Making Good Use

Looking Forward, Looking Back

I'm definitely not a Christmas person.  I do enjoy the actual day itself but all the run-up to it - from Christmas cards appearing in the shops in September to frantic food shopping a few days before - really leaves me cold.  I know it's not exactly acceptable to have a 'Bah, humbug!' attitude to Christmas but I do, and I'd be quite happy if Christmas only came round once a decade or so.  But New Year, now that is a whole different story. I love New Year, it's the thought of being able to start all over again with a clean sheet.  My favourite time of the whole year is hanging up a new calendar at the beginning of January - so many blank pages, so many new opportunities, so many chances to finally, this year, do things differently.

2009 was a good year in many respects.  I spent a lot of January decluttering and rearranging the dining room and I'm still loving the little craft space I managed to fit in to a corner.  Although, oddly enough, it doesn't look quite as tidy now as it did then!!

The car boot season started off lovely and early in mid-March and ran right the way through to mid-October.  I had some wonderful finds there - as always.  I think top of my list was the humungous bottle of Vidal Sassoon shampoo that I paid 20p for and which lasted me from August to just before Christmas.  Not only was it a fantastic bargain but the shampoo really suited my hair nicely too.  Also top of my list of great car boot finds this year were some lovely tops in just my size which I got for 50p or £1.00 each and which I have worn and worn, and the £1.00 vintage Christmas Tree  which went on to sell for £22.00 on ebay.  As always, the car boot sales were great hunting grounds for both clothes and toys for my nephew and one particular car boot in August was a real gold mine.

Ebay sales have been pretty steady all through this past year but have really gone well since September when I began to up my ante quite considerably.  Yes, I did get sick and tired of parcelling things up and then having to queue for A-G-E-S in the post office to post them but it was well worth it, as my bank account can now testify.   Not only did I manage to make a tidy sum of money over those three months but I also managed to get rid of a fair bit of 'stuff' from the house in the process.  I'm hoping to keep chugging along with ebay again this year, and I'm also hoping I can declutter the house even further whilst I'm at it.

Making jam was a useful new skill I learnt this year and we've been enjoying the plum jam enormously ever since (which is just as well as there are still A LOT of jars of it in the sideboard!)  I'm even considering trying my hand at a bit of marmalade making in the next couple of weeks - when the Seville oranges are around.  And I'm still thinking about having a shot at making Lemon Curd too.  I'm hoping we have another bumper harvest of plums this summer as well and then I'll be able to make a ton more jam again.

Although I haven't totally got to grips with crochet as yet, I've definitely got much more an idea about what I'm doing since the lovely cupcakes and crochet evening at our local library in November.  I'm hoping to get a little more proficient at crochet in 2010 - which will be helped enormously by the Christmas presents I had - a set of crochet hooks, a book of crochet blocks and a 'how to' crochet book too.  I'm also hoping there'll be another 'craft and cupcakes' evening in the not-too-distant future.

As for my plans for 2010?  Well, who really knows what could be just around the corner.  2010 is one of those 'big' birthday years for me - half a century no less!!  And Mum and I have already got our tickets to see the 'Strictly Come Dancing' show at the Bristol Hippodrome a few days after my actual birthday.  I'm also hoping that I can accompany P on a jaunt around Canada and the US in May.  P's been asked to give a number of presentations at various locations in North America and we thought it would be nice to go there together and make something of a holiday of it too.  We'll see if it ever actually comes to fruition but it would be lovely if it does.

Hope 2010 is a wonderful new year (and new decade) for all of you too.  Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and e-mails during 2009 - I appreciate them so much and am still amazed that anyone wants to read my blog, let alone take the time to comment.  Happy New Year.

Cushions

Mum had a new three-seater settee delivered just before Christmas.  I'd decided to make her some patchwork cushions to go on it at the time she ordered the sofa - luckily some six weeks or so before it was delivered. 

Mum was very pleased with her 'pigeon pair' cushions and they do look nice on her new settee - if I do say so myself.  They were a bit fiddly to make and I seemed to faff about for weeks deciding what material to use and which stripe should go with which etc etc.  Thankfully they were completed in good time otherwise I would have come a right cropper when I took ill the week before Christmas.

