Yarn along and Christmas presents

This week I have been enjoying another magazine, Kitchen Garden. In my opinion I find it is the best gardening magazine, it always comes with a pack of seeds and has lots of very useful tips, even though some of them are aimed at the young at heart!

I have been knitting with my hand spun silk, which is super hard as you may know that silk itself is very slippery. 

The finished product.

I have also been busy crocheting candle holders to go in the gift boxes.

Here they are all finished.

And packaged up

Business and preparation

Autumn is definitely upon us now. It is cold and murky time, a time to cosy up inside. Firing up the central heating which has been named Clunky. To chase away the cool, dampness that has been hanging around for the past few days.

The nights are drawing in too, it makes the day seem so short. Many times I have felt myself longing for bed around 8pm, which is far too early. Last night I gave in at half past 9. 

I felt that was acceptable after a hard days work. Yesterday I had to repair the chicken coop after the feathery ladies escaped. Luckily there was no Mr Fox around, so everyone is safe and accounted for after their adventure.

I have also been working on the decorating. Still going! Although it was all the boring white gloss for the wood work. Now it looks fresh and clean. I also need to make some soft furnishing for the living to help with the cosiness factor. Maybe some curtains just to help keep the warm in a little more. I came across some ideas for burlap (or hessian as it is called in the UK) curtains.

Here are some examples I have found on Pinterst:

The colours I picked for my living room are brown and purples anyway, so hessian would fit perfectly.  I would post a picture of my living room but it is about to chuck it down so has gone very dark!

Digging around further on Pinterst (as I am sure users of that site are well aware how often this happens!) I came across some pretty interesting combinations of hessian and lace:

 

Some possible future projects maybe?




I have also made mayonnaise. It was a very stressful thing to do and I managed to use eight, yes eight egg yolks! Now I have a whole bunch of whites sitting in the fridge ready to be made into meringue. 

Knitted dish cloths

I am a huge fan of knitted dish cloths and the fact they are completely re-usable is a plus. Once they have done their duty washing up and are mucky, chuck them in the washing machine with the other laundry and they come out as good as new.

After they have been washed to death and are looking a bit sad they get relegated from the kitchen draw to the bathroom to clean in there. Once they are beyond that, as they are 100% cotton they can be chucked into the recycling as textiles. 

After visiting my Nanna in Scotland, she traded me a huge bag of cotton, double knit in white and ecru. So I set to work knocking up a few 

I don't bother blocking them as they are only to be used for cleaning pans and eventually the toilet. 

The one at the back is just a simple stocking stitch block with a garter border. The other uses this pattern found on raverly. I added a crochet border for added prettiness but I find crochet is better for scrubbing with.

Do any of you guys still use knitted dish cloths? My Nan always said her mother (my great Nan) always used them.