a nice cup of tea cheers you up

Not that I need much cheering up right now, mind you, but this has been a rather tea-related week. I finished the stripey knitted tea cosy I'd been making for a friend, and I have to say it really is quite adorable, I almost couldn't give it away. Another one needed soon I think, I enjoyed making it, it was easy, fun, simple to do in front of a film, stripey, squishy, and the end product is fun and cheery - all good ingredients for a knitting project in my book! The pattern was a really simple old pattern for 'Three Tea Cosies made from Copley's "Speedinit" Wool' (price 2d if that gives you a clue to how old it is!), and the pom pom? Well, that page of the pattern had fallen off, so we had to do some good, old fashioned googling to figure out the finer details. All good stuff.

Anyway, all the thinking about tea, and the fact that I didn't get round to making hot cross buns, inspired a kind of spicy-cinnamony-bread-roll thing last Monday, and very nice it was too. Just a plain white bread recipe which I've been making a lot of lately, then I heated a bit of water, sugar and spices in a pan, rolled out the dough, spread over the mixture and a handful of sultanas, rolled up, and spread the rest of the mix on the top. Wasn't too sweet, and went very nicely indeed with a cuppa.

That last picture has nothing to do with anything really, it just was a Very Nice Cup of Tea in a cafe in Hebden Bridge last weekend. The kind of cafe where all the mugs are different, tea is 70p, no fancy pastries or tablecloths. Perfect.

I'm looking forward to an extremely leisurely, pottering couple of days this weekend, this week I seem to have been jumping from one thing to another, so I'm planning on a bit of gardening, sewing, finishing off work on my voluntary project, catching up on emails, a bit of cleaning and tidying (but not much), and a fair bit of general loafing around. I might even get chance to do a bit of a gardening update too.

Nearly there...

Well, get this, we can't find the Christmas tree. Yep, we've lost the Christmas tree. The plastic Christmas tree that's older than me, and has been up ever year for as long as I can remember. I can't decide if I eventually managed to get rid of it in last year's attempt at purging the house of 'stuff' (hmm), or if it's just hiding somewhere.

So instead, we have Mystic Branch. We had Mystic Branch in the kitchen last year, as well as the Christmas tree, but the kitchen Mystic Branch never got taken down, and I wanted to put something new up. So now the living room has its own Mystic Branch. And very lovely it is too.

Other than decorating, it's been a busy week (I should stop saying that, I seem to say it every week, this must just be normal!). I popped over on the train to see my sister and her family. We had a cold walk along the sea front. I love living in the hills, but oh, how I wish sometimes I could transplant this entire city to the seaside! It was good to have a bit of sea air. And to see everyone, of course.

I managed to get a bit of crocheting in on the train. I LOVE crocheting on the train, it's so practical, you can stare out of the window at the same time, it's not all elbows like knitting, and if you drop it all, you can just pick it up again without losing all your stitches. Very good.

Anyway, I carried on and made more flowers. I'm very taken with these little flowers (and they matched my skirt nicely!)

I even managed to turn a few of them into something when I got home, although you can't see it properly as it might just end up as a present...

So, there's been decorations, a bit of visiting, a bit of present making, and even some cards. I don't think I've got round to sending Christmas cards for, oh, probably years. Of course, these ones haven't actually left the house yet, but they are still made.

I went for simple and easy, no point making life more difficult!

And last night? SNOW! I had to cycle in it, and was rather inclined to be grumpy about it, worrying that it would still be here on Monday, and my boss would want me to drive in it... But I've decided to take my own advice, worry about that if it happens, and get on with being childishly excited that it's nearly Christmas and it's snowing!

Being organised

I knitted a dishcloth! I love knitting, and I've knitted some presents recently with thick, bobbly wool. When I got a couple of balls of cotton yarn for my birthday, I planned to make a few dishcloths. I'd forgotten how nice it was to knit with thin soft yarn! 

I used the waffle knit pattern from the Homespun Living blog. It was really rather easy - I think the main pattern is called sailor's rib. It's actually green with a yellow stripe - the picture makes it look blue. 

