Chunky Snood, A perfect christmas present

I have finished my snood!

It has come out even better than I imagined and it is so warm and lovely.

 

And it is a week until Christmas 2012, We are all ready this year in good time and will be spending the christmas holidays with family. What more can you ask for? The girls have seen Santa in his grotto and told him their wish list. Lets hope his elves are working hard to make all the toys!

 

New Knit

Last night my daughter asked me to knit her rabbit a jumper so here it is...

I have taken this first picture in black and white as Rosie rabbit as she is known in our home looked so old fashioned in her handmade knitted jumper!

 

 

 I tried out some different stitches my next learning task is to follow a knitting pattern,

so on the must get list is: a tapestry needle, a knitting pattern (must be an easy to follow pattern!) and a row counter.

 

 

 

Homemade christmas mincemeat (veggie version)

Mincemeat in the making

 

 

Delicious

 

 

 

And some left over for more mincepies!

 

Ingredients for the mincemeat

 

4oz Vegetarian Suet

8 oz Large calafornian raisins

8 oz royal gala apples chopped very small with skin on

2 oz dark brown suar

6 oz white sugar

zest and juice of 1 lemon

zest and juice of one orange

1 oz flaked almonds

1 oz rough chopped hazelnuts

2 large teaspoons mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

3 large dessert spoons of Congnac

 

Mix all the ingreidents together except for the Congnac, then cover with a clean muslin cloth and allow to infuse together for 12 hours or overnight. Do this in a mixing bowl that is oven proof.

Preheat the oven to 120 degrees celcius. Cover loosely with tin and pop into the warm oven for approx 3 hours. This will allow the suet to melt and coat the ingredients.

Allow the mix to cool, when it has cooled completely add your congac or you can use any alcohol you like such as brandy or sherry. Stir well.

 

You can either use this straight away to make your mince pies or it will store well for upto a year in steralised kilner jars.

 

Friendship bracelets

 

My daughter got this weaving wheel for her birthday so we have been making friendship bracelets. The instructions were a bit complicated so I had to get my husband to help me with the first one which was the flower power design you can see further down the page, but once I got the hang of it, it's easy peasy! Thank goodness as the age range on the packaging said from 6 years+

 

 

So this shows the threads set up on the wheel the design is called the candy cane.

 

 

 



 

This shows the friendship bracelet coming out of the underside of the wheel

 

 

And this is a small child sized friendship bracelet in a flower power design, our first attempt at weaving! The kit comes with about 4 different designs and some thread, but once the thread runs out im going to replace it with embroidery thread and we can choose colours that we love. you can adjust the length of the threads to make adult sized bracelets and add any beads as well so endless possibilities!

Knitting Season

Thanks to YouTube and a little patience I have been learning how to knit a little.

So here is last nights attempt....little Ted with his new sparkly jumper.

I am also knitting what I think might be a snood. It is being knitted with chunky wool and large sticks, I did not realise how expensive wool can be. So far the snood has cost me about £20 and its only 3/4's finished. So I think im going to stick to little projects and get all of the dollies in the girls toy cupboard kitted out with my attempts at knitting!

After a year out from Blogging I have finally come to the conclusion that its good to Blog about the things I have been making. So I return!

Things have been very busy this last year, I got married! I have taken on an allotment in the village, my oldest daughter has started school and I also have a part time job. Also I have been quietly crafting away!

So I hope you are all pleased that i'm back and I hope to show you some interesting things.