Aprons and Silver Spoons

The other day, whilst lighting the fire, I imagined myself as a housemaid in a 1900s London house preparing the fire for the mistress of the house whilst she slept and I crept around doing my chores - as I'm sure many others do too!

This week, while shopping, I happened to find myself in the book aisle of my local supermarket and my eyes fell on this beautiful book.  It's called Aprons and Silver Spoons by Mollie Moran and is all about the life of a kitchen maid in the 1930s.  Well fancy!

I love this cover

Mollie Moran is still alive, though nearly 100 now and this is a lovely book, full of her memories of her time serving the gentry, accompanied with photos and recipes from the time!  I'm so glad I'm not a maid!

This week also saw a crochet challenge between Lottie and myself.  Those of you who read Lazy Daisy Jones' blog will know that she has already made a load of squares for her blanket from Mollie Makes issue 24.  When I saw Lottie on Monday, I asked if she fancied making this blanket too.  We decided that we could just about manage these squares even with our limited crocheting skills!

A trip to the wool shop later and we were off.  I have to admit, Lottie got to grips with the squares much quicker than I did, and by the time she left for home, had nearly completed one, whilst I had unravelled my attempt to begin again.

Lottie's granny squares

We have both persevered though and I've made 9 squares out of the 80 it suggests!



Must take better photos!






On a less joyful note, the oven broke on Mother's Day so I've spent the week trying to feed the family without an oven at hand.  I've missed baking and the eggs are stacking up.  Thankfully a new one (well, two actually) will be delivered on Tuesday - boy am I going to go wild with those cakes!
I hope you've enjoyed your week too.

G x

Winter Warmers....

....Or an Ode to Thermal Vests!

Moving here at the start of January 2010 from a fully centrally heated house was a definite culture shock.  With only single-glazing and not a boiler or radiator in sight we were certainly in for a cold time.  Unfortunately the weather was also not on our side and with temperatures reaching double minus figures at night, sleeping in our clothes was our only option for quite a while.

Not long after we moved in, on one of our shopping trips in order to keep warm (I did this lots, put the girls in the car to drive to the town just so the heating of the car could warm us up), I discoved that Asda did indeed sell the humble thermal vest (also available at other supermarkets I am sure).

Never before in my thirty-odd years had I ever considered purchasing such a garment, but now, faced with the falling snow, I did such a thing.  I purchased two!

Oh what a relief it was.  Somehow this humble garment became my survivor.  I wore them day and night and suddenly life wasn't quite so bad. 

I bought some more!  Now I have a collection of cream, grey, black and navy vests in long and sleeveless combinations and from September to April I can be found wearing these under everything I own.  The girls are now following in my footsteps with thermal vests of their own!

Our grannies knew what they were doing when they too donned their own thermals.

I thank them most humbly for helping me to survive three winters here without heating, but I do long for the days when they can be folded and put away forever.

G x

Granny skirt sewing

The sewing machine hasn't been out for a while - half term doesn't bode well for craftiness that takes time so it's been packed away inside the wardrobe in the hope that one one of my mummy days I'll take it out and beaver away on some such project. 

Hopefully once my sewing room is regained (it's currently the hubby's office space) then I can stitch, knit, hook and sew to my hearts content without taking up the dining table.

But that's another blog for another time in the not-too-distant-future!

Today I decided to stitch myself another skirt.  I'm no sewing whizz.  I can't add linings, or zips or anything technical like darts and ruffles but I can sew in a straight line!  I found this great tutorial online on how to sew a skirt in an hour and now I have a few of them.

 It does take me more than an hour though!

Today I decided to make another one using an old curtain that I found in a charity shop, a doiley (to hide a rip in the fabric) and some lace.

Want to see the results?!

I'm looking forward to wearing my new creation.

G x

By the way, I've now had over 1000 page views, which might not be a lot to some, but to me is HUGE.  The only thing is, I don't know who most of you are!  Please do say hi x

Zoo Capers

Yesterday we ventured out into the sunsine and went on our monthly trip to Chester Zoo.  I say monthly trip for that was the intention when we luckily were given zoo membership for a year for Christmas.  We went initially on New Years Day, full of high hopes of returning again in February only for other things to take priority, and before we knew it, March had arrived.



Giddy up Nellie!



What a difference two months makes though, new animals have been born since our last visit, and many of the more obscure animals were visible as they were making full use of our limited British sunshine.




January's new arrivals





Another new baby!









