Christmas Knitting

I have started getting ready for Christmas, or at least starting to make some Christmas outfits. I felt quite merry yesterday knitting these little things, even if it was nearly 80 degrees outside. I had thought about putting some Christmas music on just for some extra inspiration, but I didn't want hubby coming home thinking I had really gone crazy!Our wonderful hanging flower basket at the front of the house is still going strong, some of the flowers just about touch the ground now, it is hard to believe that it has been hanging there since the beginning of May, the fun part is trying to take it down when it has finished blooming, it is extremely heavy, thank goodness for hubby's!Although Autumn is my favorite time of year I sure don't like the spiders that seem to appear every year. It is not the first time while walking out in the garden that I have gone face first into a cobweb, after trying to wipe it away your next thought, rather quickly I might add is...where is the spider! It usually involves a quick trip indoors to check your self in the mirror just to make sure that you don't have a passenger taking a free ride on you! So now when I go out, if I remember, I do what we call the Washington wave...waving your arms back and forth in front of you just to make sure there is no cobweb in your path. I had a chuckle the other day as my neighbor was in her garden doing the same wave, so if ever you visit us here in Washington during Autumn you will either think us very friendly because we "wave" a lot or that we are all having some kind of a fit!

Have a lovely Tuesday!

Harvesting

What a wonderful weekend to do yard work, the sun shone and the temperatures were perfect!

First we harvested some grapes from our "vineyard", well one grape plant actually, but a girl can dream. My husband did a little grouping of all things wine and took the lovely pic above. Alas, the wine was bought but the little grapes are all ours, this is the first year that we have gotten grapes from our little vine, delicious they are to.Here is a closer view, there are still quite a lot more left for picking, it is nice that they are ripening off little by little.The sky was quite beautiful, all fluffy like cotton balls floating by.The trees are starting to turn the most wonderful colors, these were not far from our house and were just begging to be photographed.

Yes indeed it was a lovely weekend, hope yours was as wonderful.

Natasha

Natasha and I would like to wish everyone a very lovely weekend.

On the mend

Well my yucky cold is feeling quite a bit better today thanks in part to this lovely tea and some wonderful Oatmeal Raisin cookies that my lovely neighbor Annette made.
Yesterday wasn't a complete wash out, I did some more sewing and knitting, checked on my grapes in the garden, some are sweet but most a still sour, now it is a race against time to see what will come first, frosty weather or ripened grapes. It was 36 degrees here yesterday morning when we woke up so it is definitely getting colder.My lovely Birthday Orchid is blooming once again, I received this orchid a couple of years ago from my neighbor Annette,(don't I have the best neighbor)it only blooms once a year right around my Birthday, for the rest of the year it doesn't do much of anything, but around my Birthday it just springs to life and the blossoms usually lasts for about a couple of months or so, it was, and is one of my favorite gifts.

My goodness it is Thursday already, where has this week gone, I hope you are enjoying it so far.

Mindy

I wasn't going to post today as I am a bit under the weather with a yucky cold, but I will be back to my old self in no time.

I did however want to show off Mindy, I finished her yesterday just before dinner.

Hope everyone is having a lovely Tuesday.

Baking and Buying

When I don't feel like sewing, and the weather is not so great for gardening, then my next two things that I love are baking and buying!

I chickened out on making the Lavender Scones and made good old Chocolate Cupcakes with pale pink butter cream frosting instead, they went down a treat with afternoon tea, I even shared with my neighbor Annette, we quite often share home baked goodies.I have used quite often on my blog some of my husband's wonderful photo's, now I have them in cards, we ordered them a couple of weeks ago and they came on Friday. We are so pleased with the quality of the cards, I definitely will be ordering more.Of course while I was in a buying mood I had to include either yarn or fabric, this time it was fabric, some soft paler shades........and some bold vibrant Christmas ones, and to top it all off.......some wonderful ribbon from Costco, at $6.99 for 50 yards it is a bargain, I usually buy a couple of rolls every year to add to my stash, yes, I have a ribbon stash, please tell me that I am not the only one!

So that is what I did this weekend, what did you all get up to?

No Knitting, No Sewing just Baking!

I have decided that today is going to be a baking day for me, so I pulled out my trusty English baking bowls, that I lugged in my suitcase all the way from England, many, many years ago. Of course you can now buy them here, I have seen them in quite a few kitchen shops.

