Jingle all the way

As I sit and watch the flurries of snow come down outside in the garden I worry about whether Toby will get home this evening, whether we will be able to leave the village before Chripmus (thank you to young Ben for my new favourite word for this time of year). But at least if Mr Chripmus Tree Man cannot drop off our dainty, cottage friendly, 4 foot tree on Sunday I have my own minimal version. I had to fight Rufus for the twigs.


I then thought about bringing in a little greenery. I always get asked about what "we" do for Christmas as Jewish couple and I suppose people are more curious because I converted. Where ever you stand on the birth of Jesus there is no getting away from the fact that there have always been winter festivals. And what with Toby being a classical scholar you can always bamboozle people with references to the Greek Saturnalia and the Pagans, and good old wikipedia has a whole load more too. But I like to deck the halls with boughs of whatever I can get my hands on and this year I went for ivy as there seems to be loads climbing over bits of the garden. And good thing I went out there before the snow started in earnest.


So now I think that it is time to snuggle down on the sofa, dog either side and finish this scarf that I started the other day. I am hoping that I might have enough yarn left to make a little hat too. When it is allegedly -1degreeC outside I think that it might be necessary.

Shameful behaviour

I cannot believe that I have not posted anything since September, that is absolutely terrible.

I think that the slump first came about because I didn't think that I had been making much, badly or otherwise. Which is part true, but also I am very good at thinking some of the everyday is not worthy of a wannabe domestic goddess.

(Call it tiffin, call it fridge cake, call it rocky road - whatever it is, it is fantastic, lifts the spirits and gets eaten inside 48 hours!)

I went on a one day knitting workshop at Liberty called "Learn to Knit" and I did. It was great, the tutor was kind and had the patience of a saint and I came away thinking I could probably get my head round this knitting marlarky. So I embarked with warp speed on a cardigan (yes, I know, talk about setting my bar high), and two scarves. I thought that I had hidden my knitting bag well out of the way of the pesky puppy, but no. We came home from a cheeky evening curry to find this scene of destruction in the sitting room.


He had managed to tangle four or five balls of yarn, thank goodness my Dad was on hand to help my unravel it all. It helped him to indulge in a spot of nostalgia which was nice to listen to and certainly took my mind of a suitable punishment for the puppy. But to be honest he has such a painfully cute face I am only ever angry for about two seconds.


I did also manage to sew enough bunting to jazz up the garden at the end of the summer for my birthday. I turned my back on fanciful notions of have perfectly seamed edges and opted in the end for cutting out as many 'bunts' as I could and then just stitching them together with a zig zag stitch along the edges. I like to think of it as shabby chic!

Drifting.....

It's all felt as though life has just been drifting by lately.

All the fertility medication that I am now taking makes me swing between anxious, stressed, nervous, angry, calm and tired. A curious selection of emotions at the best of times and I am not feeling very creative at all. I have started an ominously long term project, a contemporary counted cross stitch by Emily Peacock called 'hug'. It is wonderful but my stitching speeds are not great so I feel that it is going to take me quite sometime to complete especially as I am not feeling in the mood for much at all.

I have also enrolled for a jewellery making and silver smithing course, run locally by Alice Robson. I am quite excited and I was inspired by my dear friend Nicci, who makes some really lovely pieces of jewellery herself. She has started on a simple course in Maidstone, so I will have someone to compare notes with.

Life has also taken a more dark turn with the news that my mother in law's cancer has returned to her lymph nodes and oesophagus. She is so wonderfully stoic about it all, she takes it all full on the chin and just battles on. And on days when I feel overwhelmed by my newly acquired, rampaging hormones, it makes me more determined to battle on too.

I'm sew so

I feel like I have achieved much in the last few weeks. I was all bouyed up by Sophie's visit and then I just seemed to be a stymied by all the things that I knew that I had to get made. But before I wanted to do any of those I found myself ordering up some lovely Heather Bailey 'Nicey Jane' fabric and an Amy Butler pattern and having a go at making a Frenchy Bag. It is the first time that I have ever used a paper pattern. In places I wanted to tear my hair out, it made no sense and I wanted to walk away leaving an unfinished bag. But no. I held my nerve and made my first ever bag. It's not perfect, but I am really pleased with it and I am going to have a go at making another one in a month or two.

I also finally cracked on and made a baby quilt for Kelly. I used the same fabric as I used for the quilt I made for Miranda's quilt but I changed the pattern - a mix of squares and long rectangles.


Then on the back I added in a strip of the quilt fabrics just to make it a little bit different.


It was a bit of a hit with the mighty Kelly which was the intended effect.

Step into my office.....

I was told by "Gary the Builder" that Toby likened the new kitchen to "Kate's personal Mecca". Apparently it has all the mod cons a girl could need - wifi, TV with cunning link to the Sky + box, running water, food, heat and light, so much so that I never seem to be in any other part of the cottage.

