Cake For Breakfast ~ Sophie

I'm sitting in our 'sun' room and this is what I see right now....

I don't think there's any sign of the rain stopping today but I love it like this.  I like being out in it and I like being inside, where I am right now, listening to the rain pour down on the roof, with a cup of coffee and a slice of spiced apple cake. 

This boring looking cake is one I bake far too often.  It's a really quick and simple recipe and it's all too tempting to throw one in the oven on a Sunday when there are old apples looking at you from the fruit bowl, which of course is what happened yesterday. We love it warm and sometimes there's even some left to eat cold for breakfast the next day :)

The recipe is from BBC Good Food.

A Catch Up of Cake

We are having laptop issues at the moment, so here is a catch up of some cakes Gaby has been making...

A Mother's Day cake for me!

Some Easter cupcakes.

...and Gaby made this cake for her brothers' birthday. 

She's getting really good, they were all delicious!

Stripey Scarf ~ Sophie

I finished this scarf at the weekend.  The pattern is available here, I thought it was a really good pattern, very simple and effective.  I would have liked it longer but I was worried I would run out of the pinky stripe!  I'm happy with it though...

A late winter knit ~ Sophie

I finished my winter tunic, typically, just in time for spring!  (The pattern can be found here). 

I started this in November after deciding that I needed something warmer to wear and finding nothing I liked in the shops at all. Everything was brown and mustard colours - yuck!  I haven't knitted anything large like this for a long time and I'm quite pleased with it.  I really enjoyed the larger knitting in the round as I hate sewing up jumpers.  At least I'll have something warm for next winter!  

Patchwork-Along ~ Sophie

Seeing Cheryl's beautiful patchwork quilt at Time to Craft has tempted me into finishing a very old piece of patchwork which has been at the bottom of my sewing box for about 16 years.  Several of us admitted to having unfinished patchwork lurking about so Cheryl had an idea for a 'Patchwork-Along'.  

Here is the 'sewing box of doom'....

.....and here is my unfinished piece.

It was going to be a cot quilt for a friend's baby but they are bit old for that now so I'm going to turn it into something else.  After considering some options, I think I may have talked myself into it being a quilt for Gaby's bedroom with some different fabrics added.  My mum is the quilter/embroiderer of the family and she thinks she has some of the starry fabric so I need to go and raid her cupboards.  I loved this fabric, it's Laura Ashley and I also had it as wallpaper in my first house.....always loving the stars :)

I See Sunshine....Sophie

We are having some lovely spring days here at the moment and our garden has started to show some signs of life.  Gaby and I on the other hand are very much resting! Gaby has another cold and I'm still not fully over my little tooth op.  The sun is shining though and the daffodils are out so I'm sharing some pictures and introducing our unique effort to have a garden!

I really enjoy gardening but family circumstances make it quite tricky to grow much.  (You can read about why that is over here on my other blog)!  A few years ago, I decided to do up the tiny bit of courtyard area we have fenced off from our main garden.  Gaby helped a lot with this and we regard it as our 'Secret Garden'!!

It is really shady down there and after 3 years of trial and error, we're getting to know what will grow and what won't!  Last year we had really good results with tomatoes, runner and french beans and courgettes.  We did potatoes in containers which worked well too but I don't think it was cost effective at all so I'm giving them a miss this year.  

We also have some raised beds at my mums house...

....and we are on the allotment waiting list.  Gaby also lets me use her bedroom as a greenhouse :)

We've had to improvise!

Here's what we are enjoying seeing pop up at the moment...

spring containers....

a very early variety of peas we are trying out....

and our roses, the only plants we can keep in our main garden, are coming back nicely after a ruthless pruning....

....with one of our cats, George :)

Gentle Crochet and Coffee - Sophie

Not a lot of creativity has happened here this week as I have had my last wisdom tooth out and seem to be taking a long time to get over the anaesthetic! I've had to leave my knitting alone as it's at a point which needs careful counting and I think I might mess it up! I did start a bit of simple crochet to keep me busy - my Sundays afternoons often look like this....

Gaby and I did manage a little girly time in town yesterday too......:)