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......:)

Reusable Gift Wrapping - Sophie

Having children has really opened my eyes to unnecessary packaging. As the years have gone by I've become more and more unhappy by the amount of rubbish we generate around birthdays and especially at Christmas, when it's not unusual for us to have 2 extra bags of rubbish just from wrapping paper and packaging. Over the past few years I've been trying really hard to find ways to decrease this.  Obviously you can limit unnecessary packaging by choosing your gifts carefully but wrapping needs a bit more thought. My favourite and easiest way of doing this is just to hold onto gift bags and recycle them.  They seem to get passed all around the family and come back again - I'm sure lots of people do this!  I have also started wrapping family gifts with fabric and ribbons. At Christmas we halved our usual rubbish by doing this. This week it was Gaby's birthday and it will be the second year I've used this cupcake fabric and although it did cost more to begin with, it was a nice feeling to get it out again and have nothing to throw away. I'm getting better at the wrapping now I think.....!

 It's a bit harder when it comes to gifts for friends. I think most people would find it a bit strange to be asked for their gift wrap back! I found a way to make the wrapping part of the present with this knitted face cloth pattern last year, so a couple of people ended up with these filled with soaps or bath bombs...

Here's the cloth 'unwrapped'...

....I really like this pattern.  It's enjoyable and easy to follow.  I've knitted 6 of these now and given them all away, I think it's about time I kept one, maybe it's a stash buster project for the future!