The Highland Shawl From 'That' Show

Ah, Friday nights, they are great aren't they. I now have to work on a Saturday so its not the same as it used to be, but there are no classes in the studio its just my little shop open. I have some great Autumn projects in the pipeline including some knitted items inspired by one of my favorite TV shows, Outlander, (FYI, yes a bit saucy and a bit bloody, but very Scottish and a visual feast of the landscape I know and love). Anyhoo, first up, this amazing shawl designed by Carolyn Macpherson who blogs at THE NEXT BEAUTIFUL THING.

Carolyn has very kindly given me permission to make up shawl kits using yarns I have for sale in the shop and print off and pop the free pattern into each bag. I have just knitted one up for myself in an alpaca and wool blend and its super yummy. Keep a look out on the shop site for more details about the kits HERE


So, yes, back to Friday night. I am going to do a spot of knitting (what else), treat myself to a wee bar of M&S white chocolate (because I am allergic to milk and dark chocolate). And watch a wee bit of Highland high jinx







Unluckily for me I don't have to fight off the unwanted advances of a big kilt wearing red headed Scotsman. Life is not without its dangers though. There seems to be a merciless attack coming from the south !

Have a great weekend
xxx

Making

Knitting

Crochet

Craft Bombed Canal

▲ A WEE NOOK ▲

With Oscar back at nursery this week, the inevitable post Christmas sort out/spruce up has began. I have a pot of paint at the ready for the lounge (fireplace) wall, but with a migraine threatening (again) yesterday I decided to go for something a lot less strenuous.

I began a sewing project last week, which I will hopefully be able to show on the blog some time soon, but in the midst of the sewing I had to acknowledge to myself that my sewing stuff was in a real mess. Things were scattered around the house and the sewing kit box contained a giant ball of tangled threads with random sewing objects trapped in among it. It took me much longer than I had expected, an hour and a half, but I eventually sorted it all out and made myself a wee sewing nook at the desk in the dining room. Duncan uses the desk when he is working from home so the less desk space used the better, this is how it turned out.

I am fairly happy with it. My sewing is very much at the beginners stage so a whole sewing room (or even a whole desk), isn't warranted, but this will be just fine for an easy tidy up after 30 minutes of glaring at my wonky stitching ;-)

Valerie

xxx

▼

Little Wooden Decorations

These are now for sale in my Etsy shop.
Rustic Wooden Decorations. One side will have a letter of your choice and the other side will be one of the 3 designs of your choice, a tree, a star/peace on earth or a reindeer. Each piece of wood is hand burned to order. The wood is untreated and hung on string (although you may varnish this yourself). Very unusual and each piece is one of a kind.
Vary slightly in sizes 3.5cm to 4.5cm.

ETSY SHOP LINK

Vegetarian Dinners

Monday

CREAMY PESTO PASTA

2-3 cups pasta
1-2 tblspoon of strong pesto
100ml or less of single cream
One head of broccoli
Handful of mushrooms
Handful of spinach
Salt pepper
Feel free to add any other veg!
Method

Cook the pasta, add the broccoli in the same pan about 5 mins before the pasta is ready (saves on dishes)
in a pan fry the mushrooms, when they are cooked add pesto and a dash of cream- (to taste)
add spinach 
drain pasta and broccoli
add the pasta and broccoli to the pan
season 

mix and serve!

This was so, so, easy to make and very tasty, exactly what you need for a cold Monday night in December.

Valerie

xxx

Busy Having Fun

If this week had a name or a title it would be called 'crafting'. As the temperatures outside sink lower and lower, we are staying indoors more and more, and that means creativity is on the rise.
I am knitting a Christmas gift hat, a rainbow striped balaclava and a yellow/golden vest. I am also making a felt wallet for Oscar to keep his newly appointed 'pocket money' in. Also this week I am making invitations to a St Andrews day lunch.
Oscar has started his Christmas crafting which involves lots and lots of glitter and peg angels and we are going to be making calendars for him to give as presents.
We have no carpets in the cottage but we do have a really large rug in the lounge, which if truth be told, is in need of a professional clean. Currently the rug is sporting a light layer of rainbow coloured glitter, which I feel is a good distraction from the play-dough stuck in there. So you see, crafting may be a messy business, but it does have its advantages too.
(pictures of finished craftyness coming up in the next few weeks).

 Valdree

xxx

Made

Monday

Luna Moth Lino Cut

: : Running to nursery, running home

: : Hats and scarves and gloves and boots

: : Tomato soup

: : Rose hip tea

: : Blankets on the sofa

: : Painting pictures

: : Secret birthday knitting

: : Cosy socks

: : Learning new crafts

: : Scented candles

: : Chamomile baths

: : Cabbage and ham

: : Stories by Shirley Hughes

: : Lovers smiles

: : Mummies kisses

Not too shabby for my worst day of the week

Valerie

xxx

Advent

Advent

Lou over at Lulastic And The Hippyshake has been running a link up for alternative advent calenders, and some of them are SO cute, you can take a peep HERE. 

 

I made my own advent stocking calender last year for Oscar (as seen HERE), and talking of last year, I added a colouring sheet at the end of each post in December. You can find them by scrolling through last December's posts. Oscar has been enjoying them for a 2nd year running too.

Valerie

xxx

Dont forget to check out my cute little Rag Dolls on Etsy

ETSY STORE HERE

 

 

Crafternoon

We have been seriously lacking on the craft front lately, what with all the illness and upset, but I guess its fair to say we are slowly getting our mojo back. So, we had a bit of a craft afternoon.

First we tried some home made lava lamp experiments.

 

As per the instructions from The Crafty Crow , we mixed 2 parts water, 1 part cooking oil.

 

 I quite liked it like this

 

We were totally out of food colouring as instructed, so we used some watered down glitter paint instead.

 

It looked quite pretty but even when we added the seltzers it didn't do much.  Later in the day, after a shopping run, we tried again with denture tablets and green food colouring.

 

It did do more of a lava type thing, but it wasn't 'spectacular'. I guess Oscar enjoyed the mixing, so it was worth the very minimum effort it took.

Spiderman has made an appearance in our house  (Netfix has the 1960's Spiderman cartoons), and Oscar has a Spiderman action figure. We decided it would be cool to make some 'EVIL' robots to do battle with Spiderman, so I went back to an old post on Filth Wizardry (love love love Filth Wizardry). 

We printed off some of her robot sheets (see above link), and coloured them in.

 

For our robots we used

• Ice cream cone wafer boxes - For the bodies


• Plastic shot glasses - For the eyes, with googly eyes stuck on


• Aluminum Foil -  Wrapped and glued around the bodies


• Pipe cleaners - For the arms

We used a mix of PVA glue and the glue gun to stick them down. I also wrapped some clear tape around them to make them a bit tougher (toddler play is rough)

 

 

And finally, while I was in the pound shop I picked up a 6 pack of foam sheets (for £1 obviously). Oscar was running out of time (energy) before his bath so I quickly cut out some shapes for him to stick to the tiles.

 

 

 

I used water soluble pen to draw the shapes (in about 5 minutes flat), because I think they will be better with no pen lines. The pen did run down the tiles though, but its soluble so it will come off (I hope). 

All in all, not a bad day. Oh and in case you were wondering, Oscar went to bed at 9 : 45pm last night, and got up at 6 : 30am today. We are all still fairly tired.

Valerie

xxx

Dye Day

Oscar LOVED doing this, so I can see many more dye days on the horizon.

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