the gym or swimming pool recently, it was so cold last week that I couldn't drag myself out of bed to go and if I don't go in the morning I never seem to get round to it later in the day!! I really would like to get back into it before Christmas and all that eating starts.

Spiced Butter Cake

I've been waiting to try out this recipe for over a week now and have finally got around to it today. I should have been doing my Christmas baking but I forgot to add the list of ingredients to my shopping list last week so that will have to wait until this weekend.

This butter cake is so easy to make, that the most awkward bit is lining the cake tin.

The recipe comes from Donna Hay's book Modern Classics Book 2

Ingredients

125g /4 0z very soft butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup caster sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups plain flour - sifted

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp mixed spice

1/2 cup / 4 fl oz milk

Method

Put everything in the bowl and mix it together until it is smooth. If like me you use an electric mixer start of slowly and then speed up until the mixture is nice and smooth.

Line an 8 inch cake tin with baking paper and cook at 150 C for 1 hour 5 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave in the tin for 5 minutes to cool and then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool.

For a plain cake you can omit the mixed spice or indeed add any flavouring of your choice.

You can ice it but with Christmas just around the corner I'll leave it plain.

Next time I think I'll make it as a lemon flavoured cake and try it in a loaf tin instead of a round cake tin.

Custard Anyone?

Thanks to Son we now have rather a lot of custard to eat, in fact we have that much to eat I think we'll need to buy a cow for all the milk we are going to need! Son is an Adult Instructor with the local Army Cadets, the idea that my son is an adult is a concept that I still struggle with but I digress!! Last weekend he was away on a training course and returned on Sunday with a 3.5 kg pack of custard powder, yes I got that right 3.5 kg. Guess I won't be buying any custard at Sainsburys for the next year or so.

The kitchens at the camp were closing that day for an upgrade and giving away all the food that they couldn't use and he grabbed a 'bag' of custard. Not sure how many years it will take us to use it up but if I was to make the whole bag up at once I would need 46.5 litres or 10 gallons and 2 pints of milk and 2.3 kg of sugar. Mind if you think that's bad one of his friends went home with 12 bags of the stuff in the boot if his car, apparently they eat an awful lot of custard in their house!!!

Sewing wise very little has been done during the last week as most of my time and energy has been spent getting the flyers out to promote Husband's business. Thankfully they have worked well and the leads, meetings and quotes are happening at a fantastic rate which is great news.

The other good news is that I have lost weight, not sure if it's the exercise or worrying about loosing the house that is doing it, I suspect the latter. I currently go from thinking everything will be alright to feeling really worried that we will loose the house etc, etc. The reality is that the business is starting to take off and Husband has jobs to apply for so no doubt everything will be OK but I just can't shake off the feeling that we could end up loosing everything. It doesn't help that Christmas is coming, a time of year that I absolutely love but this year I hate the fact that we are having to say to everyone, "Sorry no presents this year". For someone who hates shopping this is the one time of year I adore it as I love choosing and wrapping the gifts for my family and this year I just can't enjoy it as I'm just thinking of whom I'm not buying gifts etc for.

Needless to say my sewing mojo has also disappeared but I have managed to do a small amount of work on Love Songs. Aside from the flyering working on Love Songs is the only target from last week I managed to achieve so I shall roll most of them over to this week.


It felt strange to be working on aida after so much time spent working on linen but my eyes were grateful for the rest, especially as I was often shattered from the hours spent flyering.

Hopefully this week I'll feel a little more inspired and get on with the things that need doing such as starting my Christmas shopping and making my Christmas Puddings. The day I steam my puddings is normally the day I start wrapping my presents so I'd better go and buy some. Mind the turkey is already in the freezer as they were half price at Sainsburys last week so I grabbed one before they sold out!!

Better Late Than Never

Today was Son's birthday and so naturally I had to bake him a birthday cake. I'll leave you to work out how old he was but the way his face dropped when I suggested this morning that maybe he didn't need a birthday cake this year was priceless.

Today I finally started on the Jayne's Attic SAL 'Good Friends Count'. To say I'm way behind is an understatement, the final part (5) comes out this week and I've just completed Part 1.

I did it because it was an opportunity to try out new stitches and by and large it has worked out OK. There are to my knowledge at least 2 errors in it and I had to frog the whole of the top row but I'm pleased with it. At least the next two parts will be a lot easier as they are mostly cross stitch. I'm hoping to work on them tomorrow when the plumber arrives to disconnect the shower in the bathroom.

Husband has already done a lot of work in there, stripping the tiles and plaster, which was rotten where the water had got behind the grouting. With any luck I might actually get it finished before Christmas.

A Bad Hair Day & Chocolate Cake

There are three things I truly hate doing:

1. Having my hair done - it's seems such a waste of time as it will only grow again and go grey again.

2. Clothes shopping - yes I know I'm female and meant to like it but I hate it. This might have something to do with the fact I'm quarter of an inch under 5 foot and therefore most items have to be taken up or are just too long, but nevertheless it is something I only do when I really have to. There is one exception to this; shopping for walking stuff is fine, mainly because I only shop in two places, Fishers in Keswick and Outdoor something or other in Hathersage and when I go in either of these places I know exactly what I want and they always have it in stock.

3. Food shopping. If you ever see someone dashing round Sainsbury's in Ripley or Matlock like they are competing in the 100 metres sprint it's probably me trying to get the dreaded weekly ordeal over and done with. Yes I've tried on-line shopping, it was great when I had a broken leg, two children and no husband but I got fed up of never getting everything I'd ordered and what often seemed like the worst fruit and veg in the shop.

Anyway today it was a hairdressers day, even worse it was the once every three months hair colouring day. Now I hate spending anything up to two hours in the hairdressers but I especially hate it when I come out with a colour that I'm not happy with and the only alternative is to spend another two hours having it redone.

Disasters such as this call for chocolate or wine or even both. Now I'm not a big chocolate bar fan but chocolate cake I like. I blame my mother who makes the most lethal, sickly sweet but totally delicious chocolate cake out. I've tried doing it myself but I can't get the icing right so instead thanks to Nigella I have found a great alternative - Chocolate Malteser cake. Now I left the hairdressers planning to be good but then Son rang up to say he was coming home from Cadet Camp a day early, so that was the perfect excuse to make the cake. Add to that his phone call came just as the rain fell in the cricket and they went in for lunch, so it just had to be made.

I'm definitely going to have to go to the gym tomorrow!!