My mother and grandmother always used bowls like these whenever they did their baking, I think you could probably find them in the kitchen of most English homes.
I remember being in the kitchen at my grandmother's home when she was cake baking asking could I lick the frosting from the bowl when she had finished frosting the cake, she of course always let me, I seem to remember that she left a lot more frosting in there than my mother ever did...don't you just love grandmother's!I am going to make something from this lovely little cookbook, I actually found it on clearance in the book store a while back.
I think I would trade my daughter for a set of the dishes on the front cover....just kidding (I forgot that she reads my blog). They are beautiful though, don't they just scream out for a tea party in the garden.I haven't decided what recipe from the book that I am going to make yet, here is one for lavender scones, now I know what some of you are thinking....yuck lavender in scones, but don't knock it, I have been very surprised as of late how lovely things taste with lavender in them, especially ice cream, it's yummy.

Well my husband is off tomorrow, so that's it for this week, see you all on the other side of the weekend.

Ladybug, ladybug fly away home....

This little sweater will be flying to my daughters home! Our daughter has her own business called Ladybug Web Design, so as you can probably guess she likes ladybugs, now all I have to do is make a little someone to go inside it.I made one more little Halloween sweater, this one has a bat on the front, now I am really buckling down and getting serious about Christmas little ones for my Etsy shop.I have made a little start with this little snowflake sweater, but I am still working the bugs out of the pattern, hopefully soon I will get it just right.

A package came in the mail yesterday all the way from Australia, I had ordered some yummy yarn about two weeks ago.I couldn't help thinking as I piled it in the bowl to photograph it that it looked like a big bowl of sherbet ice cream, the colors are so yummy and it is incredibly soft, I can hardly wait to knit with it.

For quite a while I have been wanting to make a bunny little one, I thought it would be as easy as pie....boy was I wrong! I can't tell you how many little bunny heads are rolling around in my sewing room, at times it looks quite gruesome!
So far this is what I have come up with,I am still not really happy with it but I think it is getting there.

Well now I am off to make a big pot of soup, even though it is going to be 85 here today I am still craving a lovely big bowl of homemade soup.

Gardening and a Birthday Party!

We were quite busy this weekend, I had my hair trimmed, instead of the usual six weeks I pushed it to seven, won't do that again as I battled with my hair all last week.

We worked in the garden quite a bit tidying up and pruning, the garden is already starting to go to sleep, the flower above is usually one of the last to bloom, it is actually a bulb and it is very sweet and pretty, I haven't the foggiest what the name of it is though.Then it was time to do the annual cleaning out of the nesting boxes.This one was crammed full of twigs, dried grass and lots of lovely white fluffy feathers, there was even a little broken white egg still inside, I am pretty sure it was lovely and cosy for the little baby birds.We even had a tiny little frog watching while we were cleaning out the box, I haven't seen to many of them lately.

Now I have saved the best for last, my neighbor Annette invited us to a lovely Birthday Party, it was for her dear mother Bea who turned 90 on Saturday.Here she is blowing out her candles on her cake.It was a delicious cake and a good time was had by all, I hope I look half as good and that my mind is half as sharp when I am 90! Wonder if I'll still be making mice and ellie's!

Well needless to say not much sewing was done this weekend, I hope you all had a lovely weekend like I did!

Boo!

Jamie loves wearing his Halloween sweater, he is a little early this year but he loves to say Boo! to everybody.

What a glorious day we have had today here in the Pacific Northwest, I almost feel a little guilty enjoying it so much when all the poor people in Texas are waiting anxiously for an awful hurricane to come ashore, lets hope that it won't be as bad as they predict. A special greeting to my friend Anne who lives in Texas, to stay safe and that I am thinking about you and your family.

Quite a few of you expressed interest in wanting the recipe for the plum cake that I had on my blog just a short while ago, sorry it took so long but here it is.

Veronika's German Plum Cake


Approximately 35 Italian plums, pitted and sliced in half.
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 Cup plus 2 tbls sugar
1 egg
1/4 tsp lemon juice
Pinch of salt
2 cups flour
3(level) tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cold milk
2tbls sliced or slivered almonds
1 (level) tbls dried tapioca

Beat butter, sugar and egg until creamy.
Add lemon juice.
Sift together salt, flour and baking powder and add to batter mixture. Add milk and mix.
Grease an approximately 11" Springform pan and spread dough evenly on bottom only.
Sprinkle tapioca evenly over dough.
Place plums close together (around wall of Springform first) in circle fashion until form is filled.
Evenly sprinkle the almonds over the top of the plums.
Bake in 350-degree oven for about 50-60 minutes (possibly longer).

Remove cake from oven and let cool for 5-minutes. Sprinkle the cake with two tbls of sugar.
Cake is best eaten the first day, and is very delicious with lots of whipped cream!

