What I Did at the Weekend

Evenin' guv'nors.

Lads, for the first time in LITERALLY A HUNDRED YEARS, Husband had a whole weekend off. This is a very, very rare occurrence for us, so we made the most of it yesterday by doing nothing until 3pm, then going out to buy some new binbags for Perfect's nappy bin.

So today, we put our feet down with firm hands and DID SOMETHING. And we have had such a fantastic day, it's been so, so nice.

We went out for breakfast...to Dobbie's Garden Centre in Livingstone. It was BRILLIANT! You get more breakfast than you can shake a hairy stick at for like, four Scottish rubles and it's braw (if it helps you, like it helped me, don't think about how they can charge £1.90 for tea, but only £3.99 for six different types of meat because it really does taste good). We decided on Dobbies because Perfect loves the fish, especially those giant gold-fishy looking ones with the brains.

We then went outside to look at the chickens. Oh, fellas, how I would love chickens! I'd love to watch them run around, and me and Perfect could feed them, and sit in the garden reading stories while the chickens pecked at our feet. Oh! Brilliant. Unfortunately, Husband is extremely short-sighted on the chicken front, and point-blank refuses to engage in conversations entitled 'Why We Need Chickens and an Eggloo' (that's what the chicken huts are called, is that not the most wonderful thing you've ever heard? I love a good pun).

Anyway, none of that matters because it turns out, Livingstone don't stock chickens. So we went over to the shops instead.

Quick aside chums, but recently I've subscribed to Bloglovin' which has saved me many, many seconds of time finding new blogs. One of them (and I know I'm so late to this) is Caroline Hiron's blog on Skincare (available here but I'm not taking responsibility for you going over there) - honesty, that woman knows her stuff. Sooooooo in a never-ending attempt to turn myself into a grown-up, I've grasped the opportunity to buy more skin junk. This'll surprise you, but I'm extremely suggestible to new skin stuff and makeup, and chickens - someone only has to wave a pot under my nose and go 'this'll make you thinner, funnier, brighter and more lady-full' and I'm on it like a car bonnet. So today, I bought this:

I haven't used it yet, but I'm expecting it to change my life! And my face. I'll let you know.

Anyhoo, we came home from the shops and had a lovely cup of tea. Aw! And then I made hummous! What?! I did! After seeing a recipe on Eating With My Fingers, another wonderful blog, very sad but very funny. Here's an arty photo (ha!) of the twenty-million chickpeas I had to shell.

and then, after a bit of kitchen magic, they turned into this:

Yum yum yum! It's so delicious and easy, honestly, give it a go. This is the one with Tahini, but there's an even easier recipe with peanut butter. If you try that one, please let me know how you got on! Anyway, it's so good that I've been digging into it all afternoon. Oh, skinny-ness! Why are we never to be friends? The only downside, and it's a very little downside, is the recipe makes enough to feed a thousand people, so we're going to be eating a lot of it over the next few days. But! It's probably very healthy.

So, I started a square-a-day blanket for Perfect, as you know, which was going ok-ish. Then someone on facebook linked to Attic24 (I know I'm so late to this too) and I was hooked! I'm SO FUNNY today, it's like I'm on FIRE! But really, she's awesome. So, I've changed my mind, decided not to fret about the wasted hours spent on the sqaure-a-day, and I'm doing a ripple instead. But guess what? I love it!

It's handy doing crochet because it's so portable. It's only one hook, one ball at a time, and the pattern is stored in my mega-portable brain. It's so easy too, once I got the hang of it, and it's very soothing to do the same thing over and over. Like cleaning the kitchen! (False, that was a wee dig at Husband, who seems to not notice junk lying about in the kitchen. Sorry for bringing marital discord over here, he really is the jewel of my face, apart from Perfect). This blanket is quite wide though, so it takes a wee while to do a row, maybe forty minutes? But I'm not a very quick crochet-er yet.

So that's me! A lovely day doing things I love, with the people I love most in the world.

Oh! It got a bit soppy at the end there for a minute. I think it's passed now though.

I'm a Fanuary of January

Chums! So I made a New Years resolution to post on my blog weekly. Sadly, New Year was many, many weeks ago and I am yet to update. So I've changed it to monthly. That sounds about do-able, doesn't it?

So! How was your Christmas? All was good here, we were spoiled rotten, the lot of us. Husband got me the best thing in the entire universe (obviously apart from the Perfect) -

S'an Ali Miller teaset, what was featured in episode three of season two of Sherlock, when Moriarty comes for a visit! Oh! I can't even tell you how much I love it Chinas, there are very few material things I would save in a fire - my engagement ring and some 1930s glassware - and now this! I'd probably have to do two trips actually. As I type, me and Husband are enjoying a cup of Sherlock tea while the Perfect refuses to sleep. He's just too delighted that we've got a Sherlock teaset, I think.

