Brrrrrrrrrr Coooooooooolllllddddddddddd

EEEKKKK! The snow has arrived and the freezing cold weather.

The snow does make everything look clean and fresh which I like, but I hate the cold and today is so cold I don't even feel like knitting or crocheting :(

Stitch and Creative Crafts show

Yesterday I went to the Stitch and Creative Crafts shows at Sandown Park Exhibition Centre, Esher, Surrey.
I had not been to this show for a few years and was hoping to see some stands selling yarns and just interesting crafts, it did not really matter what they were I like seeing new things.
Sadly very few yarn stands (at least trusty Uppingham yarns was there with its nice unusual coned yarns), lots and lots and lots of paper craft stands (yawn!, OK I confess to buying a half price organiser bag that came in useful for the bead stash). One lone very good bead stand (I bought lots of glass beads here, pity I forgot about the walk to the train station and than the walk home after, glass is heavy) and lots of non craft stands selling clothes, shoes, scarf brooches, hair scrunchies (mmm....disappointing).
Good points - there were several machine knitting stands which was nice to see, wooden hairpin crochet frames, large wooden broomstick crochet kits and a company selling angora yarn which had two very cute angora rabbits, plus Uppingham yarns.
Good and bad - the fudge stand, very nice tasty fudge in many flavours O the calories :( if only there had been more yarn to buy, I would have had no money left over to buy fudge.........
Bad points £7.00 to get in, not enough stands, not enough seating to eat food (always a problem), toilet queue(luckily not that many people were there as I expected on Friday but there was still a queue), not enough variety of craft stands and far too many non craft stands.....

Here hoping next months The London Stitch & Creative Hobby Crafts Show at the Excel, London is better

New Years Resolutions

New year = New calendar or calendars as I recently bought two. A crochet one and a knitting one.

EEEKKK I keep saying I must send in some patterns to these calendars, but every year seems to go just too fast. This year one of my new years resolutions is I must send a pattern in to one of them.

2007

Happy New Year 2007

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......