Hope you all enjoy, and I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Ready for Autumn

Joey the little elephant loves Autumn, especially raking leaves and eating pumpkin pie!

Even though it is still officially summer my body is already in the Autumn mode, I am craving heartier dishes and pies. I think Autumn is my favorite season, I love Autumn colors in the garden and even in my clothing. I don't think I would do very well living somewhere that didn't have the four seasons. I think I have an Autumn brain, it is harder for me to come up with creative ideas in the summer but so much easier in the Autumn, then the ideas just overflow.I am having the best time knitting these little sweaters, it's fun to come up with all kinds of new designs, and it is a great way to practice new knitting skills.My husband took some more photo's over the weekend so I thought I'd share. This picture of a lovely tree with peeling bark is one of my favorites, I love how the sun shines through it. For some reason I really wanted to peel some of the bark....but I didn't, I am one of those people that can't stand to see loose ends, I always want to fix them!Doesn't the color of this flower just scream Autumn, I think it is so lovely and rich looking.....hmmm it's just given me an idea for another sweater!

Anyone else craving Autumn, or is it just me?

The Goofy Gang!

Meet Percival Brappleberry, Melvin Twiddlebritches and Duncan Dillywop!
New little mice that came together this weekend, I affectionally call them the "Goofy Gang." I had made these little sweaters a couple of weeks ago and knew that they were perfect for these three little mice.Well things are looking up, not only are my tomatoes ripening off nicely, it looks like my grapes are to. I can hardly wait to try some of these little goodies.The mailman brought me a wonderful surprise on Friday, a "just because gift" from my sweet daughter, and inside was..........all these lovely things, two pairs of aloe infused socks for my tootsies, a lovely little book written especially for someone who knits, and of course some delicious chocolate....she knows me so well, thank you angel.

I had a lovely weekend, I hope you did too!

Cross stitch

I used to cross stitch, in fact I did it a lot and I really enjoyed it. Then I made this pillow and that was the end of my cross stitching days!
Halfway through making this pillow I was so fed up with so many thread changes that I thought I would lose my mind....maybe I did! Anyway, this pillow was my last thing that I ever cross stitched, it took me almost a year to complete, and I was overjoyed when the last stitch was made. So to all you cross stitchers out there you have my admiration, you sure have a lot more patience than I have.Yummy, my lovely mother-in-law has been baking again, this time it is a lovely plum cake made with fresh plums, I have two pieces in my fridge that will be gone this afternoon with a lovely cup of tea, I can hardly wait, here is a close up pic so you can really see how yummy it really is.
I mentioned in an earlier post that my brother-in-law was going to open up an Etsy store, well I am pleased to say that he is up and running, click on this link Creations By David and you will be able to see all of his fabulous things.

Well that is it for me again this week, I enjoyed the three day weekend that we had last weekend so much that I'm am going to take another one...greedy me!

See you all next week.

Molly

Little Molly in her lilac and white striped knitted dress.It started off a little chilly here today, there is definitely a change in the air, I even had the heat on for a short while this morning, just long enough to take the chill away. But by the afternoon the sun was out and it warmed up quite nicely.My dear friend Cindy sent me a photo of a lovely tree skirt that she made for Halloween, and she graciously let me post it on my blog, I think she did an amazing job, I want to go to her house for Halloween or any other holiday for that matter, she decorates so beautifully.My roses are still blooming there little hearts out, although I think this will be the last of them for this year, they really performed spectacularly, with very little care, not even greenfly bothered them.

Now that little Molly is finished it's back to coming up with some new ideas, I probably should get my brain in gear and get started on some Christmas things, or at least some little animals dressed for Christmas. I noticed in my mail today that there were a couple of catalogs already with Christmas things for sale, they seem to be getting earlier and earlier every year, and I seem to be starting later and later every year!

Enjoy your Wednesday!

At Last!

For the last two weeks I have been watching this lovely tomato turn from yellow to orange and then to this luscious red color. On Sunday morning it was just perfect for picking, which is what I did and my husband and I shared this together for lunch...and delicious it was to, now if the other fifty or so will hurry up and ripen, then we will be in great shape!I finally finished this special order little ballerina mouse, I think she turned out really well, and I am very pleased with her. I think the touch of black looks very striking against the softness of the white.Our dear little hummingbirds are still buzzing around the garden, my husband captured this one while he was taking a rest in one of our trees.We also spotted this lovely little bird coming to our pond for a drink, I was amazed that my husband was able to get a photo of him as he was very nervous and shy, and left soon after he arrived.

It was a lovely long holiday weekend for us but now it is over and the work week begins again, so it's back to the sewing room for me.

A good Tuesday to all!