Snowy toes, Sewing for Children, Natural beauty, and Birthdays

Why yes, those are my toes - and yes, I painted those snowmen myself! No, I don't really have the time to be wasting on things like this - but I did it anyway. And it's lovely to see blogger allowing me to load a picture for once! It's been so frustrating recently, not being able to.

So here are a few photos of what I've been up to recently:

Sewing a 'taggy' for Nanny College - it's a lilypad!










 And the back...












 ... And a close-up! So we weren't technically meant to quilt it, but I wanted to sandwich the layers together, and after I'd done it the teacher looked at it and told me it was a good use of the pattern of the fabric! Win for disobedience!





Then a scary creature attacked me:

 Isn't it beautiful?! I know you can't tell from the photo, but this butterfly was huuge!! Here, let me show you another picture of it...

Isn't it amazing?! It flew into my room, so as the good human that I am, I caught it to release it, and as the blogger that I am, I photographed it lots before I released it! The colours were just incredible on this peacock butterfly...







And this little one turned 1!!! I can't believe it - a whole year of this little boy! So I went back to Manchester and went to his birthday party, which was brilliant. I got to see him walking around, which was the first time I'd seen it. I gave a book of his year of photos as a gift - more for Manndibles than Bilbo really, but what mum has time to do a photo album?!

I finish Nanny College in 2 weeks for Christmas - very exciting! I'm looking forward to going home, but first I have to complete 2 modules and part of a third. So it's off to work I go!

Love love xx

A quilt block and some cleaning

This is what I did today. It's for QATWII again - one lovely lady asked for interlocking geometric patterns, and so I did this one. I know, it doesn't look interlocking exactly, but it's meant to be a ribbon all twisted into loops. I found it on The Quilter's Cache, here, but it's a 16 1/2" unfinished block on there, and I wanted 12 1/2 so I spent some time scaling it down before I started. It worked really well, and really easily - it was obvious how to put it together, and when I finished and pressed all my seams one final time, I was really pleased with how neat the back looked even! I just hope it's liked and works with the others in this set.

I also tried out my parents' steam mop thingy for the first time today, and fell in love with it. It's so much easier than mopping floors the normal way! No bucket to fill and lug around, no mop head to squeeze out... Yep, that's how bland most of my day was! I'm telling you about the cleaning I did!

Hopefully I'll have more interesting topics to talk about soon!

Love love xx

Blogger's sulking at me, so no pretty pictures of Gardening or Knitting, Plans this Evening

So I spent ages the other week trying to publish a post about the gardening I got up to with mamma, but for some reason blogger kept refusing to publish the post with its pictures, it kept coming up as an error. so now I've given up, and will simply tell you that the pots mamma and I planted up were very pretty. I think she possibly has a couple of photos on her blog if you want to see - find her at Mammafairy Sews.Whilst I was at the parents', I also made a block for QATWII; I made Anita's neighbourhood block. I was running out of time, though, so I made the basic block with the ideas sketched out that I wanted, put together all that I could and signed it - and mamma finished it off with a few extra details. I asked her to, as I did what I could in the time, but I could tell that it didn't feel finished. Again, I would show you a picture of it, but blogger doesn't seem to want to allow me to upload any photos, so you will have to wait until some unforeseen time when it stops sulking at me!

I have also very almost finished my first baby cardigan! All that's left to do is knit on the button band and attach buttons! I'm pretty chuffed with how it has turned out, and can't wait to start another one!

I'm out this evening, to spend the night with my discipleship group from church. We're having a sleepover at one of our houses, with a film and lots of unhealthy food! Then we'll all go to church together tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to it; it should be a lot of fun. The girl whose house it is is leaving in a couple of months to move to South America for a while: how long, we don't know. But that's where she feels she's meant to be, so that's where she's going. We'll all miss her, but we're celebrating for her!

That's all for now - with a bit of luck, blogger will stop sulking at me and I'll post again soon with some photos for you to see!

