Spring on the farm.

We are so lucky where we live at the moment, and I will dearly miss this area when we move later in the year. We live on a working farm in a little cottage. We are not farmers, but we get to see the farming year at first hand, and I love this time of year when the young animals are born. A couple of days ago, we had a new foal born in the field behind our house…. just soooo cute!

Also we have lots of new lambs all around us.  Just look at the little triplets below, born on my friends farm just down the lane. 

 

I love to go and help bottle feed the orphans, and see how they grow. 

On a recent dog walk, Clara and I came across a muddy puddle full of frogspawn. 

We went back a couple of days later on another walk, and there were lots of tadpoles. We are hoping that the tadpoles grow up quickly before the puddle dries up!

The lanes are full of lovely spring flowers and the hedges and trees are beginning to bud and the leaves are coming out!

I love this time of year….. time to bring out my 'Spring' quilt again.

Thanks for dropping by.

Craft, the seaside and the house renovation project….

Firstly, this blog at the moment seems like a monthly catch up of what I have been doing - and to some extent it is. My blog is a reminder to me about things that I have done and places I have been, and its lovely that so many people pop by to see what I have been up to. Over the last few months a lot of my time has been taken up with the house renovation project, which has meant that I have not had so much time for other things, but once we have moved (in a few months time) hopefully things will get back to a more even keel.

The playmat I have been making for my nephew and his partner for their new baby, became a rush job, as their little girl was born three weeks early!! I have seen lovely photos of the baby, and we will go and visit over the Easter holidays.

Once the centre blocks were made and a border added, I had to cut 80 smaller squares for the outside border! More about this quilt will be in another post and the grand ta-dah!

During the last month J and I also went to look after his mum for a while, whilst his sister and her husband were on holiday. They live close to the sea near Seaham on the NE coast of England, so each evening I was able to take Beanie for a walk along the beach. 

me and my dog!

Seaham, amongst other things, is famous for its glass making history. In 1853 the Cavendish Bottleworks and glass foundry was built on the cliffs at Seaham. It made all sorts of coloured glass for vases, homeware, medicine and poison bottles! as well as everyday drinks and milk bottles. At the end of each day any excess molten glass and any broken glass was thrown over the cliffs into the sea. 

The glass in the sea was then tumbled and smoothed by the waves, creating smooth frosted pebbles of glass which wash up on the coast. The Bottleworks closed in 1921 and was later demolished in the 1950's - so any glass found has quite a history.

It can get very addictive, walking along the beach looking at the sand and picking up small pieces of glass! Poor Beanie, I think he got a little bored as I wasn't really giving him much attention. Above is my little haul of glass pebbles and some interesting stones! below are the most interesting glass pebbles made from blue and green glass…...

……. especially the multi coloured piece with the different shades of green!

My niece bought her children around to see us while we were there. I made some cakes and had a little helper to decorate the cakes for us. Mmmmm, yummy!

The house project is going well! The windows and doors are on order, and now building work is moving from the new extension to the old part of the house. I'm trying to finalise our ideas on some of the interior fittings - so many decisions to make!!!!

Hope you had a lovely Easter break

A spectacular sight….

as we were driving south on the M6 near Shap in Cumbria. We had been working on the house renovation project (which seems to be taking up all our time at the moment) and were on our way home.  Groups of birds came flying in from all directions and formed a huge murmuration. We were just near the motorway junction so pulled off to watch the display. It was absolutely fascinating and mesmerising. I don't think I had actually seen such a display before, it lasted well over half an hour and then suddenly all the birds disappeared! 

Fascinating!

A bit of a catch up post next - the house, the seaside, and a little progress on the crafty front!

Yarn and fabric ….

Yarny things first. I have started to knit another wooly cowl. I have made a few of these now and they seem to disappear! The last one went back to London with Clara. I like this lime green colour and have made one in a similar shade before. The yarn is a superwash wool by Louisa Harding Yarns and the pattern is called Honey Cowl. There are only four rows to the pattern and two of those are knit rounds so it is quite a simple

This is in contrast to the second yarny project I have on the go. More concentration needed for this as I have also started to knit the the little dog that Molly gave me for xmas. The yarn is Sirdar snuggly snowflake - and to begin with I was not liking it at all to knit with, but am getting the hang of it. I tend to knit quite tightly so have had to slacken off quite a bit or else it is just too difficult to pull the wool through. 