Sunbathing Cheetas





(Apologies for the poor picture quality - this time I didn't take the camera, only my phone!)

We still didn't see the Spectacled Bears or the Red Pandas though.

I guess that's for April?!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend too

G x

A most marvellous day out!

Crafting in the holidays is nigh-on impossible here with two small girlies to entertain but I did manage a bit of thrifty shopping instead! 

A Most Marvellous Place to Shop is indeed that - a treasure trove full of goodies and all within driving distance of my parents house!  What's not to like?!

Featured in Mollie Makes, there are two stores both filled to the rafters with vintage lovelies and handmade goodies to stroke, admire, and buy! 

And for the two smallies, Basil Brush to try and find in order to get a lolly - kept them quite while I mooched around!

I admired lots and lots of stuff



Rupert Bear




Vintage Sewing Machine




Sparkly Red Shoes




Beautiful Blue Typewriter

I didn't buy any of these, though I was very tempted!


I did buy these instead:

Gorgeous set of bowls



Holly Hobbie jug





Buttons and tin



Funky button ring



Sweater dress - brand new!


 A most marvellous day out and some marvellous things too!  If you are ever in the Northampton area, do check it out, you won't be disappointed!

G x

Books, glorious books

So when I'm not knitting, crocheting, sewing, cleaning and generally running around after my lovely girls, I am reading.  Reading, reading, reading.

Man, I love my books.  I'm such an avid reader, I joined both my girls at the library when they were both only 6 days old!

There is only one rule that I impose on my books though - no broken spines, torn edges, folded corners etc.  In fact they must look exactly the same after reading them as when I got them.  A hard task for some, but not for me.  I think I have book OCD!

Due to the vast number of tomes that currently fill my shelves (and kindle), I made myself a resolution at the start of 2013 -  only one book a month was to be purchased by my good self.  I could get as many books out from the library as I wanted, but my pennies were to be spent more wisely, as the shelves are filling but the pages aren't being turned.

I had a look at the shelf today, I don't think my resolution is working:

Do you?

Now as well as reading for my own pleasure, and for my book group, I am also a reviewer of YA (young adult) fiction on a site called Serendipity Reviews run by the lovely Viv.  I've been reviewing for her for a year now and love doing it.  If you have any YA's who like to read in your house, please do check out her blog.  My latest review went on today.

G x

Style Crush

Do you have a style crush?  Or are you totally confident with how you look?

My early (and still) style crush was the late, great Paula Yates. 

She always looked amazing and could rock a frock like no other.  Oh, to be so glamourous!

Since stopping work, and having the girls, my style has changed.  Gone are the days of traipsing off to school in skirts and heels, and now I live in jeans and flats.  I do not like this look.  I need to get back to being me - somehow, somewhere, she is out there.

If you haven't met the Larson sisters yet, from across the pond in the USofA, then do check them out, they are the most stylish, vintage pair of girlies ever.  They have been featured in Mollie Makes magazine so must rock!

They run Red Velvet which is a beautiful mix of clothes and baking - what's not to like?  Elsie also has a blog which is well worth a peek at!  They now work with someone else who I have a style crush on, and that's Katie Shelton from Skunkboy 

She makes me want to have my hair this colour again!

But to be totally honest with you all, I'd be happy to be me,  if only I had a row of Dottie Angel dresses to slip into every day!  If only my sewing skills were better!

Who is your style crush?

G x

Confessions of a Shampoo Addict

Whilst having my shower this morning, I happened to look around at the bottles by my feet - no fewer than 3 different shampoo and 2 conditioner bottles adorn my shower base.  This set me to thinking, how many bottles of the forementioned stuff do I have squirrelled away?!

A quick check of here, there and everywhere revealed an eclectic mix of plastic tubs; some large, some small, some almost full, some almost empty, but none the same.



17 bottles!



You see, I don't have perfect hair, and so, I am still in search of the perfect shampoo.  One that can tackle frizzy, quite thick, bleached hair and until I do, I shall be fooled by every advert shown telling me that if only I buy this product I shall be blessed with the shiny, straight glossy locks I so desire.

However there is a happy ending to my tail of woe, and that is in my hunt for a fabulous conditioner that means I can comb through my hair without being greeted with a pile of knots.  After contacting Beauty Editor at Large of Red Magazine, Rosie Green, she suggested trying the very ugly looking Pantene 2 minute deep conditioning mask - and do you know what, it works (more or less). 



How I wish this came in a prettier container



Doesn't mean I won't continue to try others!