Love love xx

Absence and illness, Gardening, Mandibles, Gorgeous Gifts from Family Friends

It’s been a while again, hasn’t it? It’s always been a while nowadays! I mean to be better, but Nanny College is so busy, and exhausting, and recently I’ve caught a lot of germs from children and been rather ill. I mean, it’s all very well washing your hands regularly, but when they cough and sneeze right at your face, there’s very little you can do. I caught hand, foot and mouth from a child, and I’d barely recovered from that than I caught another virus, which wiped me out. So I’ve been home with my parents for a few days, recovering. The problem with viruses is that there’s nothing the doctor can give you to recover more quickly. With bacterial infections they can give you antibiotics, but with viruses it’s the old fashioned bed rest and fluids method. At least my immune system will be stronger at the end of it!

Mamma and I have been in the garden today a little. I still get floppy and tired after too much time doing, so I’m currently on a rest – but we’ve emptied the flower pots, and transplanted a couple of roses into new compost. We went to B and Q this afternoon and picked up some lovely plants to go in the pots, although mamma doesn’t want too many pots that she has to look after.

I also saw a good friend today, Mandibles. She came minus the baby, and had lunch with us. It was great to see her; she is a darling, and I’m so fond of her. She signed some of my paperwork for Norland to do with acquiring experience with newborns. She’s been spending the warm weather clearing her stables, and making progress at backing one of the horses (getting him ready for riding). She put a great photo up of the horse with his saddle on for the first time! Once he’s used to it she’ll start adding things like the stirrups, and so on.

There he is - doesn't he look good!

I came home to a beautiful gift from a family friend. She recently allowed me to make off with most of her baby yarn stash, and photocopies of some of her baby clothes patterns. Well, I came home to find a gift bag containing a baby clothes pattern book; a knitted toys pattern book; and the bits and bobs to create a knitted toy, too! How amazing, how brilliant! Totally unnecessary, but appreciated very much! I can see that it will come in very useful indeed!

I also received another lovely gift from a family friend, who had heard that I wasn't well, and so dropped by with a cheering up present! It came in a lovely, reusable bag made of all recycled materials...

And inside was this...

It's a thermo wheat pack, one of those wheat bags you put in the microwave to heat up! Isn't that sweet of her?! And it has lavender in there too, so when it's warm it should smell amazing and send me right off to sleep!

Well, I have a quilt block I want to do, and some more gardening, before I go tomorrow evening. So I better get on with it!

Love love xx

Back in bath, Church, Belated Christmas Present, Mini Mug Rugs?, A Lovely Year of Finishes

I'm back! I'm back in Bath, and tired with it. I arrived back late last night, having spent all day travelling. I managed to get plenty of reading done, though - I'm really enjoying The Shack Revisited, but it's hard to take in everything it's saying. I know it'll need re-reading a few times! But then, I found The Shack the same. Every time I read it I glean new meaning or understanding from it.

I went to Church this morning. I've missed it - it's been so long since I went. During the singing I felt sort of detached, and distant; but the sermon was really entertaining and full of messages. It was about John 15 - 'I am the true vine' and so on. I laughed a lot through it, but I felt like there were some really good messages.

I got to unwrap a lovely Christmas present from my parents today. I know, I know - awfully late for a Christmas present, but my mum brought it down for me before Christmas, so I couldn't open it until I got back, and I was too tired last night! It's a printer!! I'm especially glad, as it means now that I can do printing onto fabric whilst I'm here. Unfortunately the power cable that was meant to come with it - didn't. So I can't use it until my dad sends one down to me. But never mind!

So - you remember these mug rugs I made?

I have them with me in Bath, and I love them - they're so pretty and colourful! well, our landlady got us a new table for the kitchen, which is wood. It has a lovely feel to the wood and looks beautiful. But I have this aversion to putting any crockery straight down on it, as I worry that it will ruin the finish to it. So I've been using the mug rugs as placemats, and they work very well. They're just the right size for a bowl or plate. However, I have drinks with my meals. I've been using a second of these for my cup, but it seems oversized for just that. They're great for a mug and a snack, but just a mug? So I want to make a few coasters in the same style.

