Easter 2010

Wow this was some cold EASTER: Brrrrrrr in our house, probably because JJ thinks a thermostat set at or below 15 degrees is fine, not so for poor old cold-blooded me! Cold feet, freezing hands and when he pops out I sneak it back up to 20: Blissful heat for a wee while.
The above is my first 100's and 1000's cupcake for my course- 22 or 12 to be completed now by 20 April. Loved the crochet but hated doing all that hand embroidery- definately NOT ''my thing''.

Oops this is a bit dark, it's the chocolate cupcake rejected by the tutor: not quite good enough alas. Got to add way more pleats and french knots rather than beads.

These were the truly scrumptious cinnamon and raisin whirls the kids made on Good Friday using a waitrose recipe from their launch issue ''KITCHEN'' magazine. YUMMEEEEE!

Whicked and utterly delicious.
To complete out W'rose/Delia Easter we also had the Delia grape stuffed roast chicken on Easter Sunday and that too was delish. Aaah doesn't it look sweet? Took me all day mind you and that's without crocheting the base AND I have the pleated case yet to sew too! HELP!

This is the poorly assortment of bases and 2 tops- 1 lavender and 1 lemon icing - that I have made thus far but lots of embroidery yet to be done! All to be stuffed with used teabags.

On a much happier note : on Saturday I treated myself to a wee Easter treat: Rowan Summer Crochet booklet- no egg you see- and it was fun stitching the above sample from ''SARDINIA'' on the Saturday evening.

Then Sunday after church and after walking the dogs I had some feet up wih tv and crochet time to myself and taught myself to do the lace panel from ''Corsica'' - AND HERE IT IS!

In Katia brand cotton called BOMBAY. ( very popular on Ravelry there are 190 projects featuring this yarn , yep HONEST 190 projects and I had a peep at all 190 this morning)

YEP, love love, lurvving this too! Have to order some more yarn ( first stop up my ears to stop me hearing the screams from my huge yarn stash)as I can ''see'' ( in my mind) a lovely cap sleeved top worked sideways in this lace with a ribbed panel below the bust. Very similar to Corsica really but worked sideways so the stripes will be vertical.

When you're petite and curvy : you need that kind of help!

Thus when embroidering all afternoon I was dreaming of my crochet to come.... And here's where I left my regia sockwool scarf story so far. Working on the 7th stripe, red melee and to be a wide one I think.

Also did quite a bit of admin, some Ravelry-ing , many cuddles with kids and JJ this and every morning, and logging my enormous textile book library on a database for reference - 35 years of passionate textile/jewellery/home decoration book collecting. Lovely thick ''coffee table books'' with fabulous inspirational photography.....

Best bits? 1.The water sprays in church from Father Mark on Sunday ( gave us the giggles as the cold drops trickled down my cleavage as I was wearing cutwork lace) 2. the giggles as we tried to cuddle 3 persons in each of the kids beds in turn. 3. Chocolate egg making fun and the grins of pride and pleasure as the girls un-moulded their choccie creations.

Sorry no photos of the choccies as my camera battery was down since Saturday morning.

I soooo hope you had a brilliant relaxing happy EASTER weekend too!

Easter 2009 retrospective catching up

It's been a while and a lot has been happening but I wanted to just catch up with all the textile-y things that happened over Easter as well as all the puppy- stuff!

I thought I'd start with a picture- I made this a while ago now admittedly -which is nicely floral and of a tiger lily which I would have had for my birthday ..... It's to tally free machined no computers or embroidery machined involved whatsoever- simply DRAWING with my sewing machine needle.....

Also I absolutely LOVED my anemones as above: aren't those colours just scrummy?!!!

My hyacinths were out very early and very blue but not as much scent as expected this year or maybe I just had too much blockage due to the early start of the hayfever season???

There were narcissi too and they lookes so good in my jolly blue jug!!!

OH NO! You'll be disgusted at my scrumped up cottons- well they were just washed but I was NOT going to iron them just for the photo as I DYED them over the EASTER weekend.

I decided it was a weekend all about death and dying and resurrection: AND VOILA! I joined in by dye-ing some new pyamas and thus resurrecting them for lots of loving wear later on.....

These are the only affordable pure cotton pyamas I could find and they were cheap but UGLY so I washed them and then dyed them in the washing machine. I have to have pure cotton woven pyamas as it alleviates my eczema.....Knitted cotton just isn't the same as it never gets to feel as ''cool or cold'' as the finely WOVEN fabric.


So beware the ugliness, here are the ''before'' pictures: owls and stripes...

Just before Easter I also quickly crocheted a pair of baby bootees for the sister of a colleague who's having her first baby: a girl!
Easter and SPRING are all around us and it made us VERY EXCITED to find that a collared dove chose to set up her nest on our fence in a bush just outside the kitchen door.....

She let us walk past and even ignored a barking Pippa but when direct eye contact was made she flew off for a few minutes... Can you see her? I didn't want to disturb her- or is it he? There were two distinct doves taking turns on this nest.

And here are more nests: this time less functional more decorative, celabratory and fun! Bunnies and chicks galore as we decorate the house to celebrate Easter.....
Remember my carrot tops? Here they are in mid April growing and cheering us all along in their feathery greenery.

There was more dye-ing done than the pyama variety too!!! I had acquired on impulse- happens a bit too often according to some who must not be mentioned- some 20 balls of cashmerino wool- OOOOH SOOOOOOOO SOFT ABSOLUTE HEAVENLY SOFTNESS- but they were not really ''my'' kind of colour and they were bought for a blanket or a jumper but then I could not get to grips with it as : well....COLOUR means such a lot to me. Now this blue ain't bad as blues go but it's very very PALE and I don't do very pale very well......

There's a lilac too and that was worse: a greyed apology of a colour,'' hint of depressed lilac ''I'd say.

So I decided to try to dye it: I left a few messages on Ravelry and got advice on using KOOL- AID but I have not had much luck in the blues/pink spectrum with this although I did get a few nice greens and a red/orange mix with a started kool-aid pack last year......

I had a very old packet of FUSCHIA Dylon Cold dye in a tiny circular tin and used this. It dyes 500g so I used half the tin and dyed 2 skeins. Tap hot water into a plastic bucket, add washed wet wool in skeins, add vinegar and stir continuously for 10 minutes then sporadically for another 45 minutes, drain rinse till the water runs clear and then wash it in Stergene.

I turned the balls into skeins for dye-ing with my skein winder- set up in the garden above. And below as it happens....

The pale bue one I dyed with the new Dylon packets : it was a plastic packet called Ocean blue ( hand dye)and I used 10 g of the dye powder in 100 ml of very hot water, then added this to a bucket of 1.2 litres of hot water and added 50 g of salt. Stir as before, add wet washed wool in a skein.

The wool in this case was Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK. JUST 1 BALL: ie 50 g.

Here's the before- lilac and AFTER: PINK OR MAGENTA!!!

And here's the blues before and after!!!

Alltogether now: balls and dyed skeins- I think they look together now? What do you think?

Here's the machine dye for the PJ's.

This is what you do: dye into drum and cover with LOTS of SALT.

VOILA!!Resurrected bright jolly pink pyamas!!! The only things that refused to dye were the buttons- duh- and the piping.....

And the owls have all turned pink also: all in the same lot!Ironed this time and ready to wear!!!

HOW'S THAT for a resurrection?!!! That was some of the time at EASTER in 2009......

( the rest was fully occupied with the puppies!!!!)