A Hand Knitted Garment

Beautiful buttons! Found them at the "Stitch and Craft" Show at Braintree on Saturday. Had a fun day out with my crafty friends! There were lots of card making stalls but not much for scrapbooking. We all still managed to buy something.
The buttons were to attach to the cuffs of these gloves that I have knitted. The stitch is called Ringwood stitch and gives a lovely texture to the knitting.
I will be entering them into the Horticultural society spring show. Class 64 - A hand knitted garment. That's another thing finished and ticked off ready for the show.

24 YEARS

Happy 24th wedding anniversary to us!

SPRING TIME

Could spring be on its way? It was very windy this morning but quite mild and so I looked around the garden to see what was happening. I found a few clumps of snowdrops in flower.
I planted these hyacinth bulbs back in the Autumn, I didn't want them too early so just left them outside, I may pop them in the greenhouse now to bring them along and have some colour to see.
This is a weeping tree, who's name I forget, but it has these buds all over, soon they will turn yellow and it will be covered in bees.
The other bulbs are just beginning to poke through the ground, about 2 or 3 inches high, it will be quite a while before there are any daffodils in the garden.

A LITTLE BIT OF KNITTING

What a beautiful sunny day we have had in this part of Essex! 9 C on the thermometer in the car at lunch time! I think that spring is just around the corner and about time too, I have had enough of those damp dull days of January.
Just before Christmas my sister phoned to say could I knit my niece a headband / ear warmer thing, apparently all the shops like Topshop and Riverisland were selling them at £15 which was far too much. I had not seen them but knitted this and I think it was what she wanted, I wonder if it could have been a little chunkier?

A LITTLE BIT OF KNITTING

Baaa Baaa!!
Our horticultural society holds two shows each year, spring and autumn. There are lots of categories to enter from flowers to wine to cooking. This year I am determined to do well in the handicraft section. There are 6 classes to enter: a painting, a soft toy, a piece of crochet, a piece of embroidery, a piece of cross stitch, a hand knitted garment and an exhibit of any other handicraft. I definitely can not paint so won't be doing a painting and I still have to learn how to crochet!! But I am getting on well, have a pair of gloves nearly done for the hand knitted garment and...
Little Baa Lamb is my soft toy entry.

I found him here: http://www.petitepurls.com/Winter09/winter2009_plamb.html

PS can anyone tell me how to do those links where you say I found it here and you just have to click on the link???

The sun shone in my corner of north Essex this afternoon and we popped up the allotment.
I have had a busy week at work and needed some time outside not thinking about anything apart from weeds and compost! It was so lovely there, quiet and peaceful, except for the geese!
We pottered around doing a little weeding and a little digging, planted the new Gooseberry bush that came last month when there was a foot of snow on the ground. It is a red dessert gooseberry and I am hoping to train it in a fan shape on the fence (hmmmm....?)
So here are some photos of my plot in January. Three beds have now been dug over and manured and are ready for planting. I will give it a bit and then cover them with fleece to start to warm up. Two are ready for potatoes, the other for runner beans, I thought I might try to grow a quick crop of lettuce or something in this bed as the beans won't go out until the end of May.
I have a bit of a pong about me, what my mother would describe as "Guide Camp", yes I lit a fire and burnt the sunflower stalks that were not going to compost down in a million years, also some weeds that I didn't want to put on the compost heap. This doesn't seem to kill the seeds and they all grow again.
Here he is with "this is what I got for Christmas"

Making Marmalade

I have tried to make marmalade for the past two years and it has been no good, the first year it would not set so I threw it out, last year I boiled it so much that it turned to a thick sticky syrup that tasted horrible so I threw that out. One last go and if that doesn't work I will never try again. So when I popped to the market on Saturday morning, as I usually do and they had "Marmalade Oranges" 3lb for £1.50 quite a bargain I thought. I will have another go, so armed with my oranges, 4 lemons for £1 and two bags of sugar for 75p ( much cheaper than Tesco -check it out), I had a go. I had been looking at "The Cottage Smallholders" blog and Fiona's Easy Seville marmalade and decided to try her recipe.

find it here http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/easy-seville-orange-marmalade-recipe-6464
First I had to simmer the oranges and lemons for 3 hours and leave over night, then cut in half and scoop the flesh into one pint of the simmering liquid and boil this up. While this was happening cut the peel into strips. Then strain the pulp through a cloth and add to the simmering liquid and make up to 4 pints. Add the peel and sugar and bring to boil.
Here it is starting to boil, it needs to really bubble up and boil for 15 minutes. I tested it on a saucer that had been in the freezer.
I save up my jars and re use them all the time, a good scrub and then pop them in the oven . Then put the hot marmalade in the hot jars and cover with a waxed disc.
The next day I gave the jars a wipe around the edge to get any stray stickiness off and wrote the labels.
AND this is the perfect jar, the peel is evenly spread (not like some of the other jars where it floated to the top) and this this is the jar that I will enter into the Horticultural Society Spring show. I have put it away in a safe place. Top of the cupboard with plates in it ( just to remind myself when I can't find it in April!!!)
Oh yes it tastes really nice - orangy is the word I would use to describe it!