And one more thing: I joined a flickr group called A Lovely Year of Finishes. This means that I am aiming to complete at least one project per month for the next year. Well, since my other quilty projects that are unfinished are currently at my parents' house, I thought a collection of quilted coasters would be just the ticket! The challenge, of course, is that I don't have a sewing machine, which means I need to find time to use the one at 4DU - and when it's convenient for them! So that's my goal for January!



 Right - I'm off to bed. I have my first day back at College tomorrow, and a lot to do!

Love love xx

Journey to Bath, Chats with friends, 2 QATWII blocks, the Third Block, Packing

I'm headed back to Bath tomorrow! I'm looking forward to getting back very much. I've missed all the girls, and my church, and my life, really. I can't wait to go back and see the girls from 4DU (4 doors up), and catch up on their lives. I want to get back to my room, and sort all my stuff from my backpacks out. I want to really get my teeth into 2013, and it's felt so far like I'm holding back, waiting until I'm independent again. Tomorrow I have a long journey from Manchester to Bristol - 5 hours - and then I'll need to catch a train to Bath, and then a bus home. I have my new book from the wife to occupy me, so I should get through a lot of that. Knowing me, I'll probably sleep a lot as well. I fall asleep on transport really easily, which is always a source of great amusement to friends.

One of the 4DU girls has been quite down over Christmas. I think she's finding life hard to balance between Bath and her home. She doesn't feel able to just be herself at home without being judged; and she's missing a friend terribly who moved back to South Africa halfway through December. But I think the real problem is that she got to be so happy with the South African boy, because he made her feel like she was worth something. And normally I think she secretly has really low self-esteem and self-worth. So now that he's gone, she's back to feeling like that. And the way she feels judged at home - not by family, but by friends - just makes it worse. I'm looking forward to seeing her and chatting. I hope I can help. I love her very dearly, and I want her to be happy.

In the meantime, I've made 2 of the QATWII blocks I needed to make, and I have one left. I know what I'm doing, it's just a matter of cutting the pieces and sewing them together. here are the 2 I've done:

This one asked for bright, spring/summer colours, a white background and some kind of star preferably. I used this pattern tutorial from Crazy mom quilts. I changed the way the colours go, though, so that it looked really sunny and starry and... I dunno, I preferred it this way!






And then the second one:

Sorry - not a great picture, I know! This one I created myself. They asked for colours in the range used in their own starting square, and geometric blocks. At some point I will put up the measurements and some pictures of how this one goes together - it's really simple actually. Lining up the diagonals felt scary but turned out to be really easy-peasy!


So those are the 2 I've done, so I have one more to do. It's based on a block pattern I saw on Quilter's Cache, but I've scaled it up to the right size. I know which fabrics I'm using and where, so I really do just need to cut them out and sew them! Pictures will follow at some point.

I have to get back to packing now. I'm really tired, but I know I'll run out of time tomorrow if I'm not careful. So the next time I post I will be in Bath!

Love love xx

Long Post, Letter Writing Paper and a Seal, the Wife's Birthday Gifts, QATWII Latest Block, A Baby Blanket and a Broken Knitting Needle

I did promise an update, didn't I? (Be warned: this is a loong post!)

So, I've spent some time this week writing letters to various people - the wife, EH, and the wife's friend by weird circumstances. I really love writing letters, I have some gorgeous writing paper! Want to see? Of course you do!

There's this one - not my favourite, but nothing wrong with it, and it was good quality and a good price. It is quite pretty, just nothing majorly special. It was from paperchase, like a lot of my letter writing paper!

Then there are these 3, also all from paperchase. The far left has birds on it, the middle buses and the far right butterflies. I really like these. The butterflies are my most recent purchase of letter writing paper, and I love them. But I'm particularly fond of the buses, because they're so quirky and fun! Want to see the backs of them, too?