At first I disputed this notion as ridiculous. I am often doing other things elsewhere I thought. Then this morning I got up and I saw the state of the kitchen table....

The visitor

Our friend, Sophie, came to visit on the weekend. For the last eight months or so she has been working in Hobby Craft. She has now left HC as she starts her new teaching job in September. But her visit to us at the end of last week brought with it an impressive bag of wool that I had asked her to get months and months ago. I think that I am going to make a lap blanket with the multi coloured yarn, but no idea about the other four that go together wonderfully but have yet to have a future purpose!

I was slightly overwhelmed by the sheer number of handmade things that Sophie had with her. She first came to stay in February 2009. We had just got Rex and I was at my lowest ebb having just started therapy. Sophie and I got talking about our various woes, it has often amazed me that once you start talking about your own depression that suddenly you have a whole host of good friends who are also having similar problems - bingo, instant support network. That was how it felt when Sophie was staying that time. We talked and talked and I stitched and stitched (crochet...I'm really not a knitter) and Sophie claims that I inspired her.

Now, I find it hard to comprehend that I could inspire anyone to anything, even more so when I have inspired someone to be more creative than I could ever imagine being. So I had to snap away at her efforts. I really liked this lovely little keyring.....


.....then there was the crochet string shopping bag (which was expertly deployed at the spa on Friday morning to carry home wet swimwear)....


....and not to mention the knitted baby blanket, which got finished whilst she was here.


All in all a very impressive visitor to the cottage. And now it is my turn to be inspired. I have decided to do a beginners workshop in knitting. But before then there is Kelly's baby quilt to make as her last day in work is next Tuesday, and I have dusted off my Sew Hip! mystery quilt as 12 months on I think that it is time to get some projects finished off before beginners knitting gets me inspired to start more things that languish unfinished.

Cookies for Kelly

I am really fond of Kelly. She works in my local day spa (such a grand sounding name I think that looks very odd when I write it down) and has been trying to make my troll like feet look pretty for the last year. In that way that people confide in their hairdressers, I confide in Kelly. She listens to all my gripes and grumbles about everything, we talk about our lives and I like to think that we are friends.

Yesterday she was really not herself. So this afternoon I have been baking cookies to take her tomorrow to cheer her up. It is the first time that I have baked in the electric oven (looks like the Aga but most certainly is not) and I am happy that they have not burned but I fear that they may not be as good as the ones that I bake in the 'Aga Khan" (as I like to call it). It is satisfying to bake 3 dozen cookies and then very virtuously give them away. I hope that they bring her a little ray of sunshine into her week.

Post holiday blues...

It's always hard coming home from holidays.

I find it hard getting back to normal, falling back into the routine that existed before the blissful two weeks of lazying in the dappled shade working on being more pale and interesting than I was before the holiday.

So did the books get read? Some. I made it through the murder and almost finished the first of the Andrew Rawnsley books and now that I am back the unread numbers are consigned to a large pile underneath the bedside table. If they are still there collecting dust in October then they will be going back to Normandy for a week!

So now that I am back I have a huge pile of things that I want to get done - quilt for the lovely Kelly and her impending baby, some quilted place mats for the kitchen, a quilt to snuggle up under on the sofa. And who knows what I might suddenly add to that list by the end of this week.

Oh, it's good to be back.

Two more days to our holiday

And so far I have ignored all the washing that needs to be done, all the things that need to be found and I have created a pile of books that will hopefully sustain, educate and amuse me whilst I am in Normandy for two weeks.

The former political studies student in me has been meaning to read Andrew Rawnsley's books on New Labour for ages so that got them onto the pile. The woman who struggles with weight in me was recommended "Fat Around the Middle", all I have to say is hmmm. Then I decided that some light relief was needed, so thank crunchie for Marian Keyes. And finally a little bit of murder courtesy of Nicola Upson.

Here's hoping I get beyond more than page 10 of any of them!

When all else fails, quilt

We bought a ooh la la fancy new iMac the other day. I love it. Although Toby is a tad miffed that it has to live on his desk, in his study. A bit rich, I mean I let him into my kitchen! Any how, everything was working fine until himself came home from work, got out his work laptop and, bear in mind I wasn't there so I cannot be completely sure, whilst he connected to the wifi "lots of things appeared on the Mac screen Kate". Suffice to say I now cannot get the flipping thing to connect to the wifi, I just get a greyed out AirPort symbol with an exclamation mark over the top. Praise be then for the 90 day tech support that comes with new macs, only I need to remember to phone them when I get back from doing some reverse shopping this morning.

Whilst struggling against these vague technical problems I have managed to make a fine quilt for baby Meaker.

I love it. And I particularly like this one square.....