The material is a mix of Liberty tana lawn, Kaffe Fassett, Rowan fabric and some un-named fabric.  None of the strips I had were long enough to go lengthwise down the 20 inch cushion pads so I had to have more of a patchwork effect than I'd really have liked - but it seems to have worked quite well in the end.

The back is some Amy Butler material that I've had for quite a while (please ignore the wobbly stitching, that'll learn me to not use white thread for everything!!)  The settee is lovely and comfy and the cushions finish it off really well.  Sadly for us, a certain Maine Coon has decided she also finds the new settee incredibly comfortable.

The Yule Cat

I have a very festive surname - Yule - which is more than a little ironic as I have a somewhat 'bah, humbug' attitude to Christmas.  I knew that Yule comes from the ancient Norse mid-winter festival and that Jul or Jola are Scandinavian names for Christmas but what I had never heard of until recently was the Yule Cat.  I came across details of this Icelandic Christmas creature on the very interesting blog The Iceland Weather Report (which, contrary to its name, doesn't just focus on Icelandic weather - although that is always mentioned - but is an incredibly interesting and incredibly well-written account of life in Iceland in general.)  

Anyway, in Iceland the Yule Cat will eat up anyone who doesn't have new clothing for Christmas - which is an interesting idea but thankfully not a tradition that we have in our family at all.  We always go for really comfy clothing - elasticated waistbands preferably - for Christmas day, so that we can enjoy our Christmas lunch to the full.

I leave you with a photo of our very own Yule Cat - Lily (and, yes, she can be a frightening beast at times too) - and hope everyone has a lovely Christmas, new clothes or not.

 

Why Keep a Nephew ....

.... and wash-up yourself?   He made a wonderful job of washing up the lunch dishes.  So now we're getting him in training for the Christmas lunch washing up!!

 

And I'm Sure You All Know What Happened Next

Yes indeedy, I certainly did succumb to P's dreaded lurgy / swine flu / winter virus.  It was not pleasant and there was a great deal of feeling sorry for myself, lying about in bed and drinking copious amounts of water.  I began to feel a tad better yesterday evening and am much more back to my old self today, if a trifle limp and wrung out.

Here in Essex, like most other parts of eastern England, we have snow.  It fell quite heavily and steadily on Thursday evening and there is quite a good covering on everything - although nothing like the 6 - 8 inches that was being forecast.  It looks quite pretty but, thankfully, we don't have to venture out in it this weekend.  I'm hoping to spend the weekend at a leisurely pace, trying to rebuild my strength for the journey to Bristol for Christmas.

Poorly Person

Poor P is quite the poorly person at the moment.  It started last week with a cough and cold and by Saturday he was feeling a lot better.  Sunday morning however he had deteriorated dramatically and was short of breath, had an upset tummy, was boiling hot, had no appetite and couldn't get out of bed.  He was only a little better by this morning so I phoned the doctor for a telephone consultation (no way am I going near a doctor's surgery at the moment!!)  I didn't actually get to speak to the doctor! but passed all the relevant information on to his receptionist, who them spoke to the doctor and got back to me to say he thought it might be swine flu.  Hmm, not totally convinced by that diagnosis - it seems swine flu is the catch-all diagnosis du jour.  The bottom line is P has to drink loads, stay in bed and take paracetamol - pretty much standard treatment for any virus. 

So far, keeping everything crossed, I feel fine - if a tad chilly due to the sub-zero temperatures here today.  I was going to have my usual 'meal for one' evening meal of salad and jacket potato but it's really too cold to contemplate salad so I'm making myself a sausage casserole with mashed potato.  Hopefully, a good hot meal will keep my strength up to ward off the germs and might actually warm my fingers and toes too.

Bringing Down the Shutters on my Ebay for Another Year

This evening the last of my ebay items for this year will come to the end of its listing.  To be honest, I won't be sorry to have a small break from the endless photographing of objects (VERY tedious in the half-light that passes for daytime at this time of year), listing, packing and, most tedious of all, standing in a HUGE queue at the post office to post them all out. 

I've done reasonably well this year on ebay, but have done very well since September when I really upped the ante with listing items for sale.  Since then I have averaged £50 - £60 a week of sales and have managed to declutter the house (to a certain extent!) into the bargain. 