Fun, right? Of course, I say the back, but other than the butterflies, this is the writing sides of them! You can't see it, but the bird paper has a faint pattern of leaves drawn on it.





None of them are lined, which is a little frustrating for someone like me who can't write in a straight line. But I made myself a guideline sheet which I paperclip underneath, and that works fine. I only use one sheet per letter, too. If I run out of room - which I often do! - I have some packs of double-sided lined A5 paper which I use. this way my writing paper lasts longer, I don't end up with lots of excess envelopes, and I save some money!

And finally, I have:

The colour hasn't shown up too well on this, but it's a very pale sort of turquoise which is really pretty. I love love love this! The birds are beautiful, and both sides of the paper can be used. Like the others, it has decorated address labels with it, and this one has some stickers for sealing down the envelope.





I like my letters to be as pretty as possible - I like pretty things! And a lovely friend of mine, EH, gave me a gorgeous wax seal for sealing my letters which I adore:

 I use it on pretty much all my letters. Sometimes the seals survive the postal system; sometimes they don't. I don't tend to find out if they have or not, but EH has let me know on occasion. You can see here it's actually lying upside down. But it's fairly simple, but lovely!




I do love receiving snail mail from friends. Email just doesn't compare; you don't usually get warm fuzzies when you see that you have a new email. But seeing that letter posted through the door and knowing a bit of your friend's personality and affection is inside is just lovely!

Another thing that happened recently is the wife's birthday - Happy Birthday, wifey! She finally opened my gifts to her today, and loved them! I never showed you the card I made, did I?

Again, see how I matched it to the gift-wrapping? I like to keep a theme running through...

 ... And on the envelope, too. Yes, I do have a stamp which says 'wife' on it. And yes, I did use it as the only identifier on the envelope. The wife would know it instantly!







 Okay, okay! And one last photo of the card with the gifts!

Pretty, no? The wife opened them this evening, and spent a little time looking through the contents, which were:

 The Bloggess' memoir, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. It's an amazing book, really hilarious. And since the wife and I both enjoy the blog, I thought what better gift to give her?










But then opportunity presented itself. When I visited the wife in May, we went on a day trip to durham, and whilst we were there we found this little shop tucked away, which looked like someone had lifted the roof of it off and poured in all the contents from 3 1950's houses. But in the window of the shop was this:

That's a taxidermied cat, people. For people unfamiliar with the bloggess, she collects various taxidermied animals, especially ones in clothes. Well, this cat had gold-tipped fangs, false eyelashes and earrings in. Not exactly clothes, but kind of awesome in a creepy way anyway. So we snapped this photo of it and then I emailed it to the Bloggess, who has a fairy godmother to take care of her emails and stuff. Her fairy godmother emailed me back, really sweetly too !), and offered me a signed book plate for my copy of the book. Then I emailed her being really rude and asked for 2. She was lovely enough to oblige, and so the copy of The Bloggess' book for the wife became a little bit more special, being a signed copy now!

I also wrote a message to the wife on this page, but I'm not going to show you that - it was personal, and none of your business!








I also bought her this:

Awesome, huh? I chose this book specifically, because faith is very important to the wife and me, and it's something we share. So it felt fitting to get her the book themed around faith a little.







But THEN another opportunity presented itself. Crazy, huh? I mean, I got the wife the Bloggess' book, and then the opportunity to put a signed book plate in it came along. And I got the wife a Postsecret book, and then... Frank announced that he was doing a tour in the UK. Something I don't think he's EVER DONE BEFORE!! I wasn't sure how long the tickets would last before they were all sold out, so I had to make a quick decision. I bought. 2. Tickets. Really!! I wrote a message in the front of this book too; but then I also wrote a tiny note in the back of this one, inviting the wife to come to Postsecret with me. She didn't notice it at first. But then when she read it, she looked shocked, then held up the book to the webcam to show me, then said, and I quote, "Are you JOSHING me?! is this real? Seriously?!" And I said that no, I wasn't joshing her, and yes it was seriously real, and then she looked at her calendar to find the dates and found where I'd written over those dates to mark them off her calendar already, without her knowing. And she freaked in a hazy excited joyful whirlwind, and we laughed and smiled and life was super sweet!