It's the cheeky little yellow ducky, he just does it for me. There is a blue duck amongst some lime green ducks lower down the quilt but he's not quite as special as this little fella. Fingers crossed it is a hit with the Family Meaker.

Just too cute

These are my lovely dogs, Rufus and Rex.

After Toby, they are the biggest distractions in my life. Thought it was time that I shared them with you.

Not a completer finisher?

I started this blanket/throw for our bed over two years ago. Last night I finally finished it off, it was the pesky edging that seemed to take forever.


But I have to say that it was very pleasing last night to be snuggled up underneath it even if it has been one of those things that I have picked up, made a square, put it down for a while. But then for me that it is the total joy of crochet more than any of the other things that pretend to be good at. It doesn't matter if you start something with great gusto only to twig that it is going to take you a lot longer than you initially thought. All the time there is space in this cottage there will be piles of unfinished crochet.

Calorie Free

I needed to take a break from the picot squares today. It feels as though I have only managed to make two all week which, if true, is completely dismal. So I decided that a little break was needed and I sat myself down at the kitchen table with Curls of Sunshine crocheted cupcakes recipe, the opening World Cup match on the TV and one match later my first crochet cupcake was made.

I have long lusted over some knitted or crocheted cakes to sit on my cake stands when there is no real cake for them and I have also wanted to master the art of amigurumi. So this seemed like the perfect project for this afternoon. It was undeniably satisfying to have something made so quickly, I think that I might have to make another during this evening's World Cup match - red wine dependent that is.

Family Fantastic

I often contemplate that fact that I never chose my family and, as far as I know, Toby certainly didn't chose his either, so it is always so great when you really enjoy time with your family.

Tomorrow is the 40th birthday of one of my brother in laws, so we offered to take him to The Fat Duck as his present. A precedent was set early this year by my mother in law that may be we would like experiences rather than presents, the theory being that as we get older we have all the material things that we need but what we are lacking in is experiences, be they new and exciting or tried and tested. So my 'I wish she was my' sister in law had a financial contribution towards inversion therapy (I have no idea but she said it was great), we took the mum/mother in law to a restaurant that she had not been to since before dad/father in law had died, and yesterday we took Jont to The Fat Duck. Although I have to admit I still like presents and am not about to ask for an experience. When my birthday rocks round I would still like to have pretty parcels to unwrap!

But I had thought about us taking the brother/brother in law to The Fat Duck about a year ago. I remembered seeing one of Heston Blumenthal's cookery books on his Christmakkah wish list and I thought 'now there's an idea for his 40th'. It's not the kind of place that you would rock up to on your own and it is such a special place that it really is befitting of a very special treat. It was so smashing to witness his excitement and enthusiasm, from the night before "I am excited" text message to his beaming face at each and every sensational course that I think it really was a quintessential birthday experience. And it was fun to share that with him.

Then today one of my Aunts and Uncles came to visit. I always joke that Uncle Reggie is 'my favourite Uncle', but I think that he could well be. He is different to my Dad and his other two brothers. My Mum often says that he is more like my Dad's mum, Nanny, who died far too long ago and far too soon. But I think that there is something a little softer about him, I used to think that he cared more but is doing a disservice to the other siblings. I think that he just is a little more emotionally honest if that makes sense. Anyway, they both are keen photographers and Aunty Penny took the photos at both of our weddings, so tomorrow they are spending the day photographing water voles in West Malling, well why not I guess. I haven't seen them for literally years and it was great to spend all day chatting, catching up and remembering why families are one of the most special things that we have.

It is so easy to be dismissive and distant with relatives, but the last two days have really made me happy and proud of the family that I was both born into and then chose to marry into.

Lost for words

Fear not, nothing major.

Sometimes I find it really hard to think of titles for posts, it's a bit like the subject line of an email to a friend. You want it to mean something, yet at the same time not be too over the top. And that lack of inspiration could almost put a girl off posting.

Today I am making my first loaf of bread in the Aga. It has already been a bit of a morning of firsts as I have made my first ever cookies! They are called 'amdolo cookies' and I found the recipe in Lucy Young's "Secrets of Aga Cakes". I think that I might need to cook them for a little less time when I next make them, but then the beastly Aga wasn't quite up to full steam this morning, it's just too pigging hot to have it cranked right up (and the plan to to turn it off all together but the gas hob on the module bit doesn't currently work, yet another chapter in my very own 'Aga saga') so I think I did quite well to cook them at all.

Currently my dough is in it's first phase of resting. I am being very anal and timing each rest period perfectly. This is not pleasing the dawgs as my leaping up periodically to full the instructions is seriously affecting their afternoon nap in front of the Aga. Oh well.

p.s. loaf snap to follow......

