January round up

Its the last day of January, how did that happen so quickly? I've barely got used to it being 2013 and already we are one month into it.

So here is my round up for the month:

Recipes tried and blogged:

Home made deodorant - I have been using this consistently since I blogged. I sometimes have to apply twice a day if I'm having a more energetic day but it works well and doesn't stain my clothes or leave white marks like commercial deodorant. My underarms also feel silky soft which is a nice side effect.

Home made sugar free chocolate - these are beautiful, five to ten minutes to make and worth every second. Even my DH makes them. I've eaten hardly any proper chocolate since making these and they cure my cravings for sweet things.





Projects started:

15 stitch blanket 

Ombre Acrylic Blanket

Posh Purple Wristwarmers & Neckwarmer









Striped Crochet Blanket - a post to come on this soon

May rose wreath










High Speed Knitted Shawl - a post to come on this soon

Projects frogged/put into the WIP Pile:

15 stitch blanket

Ombre Acrylic Blanket

Projects finished:

Posh Purple Wristwarmers and neckwarmer

May rose wreath











Yarn in:

5950g ! I don't think I've ever bought that much in one go before! In fact that's probably as much as I'd bought ever before all in one go. Good job most of it was acrylic and therefore cheap, plus I don't think I'll be buying much yarn for a few months so this should keep me going for awhile.

This converts into 17,620 meters or 10.9 miles

Yarn kitted/crocheted:

692g

2484 meters or 1.5 miles




So I have quite a bit of catching up to do,maybe I should stop buying yarn...

I did also give away 200g of yarn, which was 2200 meters or 1.4 miles which does help a little bit as that is now out of my stash.

Books reviewed:

Week 1: Alice in Wonderland

Week 2: Alice through the looking glass

Week 3: A country housewife's book

Week 4: Sense and Sensibility

Week 5:Someone at a distance

Quite a busy month I think. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my activities and continue to read my posts. I think they will probably slow down a little in February but I still hope to post at least 3 - 4 times per week.

Crafty Creatives - January Box

I've been having the lovely Crafty Creatives boxes since they started and every month has been fantastic. Some months I've preferred to others but its given me the opportunity to try new crafts. Sometimes I get more out of the additional items in the box than the main craft itself, but that's okay because it means I'm building up a lovely stock of beads, ribbons, stickers, buttons, pictures and lots of other things which come in surprisingly handy.

If you haven't come across Crafty Creatives before basically they send out a box once a month. In each box will be a small craft to try out, I've made a notebook, a Gothic mask, bath bombs, a flower for my hair and so on. Also in the box are lots of other crafty bits and pieces. Each box has a theme and the items are linked around that.

January's theme is: Woodland

In the box this month is:

The Art Card
The Kit: this month needlefelting leaves
Toadstool beads
Wooden leaf buttons
Skeleton leaves
5 leaf pendants
Owly fabric
Flower soft and glue - I've never used this stuff before its apparently like glitter
Fox beads
Owl pendant
3 birch hearts
Pine cone

I've done needlefelting before, if fact if I ever get round to putting together my red needlefelted cushion cover you'll see just how much needlefelting I've done! So this kit is of less immediate interest to me than some of the others, but I will do it at some point as I think the leaves would make a nice addition to an autumn themed wreath.

In fact I find the whole box very autumn themed this time around, rather than winter, however I like everything in it so I'm not complaining.


If you liked reading my post please subscribe to it using the drop down menu at the top right, or leave me a comment

A Posh Quilt

A few days ago I won a prize over on Dee's Posh Yarn blog. The competition was to say what your word for the year was. I chose patience, because my ME/CFS frequently means I can't do what I want, as fast as I want, when I want. So I need more patience.

I never normally win anything, but I won! I was so excited I had to keep double checking to make sure it was me who had won, I honestly couldn't believe it.

The prize was a mini quilt handmade by Dee, who is very talented at making and photographing beautiful things.

Which makes the next bit slightly nerve wracking as I want to photograph my prize and I know there is no way I will be able to do it justice. My photography skills are a bit hit and miss at best and part of my reason behind posting more frequently in this blog is to try to force myself to take more photographs and to try to improve my skills.

I tend to blame my camera a lot, and to be fair it is very cheap and cheerful and not brilliant. I would love a new one but I wonder whether there is any point until I've at least learnt how to use a simple one properly.