So, did you manage that saga? Still with me? because I have just a couple more things to show you. First is my latest block for the QATWII:

Do you like it? It wasn't actually too challenging once I worked out what I wanted to do. I found the pattern on the Quilter's Cache.

And here it is with the other blocks made so far for this quilt. I just hope the recipient likes it! I have yet to put it up on flickr - that's tomorrow's job!








And I had a minor disaster this week. I was knitting this baby blanket I've been making for a friend, which I've been working on for rather a while now. I tend to warp my needles rather a lot - I don't know if it's my tension, or what. But this happened:

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a bamboo knitting needle snapped in half. And I don't happen to carry spares in every size imaginable. Fortunately the pattern and yarn are very forgiving, so I simply switched up half a size; and so far, I can't see where the change happened. Would you like a sneak peek at the blanket? The pattern is free from Ravelry, and in due course I will of course credit the designer. But for now you'll have to content yourself with a peek at a corner of it!

 

My friend knows what sex the baby is, but is currently keeping it to herself. So I'm hoping this lovely light green will seem neutral enough. It's certainly pretty - at least, I think so, anyway! I hope she likes it!







And... I think that's just about all! I did go on a 2-hour walk today, to a nature park place near my house called the Flash. But otherwise, apart from cooking supper a lot, that's all there is to my week! Oh - I did work 2 days, and they were fine. Fairly unremarkable, usual fun to be had with lookign after a 3-year old and 6-year old.

Love love xx

Mug Rugs, Pyjamas, Apron, Biscuits and a Book and a Booking

So I know I said I would update yesterday, but the male members of my family decided yesterday was the day to fool around with the internet connection in the house, so I was unable to!

So over the past week I've been making these things called mug rugs - about the size of a placemat and made like a miniature quilt, they're big enough to put a mug and a biscuit on at the same time, for cozy afternoons on the sofa with a good book or some knitting! I invented the design myself, which I'm rather chuffed about; and I will be making another post at some point as a sort of tutorial for making it. It may not be so great, though, since I've never actually done a tutorial before. But that will come later at some point. Anywho, would you like to see the four mug rugs I've made so far? Of course you do!






Don't you think they're pretty?! I'm kind of in love with them, even if I do say so myself!

Aand a little bit closer! They're all the same design, but I put the mug in a different place for each of them  for fun. And the backs are all rather pretty fabrics - but I don't have a picture of them right now, I'm afraid!








As I said, a tutorial on making those will come soon. Another thing I did this past week was to make myself some pyjama trousers. They're cotton and lightweight, and very comfortable:

 Isn't the fabric lovely?! And yes, those are gigantic cuffs on them! They have a sort of yoke at the top too made from the same fabric. And they're zipped, instead of gathered elastic. Now all I have to do is to make the top to go with them! I know what I'm doing, and I have two fabrics to choose between. But it's a pattern that can be worn during the day, so maybe I'll use the other fabric to make a top for during the day!




And the last thing I made this last week was my apron for college. I don't know if I mentioned at any point, I'm going to university to train to be a nanny? So we're required to bring an apron, presumably for cooking. This is mine:

 It's a sort of cotton canvas material, and my mum and I worked out the pattern between us. It's pretty basic, but has a pleated skirt. Hopefully this fabric won't show the stains too much!






And that's what I've been doing! I also baked some yummy biscuits, and read The Railway Children. I saw the wife for a few hours on Thursday. She's gone back up to Newcastle today, and her volunteering starts tomorrow. The next time I see her will be mid-August, when we're going to London to see Les Mis. Yes, we've timed it to be between the Olympics and the Paralympics. We originally did this so that accommodation would be cheaper, but then a friend with a flat in London has offered it to us as a place to stay. I haven't cancelled our bought accommodation yet, just in case he flakes out, because I don't entirely trust him. But when I originally booked it I paid the extra pound for insurance on cancelling, so I can cancel up until noon of the day of check-in and still get my money back. And then I won't see the wife again until Christmas, most likely! But there we go.

