A Granny Squares Crochet Cushion (Mollie Makes Magazine)

I know, I know, I went on a knitting course on Saturday, and here I am showing you a crochet cushion, but I finished this last night and could not sit on my hands and wait to show you for a moment longer.

This beautifully simple cushion, which I first set eyes on in Mollie Makes magazine back in the Spring, was the first crochet pattern which really caught my eye, which gave me that excited, fluttery, ooh-I-really-want-to-make-that feeling. My learn to crochet course was looming when the magazine arrived on my doorstep, and it became my first crochet project.

I so enjoyed making this cushion. I finally understood what people meant when they talked about yarn being "nice" or "a dream" to work with. After weeks of practicing on cheap acrylic yarn, this Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino was soft, supple, and didn't split. Or squeak.

Piles of squares grew and grew over the summer months. John observed that if I spent as much time crocheting them as I did stacking, arranging and admiring them, then the whole project would have been done in half the time.

In a flash of inspiration, I joined my arranged squares with safety pins. I spent about an hour playing with the squares, aiming for an random effect which of course was not random at all. Pinning the squares together kept them in the right order and stopped me accidentally sewing one on back to front.

You can't tell from the photos, but my tension changed hugely during the making of this cushion. I made the 36 squares for one side during June and July then put them to one side to make a scarf. In August, I picked it up again and made the other 36 squares. Side 1 is about two inches bigger than side 2, but hey ho. It's a forgiving beginner's project.

I used some pretty pink buttons that came free with the magazine to fasten it together.

I'm really pleased with the results. The flashes of charcoal grey match the sofa in the living room and it gives a much needed burst of retro colour.

The facts and figures:

1. The pattern is from Mollie Makes Magazine, issue number 13 (April).
2. I used Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino yarn and a 4mm hook. 3 balls of cream (101) and half a ball each of charcoal grey, rose pink, green, mustard yellow, purple, red and a pale grey-blue. Apologies for not keeping the labels.
3. The cushion pad measures 45cm x 45cm or 18" x 18"
4. It's very soft.
5. I like it.

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Many thanks for your brilliant suggestions on crafty projects to make for and with little boys. You suggestions of sock animals/puppets, junk modelling cars/robots/trucks, homemade slime and monster softies were brilliant. Some fab short and long term projects there. I will hopefully report back with some results soon.

Also, the knitting course I attended on Saturday, at Baa Ram Ewe wool shop in Leeds, was all that it promised to be. We were shown how to cast on (I know three different ways, now! Three!), knit, purl, increase and decrease, add colour and cast off. We learnt about yarn weights and the importance of making swatches to gauge tension. We were given two balls of gorgeous chunky British wool yarn, size 10mm needles and the pattern for a simple hat. I am determined to complete the project, not because I particularly need another hat, but to learn how to follow a pattern. 

Two Blackberry and Apple Recipes For You

Well, I am glad that week is over. So busy, so much to-ing and fro-ing from school to nursery to home then back to school again... Lots of highs and lows, walking away from dropping off Angus feeling like the worst mother in the world, and then relief that he is enjoying himself and settling in (despite noisy tears and tantrums when I leave him). There have been many moments over the last five years when I have craved the silence of an empty house, but I found it strange this week. I couldn't settle or relax. I have done a lot of housework and am, frankly, astounded at how much you can achieve in two hours without small people around you. Lots of adjustments for us all. And when the going gets tough, the tough go into the kitchen and turn on Radio 4 and do some cooking.

So, as we move slowly from Summer into Autumn, here are two recipes that make the most of the seasonal fruit available and do rather well for hot and cold days.

This recipe was something of a revelation to me. I caught the last few minutes of a recipe similar to this on Woman's Hour last week and it sounded so good, and so easy, that I had a go. It's like a sorbet but more grainy and the flavours are intensely fruity, sharp and sweet at the same time. Honestly, you have to try it, it is amazing, and I'm not one to brag about my mediocre cooking skills.