In the meantime here are the photos. First up my porch:

 Why my porch? Well that blank wall at the end there is where the mini quilt is going to live as a wall hanging to brighten up the room.

Here's the quilt down there to show how it will go (obviously not hung up because I haven't had chance yet but just to get an idea of how the colours will work):

And finally a close up of the quilt in all its beautiful, colourful quilted glory:

This manages to have in it most of my favourite colours and I think its fabulous. Thank you Dee I will treasure it.

Homemade - Christmas gift tags

Does anyone else still make Christmas gift tags from their Christmas cards? We always helped my Mum with this when we were children. January seems the wrong time to be thinking about next Christmas already but as yesterday we had to take the Christmas decorations down, it was also the day to make my gift tags.

As you can see from the already cut ones I used scissors with a wavy edge. My Mum always made them using pinking shears, which looked better to me, but despite them being on my Christmas list this year I don't actually own any so the cheap wavy scissors came in handy. I did get some very nice Christmas presents though so I can't complain.

If you've never done this before simply collect together your Christmas cards and sort out the suitable ones. Charity ones often have writing on the inside of the front so they aren't suitable and sometimes the really posh ones have a picture on the inside as well as the outside so they aren't suitable. You don't want the gift tags to be too big or too small so depending on the picture on the front you might not always be able to get a gift tag out of each card.

Some cards though you can get a few out of. On the full card above I ended up getting one gift tag out of the two fir trees, and another one out of the Christmas wishes.

Sometimes there doesn't even need to be an appropriate picture, you may be able to see the plain gold on in the picture above. That came from underneath the teddies on the tag below it and makes a perfectly decent gift tag by itself.

To use just punch a hole in the corner using a hole punch and pop some cotton thread or cord through it to attach to the parcel.

I got twenty gift tags to use for next year, not bad for free. Do you have any Christmas traditions like this?


If you liked reading my post please subscribe to it using the drop down menu at the top right, or leave me a comment

WIP - 15 stitch blanket

Since the New Year I have been knitting a Ten stitch blanket although I'm actually knitting mine with fifteen stitches to make the spirals a bit wider.

I've got three skeins of Posh Yarn Martha Sock in the colourway Trumpet Voluntary which is dark purple with flashes of cerise pink and blue. The photo doesn't really show the colour well, its a difficult one to photograph, but when its finished I'll take some better pictures.

In the meantime I've finished one skein so I'm a third of the way through, and I haven't got bored of the project yet. Instead I'm more likely to end up staying up late saying I just want to do one more row which of course turns into several more rows.

Its a smooshy satisfying knit in a beautiful yarn, what more could I ask for?

If you liked reading my post please subscribe to it using the drop down menu at the top right, or leave me a comment

Homemade - deodorant

Today I made some deodorant. I don't like the idea of some of the chemicals in shop bought deodorants, but I haven't found any alternatives that work so far.

I've been reading a bit about coconut oil and baking powder as an alternative and decided to try this combination:

6 teaspoons of coconut oil
4 teaspoons of baking powder
4 teaspoons of cornstarch
10 drops of lime essential oil

The coconut oil was quite hard to get out of the jar as my kitchen is a little cold. I had to keep scraping it out and packing it into my teaspoon measure until I had enough.

I then mashed the mixture together. Everything I had read said to use a fork, this didn't really work for me. Instead I got my fingers in and squashed it all together until it formed a paste.

Coconut oil melts at body temperature which meant I did end up with some on my fingers so I just rubbed that into my hands as a hand cream, which it isn't too different too. I found the mixture didn't sink in as quickly as some hand creams, but it wasn't too heavy and oily which was a good start as I am concerned about marks on my clothes when using this.

I had an old black plastic cosmetics tub which I filled with the mixture and I rubbed a little under my arms. I haven't exactly had an energetic day today. I've spent most of it in front of the computer or knitting, with a little side trip to B and Q for some plaster board, drainpipes and lino floor tiles (yes this is how I take advantage of the January sales!).

So far I can tell I've used something, I certainly don't feel sticky like I would if I hadn't used anything. I will have to see how it holds up to my regular daily activities. Even if I can only use it on relatively inactive days, as someone with ME/CFS I shouldn't have too much of a problem using it up.

If you liked reading my post please subscribe to it using the drop down menu at the top right, or leave me a comment