G x

Have a heart

Remember I've been attempting to crochet some hearts from Simply Crochet magazine? 

After a lot of time and effort they are finally starting to come together and resemble something akin to a heart shape - instead of the crochet blob that the first attempts looked like.

To celebrate this I decided to use one of my hearts for this:

I made it into a Valentine's card for my hubby - he seemed quite chuffed!

I even had time to rustle up some biscuits this morning for pre-school

Off to make tea now with some heart-shaped pasta to keep up with today's theme!

By the way, do you remember my Lazy Daisy granny square?  It's grown!

Happy Valentine's Day

G x



My little bag of happy

Now I'm by no means a great crafter, in fact, at times, I don't even think I'm a particularly good crafter but I enjoy what I do and I try hard (which counts for lots).  There is one project though that I'm proud of.

In Issue 3 of Mollie Makes magazine they featured a sunshine bag, all yellow and sunny I liked this project enough to give it a go of my own.  Whether my sewing skills were up to such a challenge was another matter!

I have some beautiful fabric that I found in a charity shop - someone's old bedlinen: pillowcases, duvet cover and sheet for a mere £3 that is a sunny combination of yellows, whites and orange.  For the inside I decided to use another thrifty find, an old curtain that someone else had donated to charity.  The handles were the most expensive part of the project and I managed to find them on ebay.  I am still struggling in my quest to find more circular handles that I like so that I can repeat this crafty project.

A few sewing days later (note I said days not day - as I said before, I'm not the best sewer and things take a bit of time to get completed round here) and ta-dah



sunny flowery outside




pretty fleecy curtain lining

 Whenever I use my bag it makes me happy.

G x

Weekend Baking

Mmmmm a nice bit of cake to make a wet weekend seem a little less dreary is always on the cards here.

Yesterday I planned on baking some chocolate brownies to take on my girls night out but the oven had different ideas, and decided to stop working!  The fact that I cleaned it all out on Friday has nothing to do with it apparently, but if I had known in advance I could have saved myself the bother!

With a new oven installed today (the additional one for my new kitchen later in the year) I decided that I would continue with my baking plans.

First up, a lovely lemon drizzle cake from the Primrose Bakery book - never fails and is totally delicious.  Last week I made an orange version which was yummy, but just not the same!

Whilst that was baking, resting in the fridge was the mixture for the ultra moorish Chocolate Crackles from the second Great British Bake-Off book.  It makes 30 - who am I to argue with that?!



Now I'm off to watch the rugby (after a stella result from my boys in blue yesterday) and put the chicken in to roast - might have to have a cookie/slice of cake whilst doing so.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend

G x

Accepting a Lazy Daisy crochet challenge

Okay so today is supposedly Wordless Wednesday but as I've never been very good at keeping quiet, I'll ramble on a bit here instead.

On Tuesday the lovely Daisy Jones posted a crochet tutorial - do check it out if you haven't done already.  Daisy is a queen of crocheting and also a master at setting up blogs (she did mine you know?!).  A beautiful granny square in hues of brown, blue and yellow appeared on the screen. 

I told her of my admiration for this square of wool.  I've been attempting hearts from my Simply Crochet magazine and they have not been going well.  This, despite its mix of colours, seemed more do-able.

Then the challenge came " Go on, give it a try"

So I did!

A Lazy Daisy granny square

I think I feel quite proud of myself!

G x

Adventures in crocheting!

Last Monday I met up with Lottie for our first adventure in crocheting - this time working in rows now we have both mastered the art of a circle!  We met at the Old Market Hall Cinema in Shrewsbury which serves the most delicious cakes and set about our aim!

With the help of Simply Crochet magazine and The Crochet Workshop by Erica Knight we began...

...only we hadn't got far when a little granny approached and started to show us the basics of double crochet!  Sweet of her as it was, neither of us had a clue what she was doing!  So she went on her merry way with thanks from us, all the more confused!

We decided to start with a double crochet dishcloth and happily hooked our way through our cakes and wool.  I think this effort does show the need for counting stitches but the rows look quite good:

Spurred on by this fantastic effort, I decided to challenge myself to something a little harder.  With the help of  Cute & Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench, I opted for a hook holder to contain my handy dandy hooks

Ta-dah!



So it's not perfect but I did it!  What have you achieved this week?

G x

I can't believe you made that cake!

Sometimes you have to make something a little bit different, something that sometimes challenges what you usually do. 

So I chose Lorraine Pascale's I can't believe you made that cake to make



And I did!

G x