I'll try to write this tutorial tomorrow, but no promises. Until then - !

Love love xx

A Day's Work, Canvas Crayon Crafting, A Broken Rotary Cutter and a Signature Block

So today I slept in, and then read for a while. Then I got up, ate, hoovered upstairs and down, put laundry through and made broccoli and stilton soup for supper. and I finally got round to finishing one of my canvasses:

You like? I like! I'm pretty darn happy with it! I know, these kind of things have been going round the internets for a while; mine is nothing special. But it is to me! I chose the image carefully, drew it out on paper first, then copied it onto the canvas. Then I bought absolutely loads of crayons, chose which colours I wanted, tested each crayon and sorted them by shades. The remaining crayons got turned into the toddler's birthday gift. These ones got glued onto the top of the canvas with a glue gun. Then I used the craft heating thingy to melt the crayons. Most people recommended using a hairdryer to melt the crayons, and reckoned on it taking about 15 minutes per section. But the heat thing was actually really quick; and I kept it moving steadily, rather than in sections so much. I guess it divided roughly into 5 sections? But it took almost no time at all. The crayons melted quickly, then it was just a matter of moving the heater around to mix the colours and spread them. I also followed some of the wax runs down with it too, to get rid of lumps. And I used cardboard curved round and held in place with masking tape at a sharp angle to protect the umbrella from wax:




you see? The wax just ran round it and down!

And that was basically it! Once the wax had solidified a little I removed the card from the canvas, then melted the wax just a little round the umbrella to soften any lumps.

I love the silhouetted figure. I always imagine she looks so happy, dancing in the rain with her brolly!








The other thing I did this evening was to make the signature block for Kettleboiler's quilt. But I had a mishap part-way through making it:

 It wasn't me, guv, I swear it just fell off in my hand! That snapped off piece is the toggle you press to snap the blade back in. Thankfully if you dig your nail into where it used to sit you can still pop the blade in; but it's not as easy!

I did, however, finish my siggy block:

 Sorry, I know the picture quality isn't great. the teal fabric is really resistant to photography! But I think it'll do - I sure hope so!

That's all for today. Tomorrow I'll hopefully get some of the quilting things sent off in the post, and get some letter writing done too. I'd also like to make a start on these pyjamas I've been wanting to get on with for ages; or perhaps my apron for Norland!

Love love xx

Improv block, Blondies Recipe

I made a block today for a lovely lady on flickr, Marika. She asked for people to make her some improv blocks in greys and aquas with a hint of yellow and modern prints. This is something I've never done before, but I wanted to have a go, especially as she's going to turn these blocks into a quilt for a blogger she reads who's going through a hard time. The story is really touching, particularly now, watching how so many strangers over the internet have donated in some way - money, quilting, or kind comments. So here's my block for Marika to send on:

What do you think? Reckon it's okay? I hope so, but I'm not sure - I've never done anything like this before, so it might be terrible and not at all what she's looking for. I'm about to put it up on flickr and find out!

The other thing I did today was to make blondies. I just took our usual brownie recipe and used white chocolate instead of dark. Here's how they turned out:

Pretty yummy-looking, huh? It came out just how I love my brownies - gooey! I particularly like gooey, sticky brownies rather than cakey ones. You want the recipe?









Okay:

4 oz butter
4 oz white chocolate
8 oz caster sugar
2 eggs
4 oz plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 200 degrees c, if fan 180 degrees c, if gas mark 4
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a double boiler.
Add the sugar and stir it through. If you want crunchy brownies, move onto the next step. If you want them smooth, stir it a little more until the sugar is more dissolved.
Take off the heat and stir the eggs through one at a time with a spoonful of the flour.
Stir the remaining flour, baking powder and salt in.
Pour into a small, deep dish and stick in the oven for 25 minutes or so.
Remove. Slice. Eat straightaway. Enjoy that chewy goodness!