Ingredients:

• 300g or 10 oz blackberries
• 300g or 10 oz peeled, chopped and cored apples (3 large or 4 medium apples will do)
• a couple of tablespoons of sugar, depending on how sweet your tooth is.
• single cream

Method:

• Stew the fruit and sugar gently in a pan with a little water until it is reduced to a pulp.
• Pour the fruit through a sieve into a bowl and let it slowly drip through. I left mine dripping for about half an hour, stirring it and pushing it through the sieve every now and then.
• The contents of the bowl should have the consistency of a smoothie. Taste to check  it is sweet enough. If you want to add more sugar at this stage, use icing sugar so that it dissolves easily.
• Pour this into a freezer-proof lidded dish (I used tupperware) so that it is about one inch deep. Discard the fruit pulp left in the sieve.
• Freeze for a couple of hours until it is very softly frozen. Stir it with a fork so that it changes from one solid lump into a grainy mixture, and then it is ready to serve.

We ate ours with a little single cream, which worked really well with the sharp fruit, but you could use yogurt or creme fraiche, or just eat it on it's own. It did occur to me afterwards that a little alcohol, like Bol's Cassis or Calvados would be very nice in this. Mmm, apple and Calvados granita, that's got me thinking... 

And here is something for the colder nights, when it gets dark early and you want comfort food and lots of custard. I've seen about ten recipes for blackberry and apple crumble in blogland lately, it's obviously a good-un, but what the heck, I've uploaded the photos, so I'll post it anyway.

Ingredients:

• 300 grams or 10 oz blackberries
• 3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
• 170 grams or 6 oz plain flour
• 140 grams or 5 oz sugar
• 115 grams or 4 oz butter
• 60 grams or 2 oz oats

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F/gas mark 4.
• Scatter the fruit in the bottom of an oven proof dish. Provided your apples are fairly thinly sliced, there is no need to cook or stew the fruit first.
• With your fingers or a food processor, mix together the flour, sugar, butter and oats until they resemble breadcrumbs.
• Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top of the fruit.
• Bake for around 45 minutes until the fruit is bubbling and the crumble mixture is cooked. 

Serve with custard, cream or ice cream, whatever is your preference. We ate ours with custard, the bright yellow straight-out-of-a-packet kind, and very delicious it was too.

I've always fancied making an apple crisp. I think these are like an American version of a crumble but with more oats so that the topping is like a crispy flapjack, rather than soft and crumbly. If anyone has any advice or recipes, that would be much appreciated.

Have a great weekend - I am going on a knitting course with some friends. I will of course report back! x

Felt Macarons (Mollie Makes Magazine)

You were all so nice about my dress - thank you. It was a scary moment uploading that photo, but I like to see what my blogging friends look like so it seemed only fair that you know what I look like too. 

But today - back to my crafting comfort zone. How ridiculously cute and pretty are these little macarons? I want to eat all of them. I tried to make macarons a while back and, well...let's just say they didn't look as good as these.

My mission to "make" something from each month's Mollie Makes magazine continues - this one is the felt macarons tutorial from issue number fourteen.

They were a bit of a fiddle. It took about half an hour to make each one, but playing with the colours (sorry, flavours) of each one was enormous fun. I put them in a cardboard takeaway box and wrapped them in ribbon and gave them to Bella and Angus. Bella thinks they are hers and hers alone. Angus knows better and plays with them while she is at school.

It did occur to me that, as well as play food, they would make excellent pin cushions.

John recently accused me of too much girly crafting and it hit a nerve and made me think. Bella loves crafting and gets very involved with what I make, and so I do probably make more things for her. That's true. Angus has neither the language, dexterity or opinions to really get involved. But when Bella was three, she didn't either.

So I was thrilled to see how much Angus loves playing with these toy macarons. We set up a  little tea party and he sat there for ages, pouring tea, feeding his toys. He was a very happy chappie. He is loves the toy shop and kitchen we have, and spends as much time playing with those as Bella. But I do need some ideas for crafting with, and for, three year old boys. Who like cars, dinosaurs and trains. Any suggestions would be most welcome!

