bee handmade

Church Farm

Church Farm at Ardeley is one of my new favourite place, particularly in the sunshine. Nice food, farm shop, animals, woods, bluebells ... Need I say more?

more photos but less crafting

I'll have some crafting to share soon but in the meantime some pictures, mostly hipstamatic.

A view of the Tyne from the train

Oatmeal pancakes courtesy of Orangette. Served with blueberries and maple syrup. Delicious. I'd now like to try her recipe for raspberry yoghurt popsicles. I'm so hot all the time (due to the ever growing human inside me) that I'm craving tart, refreshing flavours.

May relaxing in the heat

 

Kite flying on Dunstable Downs

Afternoon tea mini baby shower at the Soho Hotel organised by my lovely friends. Note the glass of champagne!

retrospective

Firstly some crafting. I made a drawing folder for a young friend of mine who was three years old last week. I just made the pattern up as I went along and then cut out some felt for the applique lettering and motifs. I realised that the structure was a bit to floppy half way through so inserted a rectangle of perspex into the fabric behind the crayons. He can draw on the go now!

I finally got round to processing 5 lomo films which have been sitting round for ages. Here are a selection of holiday pictures from 2009 and 2010.

Holy Island. The upturned boats were traditionally made into sheds.

A walk in Portugal

 

Portugal pool. Wish I was there now.

A coastal walk in Cornwall. We were out for about 8 hours in total. It was a lovely day.

 

Afternoon tea in St Mawes. One of the best I've had. Light and delicious scones. Chilled water in a glass carafe, cream and jam in pots NOT packets. As you can see P had to supplement his tea with a cool glass of beer!

Brooklyn Bridge

 

New York. This is the view from our hotel window. I was convinced I was going to drop the camera.

Alhambra in Granada.

I only have 5 weeks left at work now which seems quite surreal. This post by Peonies and Polaroids struck a chord as I still have "The Anxiety, The Panic and The Vomits" at 31 weeks. I think that all the stuff about blooming during in pregnancy was a big conspiracy theory to lure me into months and months of tiredness and nausea! Hey ho, on the downward slope now. It had better all be worth it.

 

gifts

Flowers for our two year anniversary. Beautiful.

 

The first gift for the rapidly approaching new arrival. Knitted by my mum. Teeny! They just need some buttons. We don't actually have anything practical yet - I think I need to make a list and starting believing it's a reality!

catch up

The sun is here! May had a lovely time in the garden the other day. As you can see I'm still playing with my Hipstamatic app.

 

We celebrated our second wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's two years already. Crazy. We had a lovely dinner at The French House in Soho, selected because we met there for a drink on our first date. We are about to tuck into steak with bernaise sauce. I really need to get our wedding pictures organised. I still haven't had prints made of any of them. Very slack.

 

I made a cake for a friend's birthday. I deliberated about what flavour to do and settled on a rosewater and pistachio recipe I cut out of a magazine a while ago. Unfortunately I forgot to make a note of where I got it from but I think it may be a Nigel Slater recipe. It was lovely and moist and not too sweet. Looked pretty too.

And finally a picture of some fabric for my next quilting project. I need to collect a few more but I'm pleased with the start. My plan is to do a more traditional square patch quilt on one side and then a free form abstract design on the reverse. I particularly like the second one down on the right. It's from the V&A shop. They don't have a huge selection but I really liked this design and the quality of the cotton is lovely. The others were all ordered from Cotton Patch or ebay.

sunshine

Gosh sunshine - what can I say ... It makes such a difference. It's been a beautiful weekend and that welcome spring sunshine encourages your body to relax and your face wear a smile.

Some hipstamatic pictures of the first bbq of 2010

 

The ripple blanket is growing. It's quite meditative as the pattern is so easy - very handy as I can't be bothered with anything too taxing.

And finally a prototype pompom mobile. I'm not totally happy with the design. I need to rethink things and work out a way of giving the pompoms more room to breathe but I like the basic idea.

plodding

Well morning sickness certainly isn't conducive to productivity. I'm about 18 weeks pregnant and still feel sick and lethargic for the majority of the time. If anyone has any miracle cures please let me know. The enduring refrain in my house is as follows:

"Guess what? I still feel sick"

"Don't worry, it won't last forever ..."

At least one of us is able to be optimistic!

I really haven't been up to beavering away on my sewing machine but I have managed to start this ripple blanket. The good news is that it grows pretty quickly. I just need to actually muster the energy to get on with it.

We also had a week in Andalucia which was lovely. We stayed at the warm, welcoming and secluded Casa Olea and it was fabulous to see some sunshine.

This is a view from the hotel terrace. It was taken using the Hipstamatic app on my iphone. It's the best app I've downloaded so far and I'd really recommend it if you like retro looking pictures.

We were surrounded by olive strewn countryside. The oil and the olives themselves were delicious.

More pictures to come when I get my lomo films developed.

Oh, and I've just noticed that the ripple blanket accidentally echoes the colours of the picture below it. Serendipity!

popping in

No crafting to share unfortunately but I have been cooking quite a lot. The continuing cold weather has led me to Jamie Oliver's southern recipes in his America book.

I made the gumbo and it was delicious, particularly when heated up the next day as the flavours seem to gain more depth and piquance.

 

I'll leave you with a picture of the beautiful amaryllis plant that my parents got me for Christmas. It's pretty magnificent.

January blues

January seems to have eradicated any blogging mojo I may have had. I'm tired of being cold, tired of the short days and can't wait for the warmer weather to kick in. It's hard to focus on the joys of the small pleasures in life when you are walking home from work in the dark, shoulders tensed against the cold. However this lovely sunset did lift my spirits the other evening on my walk to the station. Sorry about the softness of the picture but it was just captured on my iphone.

 

I'm still recovering from finishing my blanket so haven't been that productive on the craft front. Time for one from the archives.

I can't remember where I saw the pattern for these pincushions but they are easy to create and make a good little gift. There are lots of pincushion tutorials out there. Just sew two circles of felt/fabric together (right sides facing and remembering to leave a hole for turning), turn, stuff well, sew the hole together then use a long piece of embroidery thread to stitch through the centre, bisecting the circle into equal segments. You can sew on buttons in the process or use any decoration which takes your fancy.

 

Eek it's almost here

I've been lost in a world of shopping and card and decoration making. I'll post some pictures once recipients have had a chance to not have their little surprise spoiled. I LOVE Christmas but it always creeps up on me. This is mainly to do with the fact that I steadfastly ignore it till the end of November at the very earliest. In fact, I think that perhaps any pre-December advertising should be banned, along with shops playing seasonal music and setting up their Christmas merchandise WAY TOO EARLY. It spoils the magic. I admit I'm probably too old to get a stocking but it really makes me happy. You can't beat eating and making merry. I think I'll be trying out some of Jamie's Chirstmas margaritas and eton mess.

Anyway I digress, this post from the witty Peonies and Polaroids made me smile today and spurred me on to write a post. I quite frequently moo at cows, miaow at cats, baaa at sheep ...  

Here is a picture of cows on the lovely Isle of Harris, the only place where I've seen sheep sleeping soundly on the side of the road.

 

And finally some characterful Highland cattle on the Isle of Skye.