If you look closely, you can see I've managed to add an extra stitch to a row near the beginning and shift the whole pattern sideways a bit :) But progress not perfection and all that. It took me probably about 3 hours in total, mostly while I was watching a film (a subtitled film! Hardly ideal when trying to follow a knitting pattern for the first time...). I'm going to try another one soon with a different pattern.

Tonight I've also been working on well, I'm not sure what to call it. I started it based on Flylady's control journal. Rhonda Jean also talks about a home management journal - it's essentially a similar thing - a place to keep routines, recipes, cleaning tips, plans and projects all in one place. Mine is fairly basic, and I've tried to not get hung up on making it look pretty. 

At the beginning I have a plan of things to do this month, split into PhD, work, house, garden, and money. This changes over the months, not all of them will have a big money section, for example, and I'm looking forward to the month when there's no PhD section... :) I've got deadline dates for each goal, and the colours correspond to the week things need doing. I've noticed I've only managed to tick one thing off so far - oops!

The rest of the folder is split into sections - home, food, garden, money, presents, and contacts. Again, things will be added to this as I go along, this is just what's useful to me right now. 

There's not much in the food section yet, just a shopping list, meal plan, and recipes for yogurt and quark, together with how they've worked (not very well so far!)

The garden section has a list of what needs planting in which month - although I haven't yet made a list of what I've actually planted and when. Probably should do that soon. It has a couple of pictures in of things I'd like to have a go at one day.

The presents section is again quite small, but hopefully it'll grow. I'm trying to make all birthday and Christmas presents this year, and not doing too badly so far. This very rough list is from a whizz round a few websites before last Christmas - some of these ended up as presents, and some might do in the future. At some point I'll make a list of planned presents for each person's birthday so I can start making them in advance, rather than a couple of days before. 

So, has it helped me be more organised? Yes! I'm trying to get everything in one place that I need in the quest for this cheap and cheerful, home made life :) It keeps growing and changing and developing over the months, and has already moved from an A5 to A4 binder. It lives on the kitchen table, so I can refer to it when I want to make soap, or a shopping list, or a birthday present. It's a great idea, one that I certainly didn't make up, and there's some fab ones out there on the internet to have a look at. 

Fabric covered books

It's been a nice bank holiday today, pottering and PhD-ing, and visiting a friend's art exhibition.

We covered these notebooks with some fabric from the stash. The fabric is just glued on with PVA glue, and they've turned out nicely.

I quite often end up with loads of notebooks lying around.... Some get a bit old and tatty looking before I've even managed to use them! So I'm glad that we've had a go at covering them, because it's a great way of using up odds and ends of material. It's the first matching skirt-and-notebook set I've ever owned! :) I'm planning to cover my diary and a couple of A4 ring binders tonight too.

Peter made yorkshire puddings earlier, and knowing how much of a sweet tooth I have, made a few sweet minipuddings with mixed fruit in. They were lovely with a nice cup of tea, and very quick to make.

There's one left, which I'm going to try to take to work with me tomorrow. Not sure it'll last that long though...

Crafts

On Saturday we had a bit of a charity shop tour, and found a stack of "Golden Hands Encyclopedia of Crafts" magazine from 1975. They were 10p each, so we bought a few issues.

This copy has very simple instructions for making full and half circle skirts. On my birthday day out to York yesterday, we found a colourful swirly quilt cover, that I'm going to make into a fabulous full length, full circle skirt :) Pictures to follow, of course. 

My current favourite item from the magazines is this gorgeous quilted bedspread. It looks so warm and cosy! And the colours are fab too! 

I couldn't resist posting this picture too - look at this knitted belt and sash :) 

 

Inspired by the sewing and craft ideas, I bought this top in a charity shop for £1. It's a bit too big, but I thought I might be able to alter it, or chop it up and make a new top out of it. I love the pattern.

My plan went slightly wrong... and now I have lots of probably quite useless pieces. But I will persevere when I get another hour or so, and if all else fails I'll cut it up smaller and make it into a bag. Waste not, want not and all that...