Flowers of winter

Due to a warm winter (so far...) our rose tree has decided to re-bloom with lots of white roses (in the summer they were a mix of white and pink on the same tree!). Plus our Christmas cactus is full of pretty pink flowers. Its nice to see flowers in the winter.

Butterfly cakes

Continuing my love of all things butterfly here's the edible type.
Pre-heat oven to 190C/375F/Gas mark 5

Beat 5 oz softened butter with 5 oz caster sugar together
add 2 eggs and mix well
Fold in 6 oz self-raising flour
Add 2 tbsp milk & 1 tsp vanilla extract

Spoon mixture in oiled fairy cake/ muffin tins or place paper cases into the fairy cake/ muffin tin s.
Bake for approx. 12 minutes (or until brown, push a strew into a small cake and if it comes out clean the fairy cake is cooked)

Buttercream - Beat together 4oz softened unsalted butter with 6oz sifted icing sugar, 1tsp vanilla extract.

Leave to cool and slice off the tops in one slice. Chop the cut-off slice into two for the wings.
Spoon a small amount of buttercream onto each cake and carefully place the cut-off slices (wings back on top on there sides to look like wings. Add cherries, almonds, chocolates, small fruits to decorate. Have fun and experiment. I like to add 1oz shredded coconut to my cake mix and some creamed coconut to my buttercream.

I have not been doing any crochet or knitting for a few days because of Christmas and am starting to get withdrawal symptoms. I can tell this because while cooking the Christmas diner my mind keep thinking maybe next year I will knit/ crochet a turkey and veg............... use them as decorations around the house.............. sparkly brussel sprouts eeekkkk......

Spider scarf

Finished the kid silk haze scarf using a spider pattern. The glass crystal beads don't show on the photo's very well, they are crocheted into the ends of the scarf with 2 at each centre of the spiders. They look sparkly in real life. I only used one 50grams of yarn for the whole scarf too :)
I got my mom to model the scarf.

Fish, fish, fish

Salmon is one of my favourite fish meals to cook and eat. Just poach the salmon in a little water with chopped dill, lemon juice and hot sweet paprika for 8 minutes. Serve with steamed asparagus and broccoli on a bed of rice (flavoured with lime and coriander) fast tasty food.

Been to another great new yarn shop with a friend on Friday. i knit london at 13 Bonnington Square, Vauxhall, SW8. About five minutes walk from Vauxhall tube station. A small cozy shop with a nice choice of yarns including Cherry Tree Hill sock yarns, Garthenor Organic Pure Wool, Rooster yarns, Artesano Alpaca, an unusual banana fibre yarn (can't remember name or brand but very nice) plus Lantern Moon, Brittany & Denise needles (eeek I wanted the interchangeable needle kit but it was out of stock)
Stefan (in the photo knitting) had an excellent knowledge of knitting, was friendly and fun (great stories of knitting & life). He went out of his way to help us, finding & suggesting products/ information.
I bought some Artesano Alpaca in a few colours and some Rowan kid silk (all my posts are late because I have been crocheting a filet crochet spider scarf with glass crystal beads with the kid silk).
The shop also has the Knit a river campaign with WaterAid (photo of the giant knitted roll/ river) to get water and toilets for all worldwide.
I will be back again to visit this shop very soon.

Christmas Party

End of term this week and Christmas party time.

Flan, flan, flan

Back to childhood for desert. Flan with chunky slices of juicy mango and strawberries. Ok I did add a blob of extra thick cream to my slice :)

I love tuna fish

Today I got time to cook. My brother bought some really fresh, tasty tuna so I made a meal for us of tuna marinated in olive oil and lemon myrtle on a bed of rough tagliatelle with cherry tomatoes, asparagus, and spring onions sprinkled with olive oil mmmmmm.......

Fingerless & thumbless gloves

I saw this yarn by Debbie Bliss called SoHo and fell in love with the colour (so I had to buy a couple of balls), which is unusual as I am not a someone who normally picks out pink to wear. Saying that I do like pale pink for a bedroom.

I decided to try making some fingerless gloves, plus I can put them over my normal fabric gloves when it starts to gets really cold. I crocheted them in the round, very little sewing hehe. They only took about 2hours max. to make while watching TV. I am happy with the results.