Charity

Friday means my guitar lesson - I'll Find My Way Home, Vangellis - a mooch around the charity shops and lunch in our favourite cafe - chocolate ice cream, sometimes we coma away empty handed but today we did rather well. Turquoise serving platter 50p, Cherry Tree by Midwinter bowl 99p, very Orla or actually the other way around.

JAJ bowl £1, addicted to this stuff, oven, freezer, dishwasher and dirt cheap.

Crystal jug, weighs a tonne, £2.50.

Hand embroidered - can't stop myself - linen tablecloth £2.50.

Blue Bird - fab illustrations, way before Lauren Child - 75p, tin bucket £1 and a cafetiere £2.50. So for £11.74 we didn't do bad.

Last weeks charity purchase an original home office, fold down to a small cupboard, £55.

The vintage Tipp-Ex was no extra charge.

Hot Cross Buns

Another bread product I have been meaning to make forever, a bit of a faf but well worth it, the paste for the crosses was a bit too wet, will do better next time...

went down well with the tasting team.

Geraldine where are you? Unbelievably difficult to finger pick, remember the words and sing all at the same time, helped in my endevour by Louis who can keep time and remember the words.

Big teapigs order arrived, my big assistant is developing his pallet with the odd silver tip of an evening.

I am a devotee of the Chamomile, with actual flowers in the pouch not just dust.

Hitting the books and doing some big thinking.

If only I had a new pair of sandals.

I do however have a new cowl, Chunky Baby Misti Alpaca purchased in New York about this time last year, so well overdue for the knitting.

Will the pears ever stop coming in the veg box? Up to our necks in pear tart but surviving.

My assistant was just about out of Granola, Leon recipe - extras this time are flaked almond and coconut - the usual suspects are oats, bran, wheatgerm, sunflower seeds, honey, sultanas, dates, apricots and roasted hazelnuts.

Tweeking

This sweater has been in the tweeking pile for ages, bought from a vintage fair ages ago the neck has always been too high and too tight, with a bit of steeking and a miraculous matching ball of yarn from a charity shop it is now a very wearable Henley.

The school kilt has been begging for attention since September, after an hour of pressing and stitching the top 2 inches of pleats it now looks wearable. At some point the mundane will give way to serious academic work, hopefully!

Josef Frank

I have long coveted the Josef Frank trays in Liberty and after a tray-valanche incident I can now justify the purchase of one. The fabric starts at about £100 metre but it is fabulous

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We all went to the Art Deco original Speke Airport today for a vintage textile fair, a few purchases were made but what a great setting, the Josef Frank patterns already had us in a vintage mood, but nothing new there.

Long Time No Blog

We have been busy making things we have never tried before like crumpets from the Hairy Bikers Mum Knows Best...

and Steak and Kidney Pudding the size of my head, steamed for 5 hours!

Socks have been made and given away...

We only got a smattering of snow, not enough for a day off school unfortunately. We are all back to it for 2010.

Four Candles

The big four at last...

where did the time go?

New Year

In 2009 I took up the guitar, tap dancing, joined the WI and started a masters degree, I wonder what 2010 will bring?

The first day of the new year has been spent sorting, organizing and

tidying in the studio, I can put it off no longer, I must get down to some work.

I had an Audible subscription for christmas and am listening to 'The Pattern in the Carpet', by Margaret Drabble, brilliant and so many weird coincidences i.e. my favourite blue iron on embroidery transfers. Popular in the earlier part of the twentieth century they are available today but not in such a perfect form, the originals that Drabble discusses have heavy, almost embossed, piped blue lines of ink on ultra-delicate tissue, I have some that are eighty years old and still going strong.