While admiring the cuteness of these nicely packaged treats, I started thinking about making things for gifts. I thought that a box containing two macarons, a couple of felt doughnuts and perhaps a felt biscuit or jam tart, wrapped in ribbon with a pretty tag, might be a sweet gift to give a small person for Christmas or birthday. I'd better get stitching. 

Thanks for reading and I hope you are all having a good week. Mine has had it's ups and downs and I'm looking forward to Friday very much. x

An Orla Kiely Dress - Before and After

First, thank you so much for all your warm words and kind thoughts about Angus starting nursery. And for sharing your potty training tales - an area of parenting that is hilarious when it is far behind you but tedious when you are in the middle of it. You are all lovely for taking the time to visit and leave comments - it makes my day. And a very big hello to my new followers. You are very welcome and it's lovely to have you here!

Anyway, to today's business. This is not, and never will be, a fashion blog. But I was just so darn happy with the result of something that I really wanted to share it with you. 

I bought the dress below from Uniqlo, part of their new Orla Kiely range (be still my beating heart). I love her designs and use of pattern and colour, and have various wallets, mugs, cushions, towels, lampshades...I could go on. It's embarrassing. But her clothes have always been financially beyond my reach, so I was VERY excited by the Uniqlo range, and ordered this dress.

But when it came, oh, it was not the moment I was hoping for. The words tent-like and maternity spring to mind. But I love the pattern, and the collar and cuff detailing, and the price. So I gave it some thought. I could take it in, but I'm no great shakes on the sewing machine and would probably ruin it. I could cut holes in each side and add a tie-back, but cutting an Orla Kiely dress just felt very wrong.

So, after some pondering and much discussion with my friend Sam over wine, I bought two metres of cream velvet ribbon for the princely sum of £2.58 and made a sash/tie around the waist. I love it. It suits my shape now. I can adjust the ribbon for fat days and thin days and no dress was harmed in the making of this post. And it is the perfect Autumn dress with tights and my favourite brown boots.

(Please excuse the altogether horrid pictures - it was very bright and sunny, my hair was a mess, I am squinting, and felt like a right idiot standing in my back garden making John take a photo of me. But the dress is good.)

My Baby

Angus started nursery today. 

I am feeling a little sad. 

It is the beginning of the end of my at-home-with-kids bubble. John was off today and we all went off together at 8.30am. Angus cried a little when we first went in, but then he spotted a few of his friends and wandered off in search of the cars and train track. When we said bye he was quite happy. I cried all the way back to the car. John took me to buy some ribbon for a dress and for a coffee (I'm a cheap date). 

But then, in the coffee shop, we ordered two coffees and didn't have to spend a small fortune on fruit juice and gingerbread men. We sat down and chatted, without interruptions, about where we might go to spend our ten year wedding anniversary next Spring. 

That was nice.

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In other exciting news, Angus has made excellent progress in the toilet training department. Pants were purchased. More pants were purchased as five pairs clearly wasn't enough and, for some inexplicable reason, he wont wear his Thomas the Tank Engine ones. A potty chair is now another brightly coloured, ugly plastic item in our house. But I'd rather look at that than have puddles all over the floorboards. We've been attempting this on and off since last Spring and I was starting to think he'd be the only child at nursery not toilet trained. But, in true Angus fashion, he waited until he was good and ready, thank you very much.

The monkey pants below are his absolute favourite pair.

A Sunny Day in the Dales

In the UK, when we get really good weather in June, July and August, we say "Oh finally! About time too. I hope it lasts. But not for too long because we don't want another hosepipe ban...etc etc". But when we get sunshine in September everyone is grateful. And happy. Because it feels like such a treat, a blessing, to have such gorgeous weather when the schools have gone back and Autumn is approaching. 

