Making Good Use

Supplies

I'm getting serious withdrawal symptoms from the car boot sales now.  It's five or six weeks since I last went to one, and there is goodness knows how long to go before they start up again - at least four months!!  Lucky Caroline has them going on all year round where she lives - I've got huge car boot sale envy! 

Anyway, at least the two charity shops in our town are open all year round and this morning I got a few useful craft supplies from one of them.

 

Five 50g balls of traditional Irish wool - 50p per ball.  I rarely leave pure wool or pure cotton yarn behind if its cheap enough in a charity shop as it's quite a rare find round here.  Bri nylon is still big in our charity shops - where do people find it, is it still maufactured?  Or that horrible acrylic eyelash yarn - that's easy to find too.  This lot will be added to the not inconsiderable black sack of yarn which is jammed under the sideboard in the dining room - oh, for a bit bigger house (or, alternatively, less of a pack-rat personality!)

For £1.00 I bought these five vintage cotton reels.  I can never resist the vintage wooden cotton reels, and often the thread comes in very useful at some point too.  These vintage colours had such lovely names - Bright Violet, Lemon, Dark Lovebird.  It must have been somebody's job to think up such evocative and accurate names for the various colours - what a lovely job to have.  Does anyone know if modern thread manufactuers like Gutterman have named colours these days, or is it all done by numbers?

Practising Until I Go Boss-eyed

I practised my crochet 'skills' (har-de-har!) yesterday evening until I went quite boss-eyed looking at it.  I think some small progress was made and I've now worked out wrapping the yarn around the shaft of the hook in, I think, the correct way.  I practised both treble and double chains, although as I'd really like to make a crocheted square blanket I think the treble chain is what I should really be practising.

Luckily, I had a couple of fairly chunky-sized crochet hooks knocking about - under the counter purchases from a charity shop some time ago - they could be lethal weapons, you know!  Really, I kid you not, some charity shops keep all knitting needles and crochet hooks 'under the counter' and you have to ask to see them.   Presumably if you look 'dangerous' or have a mad gleam in your eye, they'll refuse to let you buy them.

The 'Crocheting for Dummies' was bought for me by my Mum a couple of years ago and the 'ABC of Crochet' booklet I got in the charity shop this week.  Oddly, enough it's the booklet that is most clear to me at the moment.  Anyway, I'm sure there will be A LOT more practising over the weekend. 

Crochet and Cupcakes

Yesterday evening the local library was having a 'Craft and Cupcakes' evening.  I was particularly intrigued as there was the offer to learn either knitting or crochet.  Well, crochet has flummoxed me for many many years so I was determined to go and see if someone could finally get the idea of it into my thick skull.

  


The evening started off on a good note when someone asked me if I'd made my bag, and said how nice it was.  That was lovely and made me feel a lot more relaxed (I didn't know anyone else there and quite a few had arrived in groups.)

It quickly became apparent that the vast majority (20 or so) had come to learn how to crochet, whilst there were only five or six wanting to learn how to knit.  Which made me feel a whole lot better that I wasn't the only dumkopf out there who couldn't get to grips with a crochet hook.  The girl teaching the crochet was lovely, really patient, really helpful and really clear in her instructions. 

By the end of the two hours I'd managed to produce a small amount of treble chain (is that the correct terminology?) and a little bit of double.  I'd made the stupid mistake of doing too long and too tight an initial chain - it all got a lot easier when I came to the second row.  And I finally learnt why all my previous attempts at crochet had ended up getting smaller and smaller - you had to crochet a few turning chains at the start of a new row - ah, that's where I'd been going wrong.  The green item on the table is the crochet I'd managed to produce after about an hour (please note refreshing cup of tea and remains of a gorgeous cupcake - all provided by the librarians.)

The cupcakes really were the stars of the evening.  I'm not sure who had made them - one of the librarian's daughters possibly - but they were real works of art and tasted as lovely as they looked.  These had been placed on our table by one of the two local newspaper photographers who turned up during the evening (yup, Wickford is a very quiet town with little that is newsworthy.) 

It was a fantastic evening.  I got to meet plenty of other local 'crafty' types, had a couple of cups of tea and a fab-u-lous cupcake and, most importantly, managed to produce a tiny bit of crochet.  I'm really hoping there might be another such evening in the not too distant future.

MISI

I'm probably very late to this particular party, but I've just discovered MISI - Make It Sell It - the sort of UK version of Etsy. 