The third yarn project is a long standing on going crochet blanket, but this has been a bit on the back burner but I will try and push on with this a little more. I started this last year when I learned to crochet and was intending to make a square every now and then as I didn't have the time for a bigger project with the house renovation we are masterminding …...

…and I still have my cottage ripple blanket to start!

I've also been playing around with fabric as I am making a play mat for my nephew and his partner for their first baby. I saw this charm pack at the festival of quilts last year and thought it may come in handy, and I will probably add a few extra fabrics into the mix.

 

The baby is due in about a month, so I really need to get on with this. I've looked for ideas on pinterest and am now having a play making a couple of different blocks. I wanted to try something a little different from just simple squares this time, and a play mat is a good size to experiment with.

If I use this block, I will either hand quilt or make an embroidery motive in the centre. I may make the blocks a little smaller as these are about 8" square.

or I may use this square pattern, and use up some of my lovely scraps of fabric - I love a scrappy quilt, so may keep this idea for me!!

So, I have lots to keep me busy at the moment…...

We've been cooking again…..

I love it when the girls come home as they love to try out new recipes - this time Clara was home and made something very sweet this time rather than her usual savoury. This recipe came from the Yotamm Ottolenghi cook book 'Plenty More' and was absolutely delicious!!! 

The recipe is for Blackcurrant Friands. We were not sure what a Friand was, but as explained with the recipe it is a small French cake, apparently he explains the French word friand means 'dainty' or 'a gourmet who delights in delicate tastes' - and this recipe is full of delicate tastes!

The recipe is easy to follow, and is full of lovely things like almonds, pistachios, cinnamon, lemon zest and blackcurrants. Egg whites are whisked and folded in with the blackcurrants and then poured into a muffin tray and baked.

 After they have cooled they are drizzled with a lemon glaze and sprinkled with chopped pistachios.

 The glaze made the little friands really sweet, although the blackcurrants do cut across the sweetness a little, bu another time we may just dust with icing sugar - however, they were so yummy and hit the spot with a cup of tea after our dog walk.

This time we walked along Scout Scar, which is just near Kendal. It was a lovely afternoon and we had quite clear views over to the lakeland hills.

I think these little friands will become a regular make - but we will need the walks as well to keep the calories off!!

Things that made me smile last month, and this last week! …...

……. just a round up of little things that have happened that I didn't get around to talking about at the time.
Firstly - hurray - I have finished my sweater!!!. It has been a long time coming as I had to pull it all back because I ran out of wool and needed to make a smaller size. The smaller size also worked well for me as I lost a few pounds weight when I was ill with pneumonia recently. I love the detail on the front with the pleats. The pattern is called 'Folded' by Veera Valimaki, I'm not sure where I first found it, but the pattern is on Ravelry.

 Here it is modelled by my dress making mannequin. (I must find a name for my mannequin!) The sweater has 3/4 sleeves and is knit in one piece from the bottom up, I changed the neck line slightly by finishing with a few rows of rib, and in the end wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

 Secondly, I went back to the 'knit and natter' group in Skipton held in Coopers Coffee Bar each Friday morning. This is my first visit since being ill, so it was lovely to go back meet everyone again.

Then, both girls have been back for weekend visits - but at different times. When Clara came we went for a walk in the Lake District up Place Fell near Patterdale. Here J and I are plodding up the hill with a view back to Ullswater. There was quite deep snow on the top which the dog loved!

We had lots of lovely food, with another recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi. This time from his Jerusalem book - Chicken with caramelised onion and cardamon rice.

We also visited the house renovation project with both girls, so they could see how it is progressing. It looks more like a house now, with the extension on the side. Still a way to go, but the builders are doing really well with the weather!

This is to be my studio/workshop in the garden!!! so exciting.

This weekend we went to see the house with Molly, then went for a walk around Talkin Tarn. It was really misty and we couldn't see from one end of the tarn to the other. The tarn was also frozen around the edges so the ducks were having fun.

 There is still quite a lot of snow still lying around, which always makes a walk more interesting!

Back home, we have been growing oyster mushrooms. A friend gave us this pack as a xmas gift and this is our first crop. You just have to mist them with water twice a day, and they take a couple of weeks to grow. Success!

With being ill, I didn't do any tidying up in the garden in the autumn, so its lovely to see the snowdrops pushing up through the soil and making the garden more interesting again.

We have also had a few really cold days with temperatures of -5, but this has given us the most beautiful sunsets.

Well thats me caught up, a record for me to keep and to share with you. Hope you have had a good weekend.