May Treacle Market and some lovely little finds

It is fair to say that the weather has been DELICIOUS over the weekend and we certainly made the very most of it. On Sunday we did our usual visit to the Treacle Market and it was pure vintage bliss!

 

I love this little market and all the lovely stall holders, they are all such lovely people with amazing talent and an eye for vintage beauty. It always amazes me what you can find at this lovely market and on Sunday I was far from disappointed. I just needed quite an extra few pennies in my wallet and I would have been a very happy camper!

 
So here are my little finds and I love each one of them, but my fave has to be the lovely flour tin, I just love the colour and character.

 

 

 

 

This picture is so sweet and the ladies whom I bought this from are so lovely. One of them is learning how to crochet as we speak. She is left handed and I believe this can prove quite the challenge for crocheting. If any of you have any tips on books, etc pass it on so I can share this with her. I also bought another Bronnley wooden soap tray to go under Es's bed as the one we have works a charm for toy storage. I lucked in with getting a lovely blue Pyrex bowl and also a lovely old enamel bowl. The lovely little table is now standing full of plants in my living room and I love.

 

 

 

 

What I love about the market is that it caters for everyone. This month I even managed to join the kids for the monthly burger treat as they were making gluten and dairy free burgers, yip the whole kit and kaboodle was free from and it was delish! To top it there is the lovely plant man with his garden stall, which I am completely incapable of bypassing without a purchase. During the winter it is largely for houseplants, but at this time of the year, oh my there is an abundance of wonderful plants and they are so reasonably priced compared to garden centres, so it is so easy to spend a fortune. My little garden is my love and passion and although I don't have bags of energy to do what I use to do, I still make time to do a little pottering. It is good for the soul and good for the health (grounding), especially if you're bare feet, which I make a point of doing having read the book Earthing, which offers a very insightful read into the benefits of being bare foot amongst other things.

There are certain plants that enrich my soul, possibly a blog post for another day, but Geraniums and Sweet Peas are definitely amongst my faves. I love everything about these plants, character, colour, ease of growth, the cottage vintage qualities and so many more. What I discovered is just how very easy it is to make your own new plants using cuttings from your existing Geranium plants. Unfortunately all of my Geraniums died having spent the winter outside instead of in my little potting shed, which we knocked down at the end of last year due to replace it with a conservatory, which I have to confess I absolutely love, even though I do miss my little potting shed. I think it is unusual for Geraniums to survive the winters up north outside, they much prefer being brought in during these cold months, that's my experience anyway, whats yours? The plus side is that my little purchase from the market has enabled me to start the lovely process again, so we will see how it goes. I simply use an organic routing compound gel, but you can also use honey if you want to be a little more organic, and dip the cuttings into that before planting it into a good potting soil. This link shows you how to take a cutting. This link also shows you how to take cuttings and also how to propagate with honey, which I have used in the past successfully.

Apart from all this there was definitely a bit of crocheting going on whilst soaking up the sun and trying to finish the kids little playhouse, which I will share with you very soon, well when the rain goes away and I can take a photo. In the meantime, I am enjoying working with the Drops Paris cotton and I am so excited about this little creation. I am yet to figure out how I am going to do it, but that is all part of the excitement right?! So what have you all been up to? What creations are you working on?

It has been so wonderful to see the affects of the sunshine on everyone around us over the weekend and we often forget just how powerful the presence of the sun is to our daily lives. Well, it has been raining again for the last two days (yuck), but even so I want to leave you with this lovely thought...

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.” Joseph Addison
Let's all smile! Wishing you all a very happy and creative week.
Hannapat xo

Last Bank Holiday May weekend 2013

Hooray, we finally have some sun!!

It is the last bank holiday weekend in May and also the start of the school holiday here, which for us started yesterday. I love the fact that for a week there will be no morning frenzies and chaos, but just calm and pj's for as long as we like (yes that's me included). The kids were eager beavers to do some baking yesterday, so we chose a Rachel Allen's Chocolate and Vanilla Marble cake, but with some slight alterations.

All the usual plain flour was substituted by Doves Self raising flour (only because I think it works better than the Doves plain flour) and then some Pure sunflower spread and Almond milk. We also added some blueberries just for fun. So basically you divide the mixture into two batches, one vanilla & blueberry (as in our case) and the other chocolate

 

and then you swirl it all together with a skewer or something similar

then your trusty little helpers do a little more helping

 

and voila you have a rather delicious cake for all to enjoy and some very messy children offcourse!

The eagerness to help didn't stop here as Es had a bee in her bonnet about being a little bee. A friend of mine has just had a baby and I have been making some little bibs for her lovely baby girl, which has inspired Es to want to make one too. So yesterday we set out to teach Es the basics of sewing, which I have to say involved a great deal of praying as Es wanted to control every little step of the process, the scissors (oh my she did well with these humongous scissors), the pins and offcourse controlling all of the sewing machine including the foot pedal!!! I have stopped counting the many uses for these little bathroom steps, and again they came in super handy to balance the machine foot on. Although we didn't quite finish it, here are some of the steps along the way

 

She thoroughly enjoyed the process and I love her enthusiasm, long may it last!

