Baby blanket finished!!!!

It's only taken me nine months to complete this blanket and it's finally finished.  So happy with the end result.

When I found out I was expecting I decided I was going to put my crafty skills to work.  Baby was going to be in beautiful hand made garments and blankets, but I forgot the crafters curse.  Any project that is for ourselves seems to take forever.  With a deadline of nine months I kept telling myself "I've got plenty of time".  Oh how wrong I was.

The majority of the work has happened over the last two weeks especially with a few false starts making me think time was running out fast.

I searched for a patchwork quilt pattern and came across the one below:

crochet.about.com/od/checkboards/ig/Checkerboard-Chart/Blue-and-White-Check

Have made a few changes mainly because I lost the pattern but I also wanted to make it my own.

Decided I wanted to use four colours rather than two as couldn't decide between them.  Not knowing the sex has been quite limiting on colours, but as I love blues and greens that was my starting point with neutral grey and yellow added after.  Was really lucky with the wool was a 1kg ball for £4.99 and was DK got to love the Spotty Bag Shop (amazing shop in Banff that seems to sell everything).

Started off making the squares doing four of each colour, basic dc 45 in a row.  Think the squares are 8'x8'.  Once I finished them decided another colour would be nice as a border, thats when the white came into play.  Again dc stitches around one square and then sc to join the bordered square to the un-bordered square to create an invisible join (can see on the back but not front).  Then scalloped the edges to finish off.  Think it's worked out well.

There are a few mistakes, ever the critical crafter, but the intended recipient will not care in the slightest.  Have quite a lot of wool left over so watch this space for more baby crafts.

Count down has begun

It's been a long time since I posted on here and thought I would restart it.

A lot has changed since I last posted as I'm expecting my first child, 8 and a half months gone now hence the title.  Trying to keep myself busy but not over do it (those that know me will know this has been pretty difficult).

Got a few baby related projects on the go.  Baby blanket for one.  Which was hard as the sex is unknown (nice surprise at the end) so very gender neutral colours.  My thinking is that it's easier to put a girl in boy colours (grey, blue and green) than it is a boy into girl colours (pink, purple).  Have made some progress but here's a sneaky peak.

The squares have all been joined together now just need to decide what border to finish it off with.

Have also made some blackberry brandy and gin with the large horde of blackberries my dog found.  Such a clever dog managed to train him sniff out the bushes.  Think we'll got on another hunt this week fancy making some jam and a crumble.

Time to walk the dog now and prep food for dinner so rock and roll.

It's raining it's pouring

Today the weather has been miserable so I only went out to get supplies for wedding invitations. Got what I needed and headed home through some rather big puddles. Then spent a few hours in my craft room,  unfortunately I can't show you what I've been up to but I realised that I hadn't shown you my hats that I've designed.

The first one to show was for my mum to wear on my wedding day.  A nice thank you present and so much nicer than the typical bunch of flowers.  I knew that the outfit she was wearing was a 1950's navy and strawberry dress as I helped pick it out.  

I started off by making petals and joining them to make flowers.  I joined the flowers together, 3 of them, and attached it to a miniature top hat.  Then I added feathers and a few embellishments. 

Here's mum wearing the hat

The next is one I made for myself to wear to my sister-in-law's wedding.  The dress I was wearing was navy with red shoes and blazer.  I decided to make a pill box hat out of red felt, navy feathers and butterfly embellishments.  Found a blog to make the basic shape http://blog.modcloth.com/2013/04/05/retro-revival-thinking-outside-the-pillbox/ then added stuffing to bulk it out, lining to give it a more professional finished look and elastic to secure it to my head.

Here's the finished article 

Here's me modelling the hat with my lovely husband 

Getting crafty in the kitchen

Its mid week again and I've been revising hard so took a break to make some truffles yum yum.

For the truffle mixture I used:

100g dark chocolate (85% coco)

100g Greek yogurt plus 2 tbsp added to the mixture in the processor

5g butter 

50ml baileys (used the coffee one as that was the miniature I had in the cupboard)

I broke up the chocolate into little squares and placed them in my food processor.  Blitzed it until I had a fine, sugar like texture.  Whilst this was whizzing around I put the butter, 100g yogurt and baileys in a saucepan and gently simmered until the yogurt had blended with the butter and baileys, by stirring it.  

Once the chocolate was at the right consistency I added the liquid mixture slowly whilst still whizzing the chocolate.  The ingredients should bind quite quickly I then added the 2 tbsp of yogurt and blended again.  Then poured the mixture into in a bowl to cool, once cooled I placed the in the fridge, covering the bowl in cling film.  Chilled for 4 hours.

After 4 hours I used a metal tea measure which I heated on the hob to scope out balls of mixture. I then rounded these in the palm of my hands and then placed them in either coco powder, roasted ground almonds or roasted coconut shavings, making sure the whole of the truffle is covered.

Here they are:

As it's a friends birthday today I've wrapped a few for her. 

Have a feeling that a few if these will be making their way into Christmas stockings this year.

It's beginning to smell like Christmas (orange & cranberries)

Its Monday again!!!!  Not been up to much this weekend trying to force myself to do study but ending up cleaning the house. Oops.

Today's tasks have been sending the last few Christmas themed parcels out to my hubby and the weekly/bi-weekly shop and revision. Nearly went over the weight allowance this time, good job I checked it on the kitchen scales first. Phew!!

Trying my hand out at a few kitchen oriented crafts starting with some cranberry and orange infused gin.  According to the blog I used, blog.rachelcotterill.com , it should be ready for Christmas, hoping to take a bottle down to my mums when I visit her in December.   

I used orange peel (from speed peeling an orange) rather than slices as per the blog but don't think this will made a huge difference to the taste. Like Rachel I'm going to add my sugar later if needed. 

Can't wait to taste it.

Brrr it's cold outside

Had a busy week so far. My dad and step mum came up to see me at the weekend. Then I headed south to Edinburgh to see my best friend Emma.  It was lovely spending time with my family and friends, but so tired now.  

Came home to a gale and 5c temperatures, brrr a little chilly, perfect time to stay in and craft.  Leaving the cards alone for a bit and dragged out the patchwork.  Haven't looked at my quilt for a few years now. Found out the fabric I used has been discontinued, sad times :-( , this did mean I had to go to the fabric shop to pick more, result :-).

The lady in Verronics was very helpful and also complimented me on my work so far. Chuffed doesn't even cover it as it's my first attempt at a quilt.  Making progress slowly, determined not to make the same mistake twice and leave it too long.  Here's a little sneak peak at my work in progress.

Can't wait to get it finished and put it on my bed. Back to work now.

Going bonkers over buttons

Today I decided to take my revision into the craft room to stop my procrastination.     What a bad idea that was!!!

After an hours revision I decided to take a break with some crafting.  A few hours later I had two beautiful canvases but no further study done, oops.

Have had a few plain canvases laying round waiting to be played with. So today was the day that happened.  Seen a few ideas on Pinterest so decided to give it a ago. 

Think I'll be doing this again.