Right, so making! Lads, I've been knitting up a STORM! Here's the blue one, unfinished in my last post, modelled here by the Perfect and Arm of Len:

Then I knitted a cable cardi for him. Oh man, have you ever knitted a cable knit? It takes a hundred thousand years, it takes so, so long. I was so grumpy by the time I'd finished knitting it, the Perfect had already graduated from Uni and had a promising career in Astro-physics. Here he is in it anyhoo:

It's not a brilliant photo, to be fair. Next, I knitted this amazeballs, textured green one in Sirdar baby crofter, which is my very favourite:

)

(You might have to zoom in a bit on that one) AND ANTHER BOY AT BABY SENSORY HAS EXACTLY THE SAME ONE! This is not as big a coincidence as it seems, since I saw the boy wearing it and thought, I've got that pattern at home, and promptly knitted  the same one. But! It's a bit of a coincidence.

So I'm still knitting away Chums, but I've got a bit of another project on the go at the moment. Actually, two. Actually, seven, and I'm wanting to do a bit of quilt-making cos it's been so long since I revved up the ol' sewing machine. It'll be missing me. Most of my projects (ha! check me out! I'm using 'projects' in place of 'bags of junk cluttering up my living room'. Got to add a bit of class, know what I mean?) involve knitting but one involves cross stitching a SAMPLER, oh yes, which is massive and the other...

Did I ever tell you that Roy is a photographer? I honestly don't know how mine are so bad, it's in my blood! Anyway, I'm doing a crochet-a-square-a-day blanket for the Perfect. It's not going well, I started it a fortnight ago and I've got six squares. But here's a thing nobody tells you about having a baby....it's quite hard to get five minutes to be creative.

The squares are crochet-ted in shades of grey, dark in the middle, then light, then a blue-y one, then the same again, finishing with a round of dark grey. I've done granny squares before but I wanted a simple pattern, which I found here, after getting inspiration for the blanket from here. I'm totally blown away by the talent of those two, you should definitely go over for a rake. When the blanket is finished, probably in another eighty days, I might do a border of little pom-poms to finish it off. 'Oh that's a lot of effort to go to' you cry, 'you must be superwoman!' Stop it now, I'm blushing! It's actually a piece of cake because Len bought me a pom-pom maker! Go and buy one right now, you can make a perfect pom-pom in about eight seconds and then you can leave them around your house to create a fun conversation with your significant other! It's brilliant! Here's my pom-pom selfie:

Quite, quite brilliant photography. I've made loads of pom-pom bunting but I've not taken any pictures of them yet, you'll be delighted to know. This is the face the Perfect made whence I showed him the bunting:

For he is his father's son. Sadly, he is also his mother's son, so he's just going to have to put up with it.

Aaah, Saturday!

Is there anything nicer than Saturday in Scotland?

Nope! So I got up, had my porridge and started knitting:

and then realised I'd made a mistake. So went in a huff. Then ripped it back:

and then left it in peace. I had a notion to start crocheting a blanket - I've done one before but it's rubbish. So I bought this wool:

and I'm going to make granny squares. Sortofa....square a day idea. I'll keep you posted hahaha! Also, here's some homemade dodgy bunting:

It's very difficult when you want to be good at something but are not. Ah well, practice, practice! Now I am off vistin' the parents for some spoiling. Toodle pip!

Something lovely

So today I learned a new skill! Well, kind of...

Free..hmm, now I can't remember what it's called. Free style quilting? Something like that. Obviously, I'm still rubbish at it but at least I worked out how to drop the feet on my machine! Which, by the way, is a Viking Husqvarna and I can't tell you how much pleasure I get from saying it. Husqvarna. It's so lovely. Sometimes at work I just whisper it to myself over and over. Actually, that's a bit mental now I've seen it in print.

Also, I made this:

Again, I know it's a bit dodgy but...it's a coaster. I've got a real thing about wasting fabric but I can never think of anything creative to do with it, so it just sits about in my house. Anyway, this was from the secret quilt and I cut too many squares...and coasters are square...and I wanted something quick...and if I get good at it, they can go on ebay along with:

...and:

And I took some pictures of some nice things, things that make me happy every time I look at them:

...my button jar:

 ...my fabric for a new secret quilt:

...and some unfinished knitting, which does NOT make me feel happy, but I like the colours:

Happy Leap Year, also! Here's to another four years.