The light feels like it has a different quality to it; softer, more mellow, less need for running around with sun hats and suncream. The air smells different. Yesterday I joined a group of friends who were camping for the night in the Yorkshire Dales. Eight adults, six children, one teenager and one baby. I didn't camp because 1. John was working all weekend, 2. we had plans Friday and Saturday night, and 3. we don't own a tent. Bella, Angus and I arrived at lunchtime and had an idyllic few hours with our friends. We picnicked, we played with water rockets and we spent hours paddling and splashing in a beautiful brook. When I left them all in the late afternoon sun, beers in hand, planning their evening barbecue I did think, hmmm - maybe I could be persuaded that  this camping lark is for me after all. 

Do you like camping? I think I could get into it if I had a proper, good tent and comfy mattresses with fitted sheets, and good pillows, and an electric hook-up with a fridge, cooker, (radio?) you know, all the kit. In fact the more a tent resembles an Actual House, the more I like it.

The other thing that struck me is, oh my goodness, the Yorkshire Dales are stunningly beautiful. It took an hour and a half to get to our destination yesterday, but we can get to other parts of the Dales like Skipton in under an hour. Why, when we have this amazing countryside around me, don't we go more? Also, because we are apparently the only family left in the world who does not to own a Sat Nav, I got very lost, going and coming back. But I didn't really mind, because the sun was shining and it was just all very scenic. Now, if I was lost on the one way system in Leeds city centre, that would be a different matter altogether.

What did you do with your weekend? Was it sunny where you are? 

Blackberries and Apples

Lately we have been picking a lot of blackberries. Last week we picked a couple of pounds of brambles, or wild blackberries, near the sea shore. On the way home from school each day we look for them along the old railway line. I find nappy bags make very handy containers for spontaneous fruit picking.

I find fruit picking so relaxing. It's like therapy. (Or what I imagine the positive benefits of therapy to be. Maybe I mean it's therapeutic.) All I am thinking about is the task in front of me (although the Mummy radar is never fully switched off). Find fruit, squeeze it to test it's ripeness, pick it and add it to the growing pile in the bag or basket. Reach. Pick. Collect. Avoid the sharp bramble thorns. My mind just wanders all over the place and I feel very peaceful and happy. Not ecstatic happy, just quietly content with life. Does fruit picking make you feel like this? Or anything else?

My Grandmother has a wild tangle of proper, cultivated blackberries in her garden, and I picked lots of those while we were staying with my parent's last week. I hadn't really noticed the difference between the two types of fruit, but the blackberries are so much fatter, sweeter and juicier than their more wild equivalent. She also has a large apple tree and let me collect all the fallen fruit. I will give her some of the jam I made with it. A fair exchange.

So this week I have been having a few jam making sessions. Getting a bit bold and having two pans bubbling on the hob at the same time, get me.

I made blackberry and apple jam, one of my all time favourite fruit flavour combinations. These two early Autumn fruits just balance each other perfectly, producing a jam that is not too sweet and full of earthy, subtly spicy flavours. It's heaven. Especially when eaten on a hot, buttered crumpet with a cup of tea.

To make it I used:

1 kilo or 2 lbs blackberries

1 kilo or 2 lbs peeled, cored and chopped apples

2 kilos or 4 lbs sugar

Pour everything into a very large jam pan (or use two pans - or less fruit) and slowly bring to the boil. Blackberries and apples are both naturally very high in pectin so there should be no need to use preserving sugar or jam sugar, or to add powdered pectin. In fact, my batch reached it's setting point pretty quickly so have your saucer in the freezer ready to check for wrinkles, it wont take long. Start checking after only five minutes or so, otherwise you may have jam with the texture of a rubber ball. This amount yielded 8 jars.

As with most jam recipes, the amounts are infinitely variable depending on what you have to hand. So long as you use the same weight in sugar as fruit, you can't go wrong.

Much more time was spent fussing with fabrics and labels in Autumnal shades. Honestly, it's a good thing I can laugh at myself.

I think I have gone off the label idea I used below. As I opened a jar to eat, I realised that once you'd dispensed with the pretty fabric jar topper, ribbon and label, you had nothing to tell you what sort of jam it was. This is why jam labels need to be stuck on to the jar - so you know what you're eating! Duh. Still, they look very pretty. And our jar was gone in two days so we were just about able to remember what sort of jam we were smearing on our toast.