Love love xx

PS. There's a huge giveaway going on at It's Sew Kiki's blog - like, majorly huge. Head over and check it out!

A Full Day's Work for a Toddler's Birthday, Quilt and Bed

Well, I did not achieve nearly as much as I had planned. Mainly because making the toddler's birthday present has taken me all day. it took me all afternoon just to peel the paper off the crayons; there was enough of it to fill my bin:




 Peeling crayons? So not fun. Plus, it's left me with sore fingertips from digging my nails underneath paper.











And that's not to mention the amount of time I spent sorting and organising the crayons according to colour and shade. The colour they look like on the outside is not the colour they colour in necessarily. Which means every colour had to be checked on paper.









Then they all had to be chopped up into tiny pieces. At first I tried using a sharpener, thinking that I would get a quicker melt that way and was therefore being smart. Turns out not, as the crayons kept gumming up my sharpener, and the shavings melted down into miniscule amounts. So I chopped the crayons after the tester one failed. The paper towel helped stop the shards of crayon from escaping.





See how awesome that looks?! I got about 13 tubs like this, all with different colours and shades in. Each got tipped into a heart-shaped silicone cupcake mold and stuck in the oven at 130 degrees c for about 20 minutes. Then they got pulled out, a skewer prodded around in each to ensure full melting and left to cool. They take about 45 minutes to an hour to cool and solidify enough to pop them out of the molds.

 And voila! Cute heart-shaped crayons, big enough for any toddler to hold, and impervious to the destruction that felt tips or narrow crayons suffer! And therefore totally worth the day's work they took, and my fingernails and so on. All effort completely worth it, as far as I'm concerned!

 The marbling is less obvious in these photos as it is in real life. I will put up a picture or two tomorrow with them all on, since a lot of them are still cooling.

Aside from that, I found the photos I'm going to use in my quilt blocks. I did not modify my top, or do any knitting, or get out for a walk. But I got the most urgent job done. the toddler can now happily turn 3 next Sunday with no worries on my part about finishing her present! And with that, I'm going to bed!

Love love xx

Creme Caramel, Reading, Birthdays and Tank Engines, Plans for Tomorrow Include a Walk - I hope

I made crème caramel today at the grandparents. Wanna see? I made five of them, but brought three home:

 See how delightful they are?!

And up close... so pale, if a little wrinkly!

And when you break in, there's all that deliciously perfect caramel goodness. Yes, they tasted amazing! I've never made it before, but the recipe was pretty simple and worked very easily. there was some fun in pouring the caramel into the ramekins, as it cooled a lot and so started to solidify;; which meant that I ended up with some spun sugar strands as well between the scraper and ramekin! They tasted pretty awesome.



I also find time to read a lot more of Atonement. I'm actually rather enjoying it, despite the negative story plot. The writing style is simple and very human. I haven't seen the film at all yet, but maybe once I've finished the book I'll buy it from the store or something. It is pretty cheap by now, after all.

I started making the birthday present for my toddler this afternoon. I'm planning to melt down lots of crayons I have no use for into new bigger, heart-shaped, easy to hold crayons for this little girl who dries and squashes pen nibs and gets easily covered in the crayon wax from her messy, liquid-y wind-up crayons. Hopefully these new crayons which are a rather solid wax and high-quality and easier to hold will be better for her new interest in drawing. So far I've just peeled the paper off a few. So tomorrow I'll be chopping them up and then melting them in the mold. I just have to remember to make sure there's a 'Thomas the Tank Engine blue' in there for her!

Aside from that, I want to adjust a top to fit me; and sort out the last blocks for the quilt I've been making since forever! I want there to be photos on the last five blocks, so I need to decide what patterns I'm doing, and therefore where I can have photos; and then I need to choose the actual photos. It's going to be tough - there are so many I could include...! And I want to fit a walk in as well... I'm never going to manage to do everything, am I? Ah well, I can aspire to do it all! Wish me luck!

Love love xx