I've tried Etsy several times but never had a great deal of success.  I know it has proved to be immensely successful for many crafters but somehow I could never really get my head around pricing things in dollars (and trying to work out more or less what the exchange rate of sterling to dollars was at any given time.) 

I've also tried selling some of my handmade items on ebay with a buy-it-now price and although I've had some limited success there it now costs 40p just to list a buy-it-now plus 6p for every additional photo after the first one.  Call me Scrooge, but that begins to mount up if you're listing quite a few items.  On MISI it only costs a flat rate of 20p to list an item and you can have up to five photos in that price too.  It's lovely to be able to price things in GBP even though items can be posted anywhere in the world. 

Anyway, I've started small and only listed three items for now.  Should I sell anything I'll definitely list a lot more things.  Has anybody else listed handmade items on MISI, and did you have any success in selling them?  I'd love to know.

Scarf

Finally finished the scarf which I seem to have been knitting for months.  Knitted using this lucky charity shop find - Rowan Kid Classic.  Re-reading the post of when I found this wool back last April, I see I already had a scarf in mind!  I think it was a couple of days later that I found another couple of balls of the same wool, in the same charity shop but in a mid-grey colour.  Fortuitously enough, the muted heathery colours of the scarf go very nicely with my new coat.   

The question now is what to knit next - or do I just carry on with my revived interest in pom pom making with the aim of actually creating a pom pom garland in time for Christmas (as opposed to just randomly pom pom-ing any bit of wool that comes my way!!) 

It's Mid-November and I'm Still Picking Salad Leaves!

I find it hard to believe that in the middle of November I've still managed to harvest a reasonably respectable amount of salad leaves from the garden.  Here they are having been thoroughly washed, draining on a tea towel.  There were probably just enough here for one serving but I added them to half a bag of supermarket salad leaves so that there was enough for both of us. 

Just as well I picked them in when I did as this morning we have had the most violent hail storm, accompanied by gale force winds, thunder and lightening, and I think the few remaining salad leaves in pots have been well and truly shredded by the strength of the hale. 

Growing these salad leaves has been a revelation to me and I'm certainly going to up the ante next summer by a) sowing them much earlier than the end of June and b) having more pots planted up so that I can get a really good rotation system going with them.  There really is nothing nicer than home-grown produce is there?

Quinoa

Both P and I used to be very partial to couscous but, for some unknown reason, it's not very partial to either of us - causing headaches, nausea and some dreadful, ahem, 'wind' issues.  I've rather missed not having couscous in my culinary 'repertoire', especially the very useful flavoured couscous that is now so readily available in every supermarket.   However, a month or so ago when I was having lunch in Spitalfields I had a rather tasty taboulleh, apricot and feta salad.   It was a real 'ah-ha' moment for me and I thought I'd actually found a good replacement for couscouse.  Sadly, even Waitrose couldn't oblige with taboulleh so I bought quinoa instead.

Quinoa is not quite as user-friendly as couscous in that you actually have to wash it first and then boil it up in a pan until all the liquid has been absorbed - cue the likelihood of charcoaled quinoa at some point in the future.  But I duly followed the instructions and cooked up 100g of quinoa - which looked most odd when I'd finished.  In an attempt to try and replicate the taboulleh salad, I added chopped dried apricots, chunks of feta cheese, chopped cucumber, some fresh mint leaves and a good slosh of balsamic vinegar.  It was rather nice and I didn't have any ill effects from eating it either.

So, two questions, does anybody know where I could get hold of taboulleh (I think that's the correct spelling) and also have you got any recipes for quinoa as I think I'd quite like to extend my range from just one recipe.  Any suggestions most gratefully received.

A Couple of Nice Results

Cor, flippin' 'eck, these iron-on motifs are brilliant.

I was a bit daunted by the instructions which said that an ironing board wouldn't be of any use as it didn't get hot enough!!

So, I used the back of an old wooden bread board - which certainly did conduct the heat nicely.

The vintage fine cotton pillowcase I got last week from the charity shop proved to be the ideal fabric to use - finely woven, plain-coloured and really soft.

I was really pleased with the results and can foresee everyone getting one of these motifs on a Christmas card this year.  (Mum, have a guess which one your's will be!!)

I did have one 'oh, b*gger it' result with this lovely plum-coloured polar bear.  The iron-on slipped a bit and I ended up with a shadow effect.  A*se, and I really liked this one too.