These are the little gifts I have made for my friends baby girl

With the bibs I just played around and used a bib we had to get the template as for the booties I followed a pattern from Niki Trench's 'Cute and Easty Crochet'.

So what's in stall for this weekend, hopefully doing a little more work on my blanket and also starting a new little project with some cotton. I have only used Rico cotton in the past, but for this project I will be trying Drops Paris Cotton for a change. I have to confess that it doesn't feel half as nice as Rico. Isn't it funny how we find the little things we like in life and shifting over to something else can feel a little weird sometimes. I am really looking forward to the next project as it feels like I have spent far too long on this blanket.

There will be lots of time spent outside in the garden as the weather is supposed to be sunny for most of the weekend and I think it is fair to say that we all need a very good dose of vitamin D, well almost as badly as our garden needs a little TLC!! Tomorrow is Treacle Market and I can't wait, I just love this little market and I can't wait to go and soak up the ambiance! On this note I am off to the sun and wishing you all a very lovely weekend.

 

 

 

Warm wishes

Hannapat xo

Weekend plans

Thanks for all your very lovely comments on my previous couple of posts, I really appreciate the time you take to read and comment on them, it warms my heart!!

It's strange this blogging lark. When I set out nearly three months ago I didn't expect anything from it other than to create a little platform where I can reboot my brain after three and a half years of zombiness, its amazing how quickly the brain gets lazy! Its been so wonderful to join a lovely little community of fellow bloggers and I want each and everyone of you to know you're LOVELY and that I so enjoy reading your comments and your blogs offcourse!


On Thursday we had a couple of hours of sun and it was lovely to spend some time with Es in the garden, we enjoyed some lunch outside and es had fun looking at all the veg popping up in our little veggie patch.

We are finally seeing some vegetables coming through, well, ok lettuce and onions...

and then we saw Sinbad's , the slinky malinki's, bottom mysteriously sticking out of my flowerbed and on closer inspection he was desperately trying to catch this very sweet baby bird that must have fallen from the nest. We immediately tried to get it in a warm kitchen towel (as suggested) and put it outside in the hope that its Mum would come and get it or feed it. As expected this didn't happen so we tried to give it very small amounts of liquid and then it disappeared, which caused some serious concern for little Es as she was worried that Mr. Fox got it. It is so hard not to intervene with nature and sometimes we just need to allow it to take its course, gulp!

 

 
So what's on the drawing board for this weekend: Lots of R&R for me I'm afraid as I need to try and get my body out of this ditch I'm in again (oh the joys of this boom and bust cycle malarkey). There will also be some moments to hopefully crochet a couple more stitches on the border of my blanket, which is nearing the end, yay! We've got a little family project as Josh (age 5) needs to make a island similar to that of Katie Morag's, which will undoubtedly be fun. Then there will be a bit of sewing and hand sewing as I have some homework to finish off for the last day of my five week course on Monday night, but more on that next week. Hopefully there will be some time to read through some of the very lovely More Layer Jelly Charm Quilts book from the library.

Thanks Maria for posting me the lovely Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay, I look forward to reading it.

These are two little door knob covers I made yesterday, and all we need to do now is get some paint on the doors, but that will have to wait quite some time.

Wishing you all a very lovely and happy weekend. What plans do you have??

Hannapat
xoxo

Pretty Crochet Pincushion

My current thing is a pretty pincushion and there are no shortage of these on Pinterest and Ravelry. So after a little mooch around (life is good) I came across this lovely little pattern by Leanda-Xavian on Ravelry and decided that this was the one to try.

 

It was my first project using a thin crochet cotton, very exciting. I used Puppets Eldorado crochet cotton No.12 in Ecru and Pink and a 1.75mm crochet hook. I actually really enjoyed some aspects of this projects, although I have to confess there were many a frustrating moment and a fair bit of huffing and puffing as I had to rework a few bits here and there (arrghh!) I think overall when you have struggled with a project, it makes it so much more rewarding once completed, right? Do you have the same experiences here?

 

I really wanted a lacy feel and look, but in hindsight a thicker cotton, or darker colour, would have done the trick much better just to hide the cheeky Mr. stuffing from being a little peeping tom.

I am sure there will be another pincushion popping up on my crave radar in the near future, but for now I would very much like to finish my Dottie Angel inspired crochet blanket (I promise an update on this very soon!) There are also a few other projects my fingers are itching to start (ooh this is so addictive!!).

 

 

In the meantime, here are some pics of lovely moments over the weekend. Hope you all enjoyed the wonderful sun and made the very most of it. We enjoyed our first 'braai' (bbq) of the year and just loved being outsdoors all weekend. The kids went to a birthday party (check the pose, got to love it!) and offcourse the paddling pool felt a little deflated after spending the winter locked up, so its now being recycled (boo-hoo). Fortunately the trusty slip-and-slide saved the day, phew!

 

 

 

 

I get so nostalgic when I hear the ice-cream van's bell, it brings back many a happy memory. Oh how wonderful it is to be young!

Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday.
xoxo