Empty Nest

Last night was Stevie's College presentation night, she is now a fully fledged Nursery Nurse :-)

It was a shame that more people didn't turn up to formally receive their certificates, there must have been only around 30 students.  The ones that didn't attend missed out on a lovely meal which was served to us by the catering students, a bunch of flowers and a balloon!

(Stevie's class group)

My baby is all grown up now :-(

She has now started her degree course at Worcester uni, (she wants to go into teaching eventually), although she is not too far from home, she is still away from home, the house is quiet, very quiet, I'm used to boom boom music wafting down from her bedroom and clothes and make-up and bags and shoes littering the house - it's all very strange this empty nest thing,  with Mark working away from home too for the first time I am totally on my own in the evening.

The first night my mum phoned me to make sure I was OK and to 'make sure i locked the doors' , (yes i had).

The second night she phoned me to ask if i'd been OK on my own and had i been frightened ?  No mum, I'm fine, I told her, I didn't like to remind her that I was 50 years old, lol, it was sweet of her to think of me - I guess you never stop being a mum :-)

Cookies (this is for you Gill)..and a very quick update

Gill asked if I would post the cookie recipe that I mentioned in my last post, I've got a few tried and tested recipes so I thought I'd put them on a page of their own, so I've created a separate page which you will find as a tab at the top of this page.

Unfortunately the last time I made these I forgot to take a photo, so no photo of them, next time I bake them I'll remember.

Let me know what you think if you try anything out :-)

I've had a busy week and next week looks like being just as mad so no stitching or knitting update, but I have been stitching, yes, I know It's been a while but i picked up LHN Winter Band Sampler again and in no time at all it was finished :-)  It's been whisked off to be framed and i can pick it up at the end of next week.

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We are getting ever closer to Jenny's due date and i'll soon be able to share photos of the new baby, in the meantime I'll leave you with just one more of Jenny and her partner James.  They were off to a wedding on Saturday and popped in before they went to the reception.

I took a few, but I particularly liked this one of them both.

Until next time x

PS. Sorry but I've had to add word verification to the comments, my in box has been just full of anonymous comments over the last few days and it's a pain!

Phew, i think i need a holiday to get over my holiday, lol.

I had two days when we got back to get the washing and ironing (and the cleaning after leaving my house in the hands of an eighteen year old!) before i went into work again on Friday, Mark was back to work on the Wednesday, he's away working in London, smack bang in the middle of Leicester Square for the next couple of months doing a re-fit of the Odeon Theatre.

  To be fair Stevie did a good  job at keeping house, it's just that i don't feel back in control until I've done the housework myself, (call me strange, most people do :-)

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We threw a little baby shower party for Jenny on Saturday, just a few friends and family but it was fun.

I made tons of cup cakes which Joanne decorated beautifully and i also made some of the famous 'just like millie's cookies cookies which were a big hit, (if anyone want's the recipe just say and i will post it here).

I also made her a cake

I must confess that I cheated with the booty decoration, i bought that from a local cake shop, aren't they cute!

The little daises are just some sugar paper decorations

We bought a pinata , which was a big success and gave us all a good laugh :-)

Jane gave it such a whack that it came flying of the hook, but it still took a bit of bashing before it finally caved in! 

I'll leave you with a few photos of the mum to be opening some of her gifts.

You can see some of our holiday photos on a slideshow here, for those who are interested.

That's it for now, sorry no stitching , yet again, but i have ordered a chart which hopefully will be here soon and i can show you, in the meantime i've started knitting another cardigan for the little one (only 4 weeks to go now!!!) 

I'm off to get myself set up for watching the much waited for NEW series of Downton  tonight, that's Sunday nights sorted for the next few weeks :-)

Until next time x

I've come to the conclusion that I'm not very good at this blogging thing, I have good intentions, but then the excuses start, I can't be bothered to take photos, I can't think of a title, I haven't got anything interesting to say.  Some blogs you read and the words just seem to flow, they have intriguing titles that make you want to read on and an interesting post to follow, most have lots of lovely stitching finishes.  

I  have only picked my stitching up once in the last month, I worked on Sampler aux Chats for 2 hours at stitching group last Wednesday, no progress photo, see too lazy to get it out and take a snap!

The stitching group is going well by the way, we still meet up on the last Wednesday in the month, they are a nice bunch, there are six of us that show up every time and a few more that just turn up every now and then, and that's OK, keeping it small means we can all have a good old chin wag together :-)

I'm still knitting away and still finding it easier when i sit down at night than getting all the paraphernalia out that i need to stitch, although I really did enjoy the stitches i put in last week, perhaps i should just force myself and my mojo will come back.

Anyway, this post is not all about me moaning about my blogging laziness, I do have some knitting finishes :-)

Remember the Hip To Be Square blanket I showed you way back in June?  The one I got over half way done and decided to un-ravel?

It's finished!

This thing is HUGE, it fits my double bed

The second time around I added a moss stitch border as I went, which I think looks much better than my attempt at the I-cord edging.

Here it is hanging over the bottom of my bed post.

I made It bigger than suggested, mine Is 7 squares across and 10 squares down, knit in Aran weight with the yarn held double it makes for one snuggly blanket :-)

I also finished a couple of cardigans for the coming grandbaby, (which I still need to add buttons to)

The one above is knit in Wondersoft Pearl DK, which was lovely to knit with.

The one below I used King Cole Smooth DK which was equally as nice, I just hope they both wash well.