Also a nice result was the pear fool which we had for pudding yesterday evening - very yummy and more-ish - which was just as well as there is still quite a lot left.

I Did Eventually Get My A*se In Gear

This weekend saw a relative flurry of activity on my part.  I finally got the sewing machine out and sorted out the old velvety trousers which I wear around the house.  One pair I've had for five years (an ebay purchase) and the other pair for about seven years (a charity shop purchase before I moved to Essex.)  Both pairs had lost all the stretch in their elastic waistbands and consequently were constantly slipping down in a most annoying fashion.

I cut off the old elastic waistband (it wasn't an elastic insert more of an eactual lastic waistband), folded over a couple of inches and sewed the new channel on my sewing machine.  This sounds so easy when it's written down but this stretchy velvety stuff was a total pig to sew in a straight line and much cussing went on whilst I was doing it.  The easy part was threading the elastic through the new channel.  Et voila, two pairs of trousers which are now mucho more comfortable to wear and which should, hopefully, give me another five years or so of use!!  As the fabric is 100 per cent man-made poly-something-or-other I can't imagine they'll ever really wear out, although they have gone a bit 'worn' around the bum and knee areas.  But, honestly, as I don't wear them outside of the house that doesn't bother me one little bit.

So, I was mighty pleased with myself for doing that (finally!!), then I moved on to dealing with the pears I'd picked in from the garden weeks and weeks ago.  Those little swines just would not ripen.  They'd look like they were ripe but, oh no, cut into one and it was still rock hard.  Then a couple just sort of went off in the bowl so I decided to stew up the rest.  I cooked them in a little red wine and sugar and was going to make a pear crumble with them but Mum, very wisely, suggested I try blitzing them to a pulp and making a pear fool instead.  Which is just what I've done, having mixed the pear and wine 'mush' with whipped cream and some custard.  Don't know what it tastes like just yet as I'm saving it for pudding this evening but it looks quite pretty.  I'll let you know tomorrow.

Tempus Fugit

I've been home alone for a whole week now - with three days more to go - whilst P is away on business in Hong Kong.  Oh, I had such wonderful plans for these 10 days, what I wasn't going to achieve whilst I had all those hours and hours to myself!  Has any of it come to fruition - well, no, not really. 

I did have a VERY BUSY weekend for ebay sales last weekend, which meant mega amounts of packing and posting on Sunday and Monday.  I was really pleased - if a trifle knackered - with the resulting large payment from my Paypal account to my bank account.  This weekend should be much easier as I've only got four items ending on ebay on Sunday, although I did have a fairly mega listing session again yesterday afternoon (10 day listings to end on a Sunday afternoon - Sunday. apparently, being ebay's busiest day of the week.)

But, back to the plans.  I had intended to try and do something with my old 'about-the-house' trousers which are elasticated-waist velvety ones - one pair black, one purple.  The elastic at the waist has become really loose over time which has meant the darned trousers constantly slip down and drive me mad.  Now, in my defence, I've only just been able to find suitable elastic to mend them with as the local sewing shop only had narrow elastic, the sewing shop in Basildon has closed down and so I was left with good ol' ebay as my only source of elastic.  Sure enough, someone was selling just what I was looking for, at a very reasonable price, and it arrived this morning.  Maybe this weekend I'll get round to it.

 

I also had very grand plans for trying out these lovely iron-on transfers which I've had since the spring.  I've got as far as reading the instructions before but that was it.  Finally I think I've found some suitably soft, not too wide a weave, pure cotton fabric that I could use.  It's a vintage pillowcase from the charity shop which I hoped would be good to go as is but, sadly, it has one or two marks on it that just won't wash out so I'll use the fabric to put these transfers on instead.  I'm hoping then I can make the pictures up into cards.

It was the same with making another draught excluder - this time for the kitchen door - nothing has been achieved as yet, not even choosing what fabric to use.  The problem for me is that as soon as the light starts to fade around 4.00 pm then I lose all interest in trying to do anything that requires a sharp eye - and that includes dusting, hoovering and ironing.  Ah, excuses excuses!

Anyway I do have the next couple of days to try and achieve a few things from my potential to do list.  And all has not been entirely lost this week - I have managed to clear out a few things, and tidy a few more away and my knitting has come along wonderfully as that is something I can manage whilst tucked up watching a bit of TV in the evenings.

Spotted this leaflet at the local library this morning - sounds just my thing craft AND cupcakes - think I might give it a try.  Perhaps someone can finally teach me how to crochet!!