Kiss me I'm Irish!

Well, no I'm not and I don't live in Ireland either, but one of the girls at my work is Irish and thought it would be fun to celebrate St. Patrick's Day at work. And she was right, it was good fun. We had Irish stew, soda bread and Guinness for lunch and even a potato carving competition in remembrance of the potato famine.

I came back really late from a business trip the night before, so I didn't have a great amount of time to spend on my entry for the competition. I ended up making a simple toadstool, which took me an entire two minutes.

Needless to say I didn't win anything with that potato. I wish I had taken my camera though to show you some of the other entries which were absolutely amazing.

On my train journey home from London after the above mentioned business trip I made myself a little crochet leprechaun hat which I attached to an alice band.

I even had enough time on the train to make several shamrocks, which I turned into brooches, pendants and earrings.

Pretty in Blue

After a very miserable Sunday last week, we were spoilt with warmth and sunshine this weekend. It almost felt like summer had arrived and it's not even spring yet. 

There were busy bees ...

... and lady bird parties.

Jamie and the cats very much enjoyed the sunshine ...

... and I thought the weather to be the perfect opportunity to paint the chicken coop and my shed blue.

And to top this already perfect day there was a beautiful sunset.

(Fake) Blossoms on a gloomy Sunday

It's been a rainy, dark and miserable today. 

Perfect weather to get out your crochet hook and some leftover cotton yarn in a candy floss pink to make scatters of tiny little cherry blossoms to brighten things up.

If you're then brave enough to go outside in the rain to find a twig you're half way there to having the perfect spring decoration for your house.

All you have to do is glue on your blossoms (I used a hot glue gun) and that's it: instant spring and cheerfulness.

The idea came from this post over at Naturkinder, but I was a) too clumsy to follow the pattern given there and b) thought the blossoms a bit too round and not flower-shaped enough (if you know what I mean) for what I had in mind, so I made up my own. 

This is what I did (using US terminology):

• Ch 3
• Dc in 3rd ch from hook, sl st in same ch (= 1st petal made)
• [ch2, dc, sl st in same ch as 1st petal] x4
• Join with sl st to close round
• Fasten off and pull the foundation chain strand tight to close the whole in the centre

Hurray for Pancakes

Tuesday was Pancake Day here in the UK. Although I don't celebrate Lent or Shrove Tuesday any excuse to have pancakes is good enough for me. This year however there was a slight risk that I wouldn't be having any as it was also Jamie's Birthday and I didn't think he fancied pancakes as a Birthday meal. To save myself some disappointment I prepared three everlasting scotch pancakes from felt, along with a little felt frying pan and a knob of felt butter. I saw this project in issue 11 of Molly Makes and immediately felt the urge to make it. After all that stitching I rewarded myself with some real pancakes, so there was no disappointment after all.

Hearts, hearts, hearts

In case you wondered about the woollen heart you saw me holding in my last post, that was just an excuse to get my French knitting doll out. Inspired by this lovely post I finally found use for the knitted "sausages" you can make with it. Instead of threading some craft wire through the finished i-cord as suggested in the post from Naturkinder I used some red pipe cleaner. As I used DK yarn I wouldn't have been able to thread the rather fat pipe cleaner through the woolly cord, so I stuck it in from the start and basically worked the tube around it. I am now thinking of making some in green and using them as stems for knitted and crocheted flowers.

Happy Valentine's Day

Old News

I know everyone is doing it and has been doing it for a while and I'm so behind the times with this, but I finally had a go at trying newspaper nails and I love it. I followed this French tutorial that's been around for a while. I simply applied a base coat with grey nail polish and waited for it to dry. Then I dipped each nail in vodka and pressed a piece of newspaper on it - the key is to apply quite a bit of pressure onto the wet nail and the to gently peel of the paper. Once dry apply a coat of clear nail varnish et voilà you've got newspaper nails. So simple, yet so effective. I just love it.

 

Coffee Meringue Kisses

It was Jamie's mum's Birthday on Saturday and Jamie made her some yummy coffee meringue kisses.

Using eggs from our hens he made these scrumptious coffee flavoured meringues, ...

... filled them with whipped cream and and then drizzled melted dark chocolate over them.

Oh, I wish he'd make delicious treats like those more often for us.

Meandering in Winter Wonderland

When I woke up this morning and looked out of the window the world outside had transformed into a winter wonderland. While my bantam hens preferred to stay inside their coop, Jerry, the little cockerel tried to find out what the white stuff tasted like. I think he quite liked it as he had more after his first beak full. Matilda the hen and Zoltan the cat wrapped up warm in their little sweaters watching me make snowballs and snowmen.