What no one tells you when you start knitting is that knitting  and sewing up are two entirely diffident crafts!  There are tips and tricks that the patterns don't mention, so after struggling with the sewing up I passed these onto my sisters friend who kindly put them together for me :-)

I found a free pattern on Deramores website and thought it would make a lovely blanket for the moses basket.

It's not too big and only took about a week, It's the first time I've tackled bobbles and I loved doing them!

There is however a mistake and I didn't notice until I'd cast off :-(

It's right at the beginning and I don't know how I missed It, grrr 

I think the only way I can get around it is to put a few stitches in to disguise it.  You can just see where it is if you look close.  

I've still got the ends to sew in and to block it when I get chance.

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We are off on holiday next week, destination Croatia, never been there before but we have been told It's very nice and the hotel looks good, I'm looking forward to a little R and R, no work, no cooking, no cleaning, for one week it will be bliss :-)

Speak soon xx

Coloured Chevrons

I finished the lovely chevron baby blanket offered on 

The Purl Bee site :-)

I actually finished it about two weeks ago now but I'm playing catch-up with everything at the moment.

The pattern recommendation was for aran weight yarn but the choice of colours in cotton aran was very limited in my local shop so i knitted mine in DK Rico 100% cotton, cast on more stitches and used 5mm needles.

I'm so happy with how it turned out :-)

And the pattern was so simple, not a purl stitch in sight!

I used 7 different colours but kept that lovely silver grey in the middle and repeated the white and the cream on either side.

The result Is still quite chunky and heavy even with using DK yarn and it's a perfect size for a  pram / stroller blanket :-)

I'm totally in love with this trendy baby blanket, and i can see me knitting more of them:-)

Until next time xx

A knitty Finish, and a New Start

Thank you for all the kind comments on my cupcakes, I took them to work for the lads in the office the next day and they disappeared rather quickly, (not the lads, the cakes, lol), so they must have tasted OK:-)

No cake baking this last week, but I do have a finish to share 

with you.

I finished up a small pram/pushchair blanket for Jenny.

I'm pretty pleased with how this has turned out, not your typical baby colour but I showed it to Jenny today and she loved it.  She has chosen a purple pram / pushchair combination, so the grey will be a good match.

I came across this a few weeks ago and thought it so lovely and bright that I really wanted knit it.  The yarn works out quite expensive, and I couldn't find anything similar here in the UK , but after a bit of searching and some help at a local shop I chose Rico cotton, they have a lovely choice of colours but the shop only had DK.  

So, with a bit of experimenting I'm now knitting it on 5.5mm needles using 2 stands of yarn held together. 

I liked the colours used for the one on Purl Bee, so I chose similar colours

I also cast on 128 stitches rather than the recommend 100 to make up for the smaller needles I'm using

So far it's working out OK - I just started on the white this afternoon.

Here's an update photo of the mum-to-be which I took this afternoon.

She is caring most of the weight on her bum and legs and phoned me yesterday and told me her feet and ankles had swollen up - welcome to the delights of pregnancy Jen :-)  

She had a visit booked for a tour of a birthing centre today, James was away at work, so I went along with her.  My how things have changed!  The atmosphere is very relaxing and very low key, this particular centre has three suites, all with birthing pools but mums can't actually book a place there until they are 37 weeks pregnant.  The only drawback is that the centre is not attached to a hospital, there is another centre which is attached to a hospital which they are going to book a tour around in a few weeks and they also have a hospital tour booked at the end of August, so at least they can compare all the options.  Did you know that they only keep you in for 6 hours after the birth now? - wow, I would have been so scared to come home so quickly, what happened to rest!

That's all for now, Saturday night is take-away night and I think my Chinese will be arriving any minute :-)

Missing From The Sky, Big, Round and Yellow, I Believe They Call It 'The Sun'

I'm glad that so many of you enjoyed my photos of our break in Yorkshire, I think that we probably got the best weather the UK has had on offer for a while now, at least the rain kept off for us even if the sunshine was week :-)  

Since we got home i don't think it's stopped raining, seriously, where is the summer!!  If someone is hogging that big yellow thing in the sky, please remind it that it is supposed to be summer here!

David Hasslehoff was on some TV programme or other the other night and came out with a great observation, he said that in the UK we have two Winters, one in the Winter, and one in July!  Well David, you got that right, this year anyway, lol 

I was browsing the books in Tesco this week and came across this gorgeous book on offer.

There are some calorie laden cakes on offer inside, and i tried my hand at one of the recipes this afternoon

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

This is my effort compared to the picture in the book.

Not bad for a first attempt!

Taste wise they are beautiful, i'm not usually a lover of chocolate cake, (I prefer my chocolate to come in a block!) but these are so light and moist, they melt in the mouth, 

I think next time i make any i will use smaller cases though, they were a bit on the large size :-)

If anyone is interested i will put the recipe up in a couple of days (in a separate tab).

Well, that's it, no stitching lately, knitting needles have taken over, but no photos to share, although, remember that Hip to be Square blanket in my last post?  I unravelled it all!!  I tried out the i-cord border, and although every one raves about the i-cord (apparently 'I' is for idiot, as in anyone can do it), i just couldn't get it to look right, perhaps i was being too picky, but one side looked fine, the other side looked odd.  So off it all came and i started again, this time i'm adding a seed stitch boarder as i go.  Hopefully it will look OK this time, i take photos at the weekend and you can judge :-)

Until next time x