Everythings coming up roses

What a difference a bit of sunshine makes. Everything in the jardin looks so healthy and the roses are starting to appear, a clear sign that it's all getting a bit better. I have a rose dilemma though. Do I leave them on the bush, so that their wonderful fragrance fills my nose whenever I walk by, or do I cut them and have them inside the cottage? We have had to massively prune seven of our bushes this year as they needed moving to another part of the garden to make way for Toby's "Operation Lawn", so there is not much chance that they will bloom at all this summer, meaning those that were spared the haircut will have to work harder. So this makes me think that I should leave them in the garden, at least for now.

The sun also made me decamp to the garden, put my feet up and dig out something from the HUGE pile of unfinished business. These picot squares (I think that is the technical term for them) are going to be a table runner. I started them the month that Shula and Dan returned from travelling round the world. I know this because I took the blue yarn to London on the train the evening we went to their welcome back drinks. I also remember trying to convince a friend that they were really easy to stitch. I think that they are, she thinks that they are the most complicated thing that she has ever seen.

I am really good at believing that I cannot do anything well, hence badly made with love, but what I am slowly starting to realise is that we all have talent, talent for different things. As much as I like to pretend I don't, I know that really I do have a talent for a bit of cooking (made a bloody amazing quiche today, the pastry is spot on) and I can crochet quite well. Thing is I cannot knit, I am not a great sewer and I cannot paint. I wish that I could knit, sew and paint. But because I cannot do those three things I think that I am no good at the things that I can do. Why do I do that?

Springtime inspiration

I meant to post this months ago, although I have been meaning to post many many times and I have had lots of ridiculous reasons for why I have not. I told myself that Toby's camera wasn't user friendly enough for me to upload my snaps from, stupid, stupid reason. Anyway, I treated myself to a new snapper (a lovely little Panasonic Lumix jobbie) and I have found more reasons to snap and it is easier to upload. Here's hoping that it leads to a resurgence in my blogging - my friend, Anna, was very vocal about my lack of posts over the weekend.

Anyway, we used to have this funny little tree in the garden. It blossomed every year since we moved in but never seemed to do anything else. The bloom would fade away leaving a nondescript green lanky sort of tree. But when the blossom was out it was really rather pretty and it always would make me want to find some yarn or fabric that would do it justice if I was to make something, so far no luck and now the tree is gone, victim to some tree eating nasty.

Right, time to write this fortnight's pub quiz for the lovely people at The Greyhound. I need six rounds and so far I can only think of a Eurovision round (incidentally, what a dull show it was this year. Clearly it is the year of the ballad in Eurovision land), a cup of tea might provide some inspiration.....I hope

Quilty

Oh dear.

The resolution to make more and blog more has not really gone to plan so far this year. I keep blaming the fact that our digital camera is old, takes bad pictures and has no battery life. I think that really it is because I have been a lazy old thing who really cannot be bothered to make anything so far this year.

Although I have made something. Yesterday I made a baby quilt for Miranda who is due to have baby two any moment now.
I got the idea and inspiration from the Saints and Pinners blog, and I am so glad that I did. It was really easy to make and took very little time compare to some of the things that I have attempted.

I have now cut out enough squares to make a second baby quilt, this time for best friend Nat who has welcomed little Edward Jude into the world (although I say little he was a whopping 10lb 7ozs, eek, makes my eyes water). Once that is done I have another one to make for little Freya Elizabeth...no rest for the wicked ;)

New year, New attitude?

Being holed up in the snow the last week has got me back to thinking about all the things that I love. Cooking. Reading. Making things. Procrastinating.

One cold snowy night I curled up in bed with one of the best gifts that I received at Christmas, "Homemade" by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson and I was inspired and motivated in equal measure. 'Right', I thought, 'time to pull your finger out Spanier' and yesterday I sat down with some vintage yarn by Palette and started to crochet what I plan will be a lovely blanket. Creating the foundation chain sometimes feels never ending, as do those first few rows, but then it starts to look like something more than finger knitting and you find yourself unable to put your project down (generally to the frustration of Mr Kate, c'est la vie mon brave) but it is undeniably a great project for this proper winter that we are having.

So, what next for this year?

Big project, although not really down to me, is the new kitchen. With each day our master craftsman creates yet more of the beautiful cabinets but installation date still seems so far away. But when the planning consents have been given and the internal work has been done and the kitchen is in, there will be the pant wettingly exciting challenge of learning the art of aga cooking. Already I have more cookbooks that I imagine I will ever need, but I cannot help but pour over them, the mouth watering pictures that litter the pages of Mary Berry, Lucy Young and Amy Willcock work me into a state of sublime anticipation.

Then there is finding a corner of the cottage to make my own, where I can store my yarn stash, my fabric stash and my craft books. And once that is done there is dusting off the sewing machine after a few months of idle splendor and finishing off my Sew Hip! mystery quilt. We could have used it to snuggle under on the sofa these last few nights.

The main challenge is using this blog to witter about projects, plans for projects and not getting on with my projects. So be warned and watch this space!