I did really well with selling vintage Christmas items in September and October (but not so well in December - why is that?) which I'll certainly bear in mind for next year.  I've found that plus sized clothes sell well at any time of the year - but not in the run-up to Christmas (another thing to remember next year.)  I've managed to clear my wardrobe of quite a few items that I just never really wore and have now got a lot more room to store and use those items that I really do like and / or wear frequently.  This has been immensely satisfying both financially and de-cluttering-wise.

I also sold some vintage linen tea towels that were just lurking about in my large pile of fabric - I'd forgotten I had them so was well pleased to get on average £5 per tea towel when the listings finished.  I'll be keeping an eye open for more vintage linen items in the future - especially at next year's car boot sales.  I'm also on the look-out for copies of the Kit Williams book 'Masquerade.'  I'm sure I've seen them about fairly frequently (but, of course, not at the moment!!) as they are priced from £95 upwards on Amazon!!  I do have a copy myself but that's up in the loft and, besides, I really don't want to sell it as I've had it for 30 years.  I think I've always assumed it was the sort of book that the world and his wife bought at the time and that therefore would only sell for peanuts - which just goes to show how little I know about second-hand books.

Have you any suggestions about what sells well on ebay - and when?

And, Yes, It Was Very Tasty

Yup, if anyone is interested, yesterday's evening meal turned out to be very tasty indeed.  It's amazing what you can make a meal from if you get your thinking hat on.  P and I both enjoyed it so much we had seconds - I can see me making stuffed cabbage leaves quite frequently from now on.

There was some of the rice/veg/bacon stuffing left over so I had that with a drop more cheese sauce on it for my lunch today.  I don't usually have a hot lunch but today was so nippy that having a really tasty warm lunch was lovely - and helped me put off switching the heating on for a bit longer.

Tonight for tea we've got steak pie made from a tin of stewed steak I found on the shelf yesterday, whilst  frantically looking for the elusive tins of tuna, and topped with puff pastry.  I usually make my own pastry but I really hate doing it (can't abide the smell of fat on my hands) so I was delighted when I spotted frozen puff pasty in Aldi for 45p.  At that price you can't really go wrong.  We'll be having potatoes, carrots and the rest of the cabbage with it.  For 29p that cabbage has proved very useful.

I've spent most of the afternoon grappling with iron-on interfacing.  Yikes, that stuff is horrible to handle and would have stuck like glue to the base of my iron if I'd not suddenly thought that somewhere on t'internet I'd come across a tip that said don't, whatever you do, iron directly onto the interfacing or your iron will be eternally jiggered.  Whoever gave that tip - thanks very much - it's quite true and a sheet of printer paper between the iron and the interfacing certainly saved the day.  I'd love to show what it is I've been working on but, yet again, it's a surprise for someone for Christmas.  I'll be very glad once Christmas is over and I can finally reveal some of the things I've been making.

And Then I Found I Had No Tuna

I'm not a great one for eating fish, and for many years the nearest I got to fresh fish was fish fingers.  These days I'm slightly more adventurous in that I will eat tinned salmon or tuna.  Just lately I've had quite a craving for tinned fish - presumably I'm lacking something in my diet - and have eaten a lot of salmon and cucumber sandwiches.  Today, I fancied making a tuna pasta bake.  I found a lovely recipe on t'internet and was convinced I had all the ingredients necessary.  Luckily for me, I decided to just double check on the ingredients before I set off for my chiropractor's appointment.  Would you Adam and Eve it, I had no tinned tuna.

I knew I didn't have time to get to Aldi before my appointment and also knew I wouldn't feel like schlepping down there afterwards either - rather tender after having been soundly pummelled by the chiropractor.  So, it was back to the drawing board for tonight's meal.

At the back of the fridge I found a pointy cabbage - bought last week for 29p in Aldi and still wrapped.  Amazingly enough, (what do they spray these veggies with?) it appared to be as fresh as a daisy so my mind started thinking along the lines of stuffed cabbage leaves.   I knew I had rice but didn't know what else was knocking about to make the stuffing with.  From the depths of my very small fridge I managed to find half a pack of smoked bacon, (bought by mistake but rather tasty) half an onion, a sweet red pepper and a beef tomato.  The onion, pepper and bacon were fried off in a frying pan, I skinned the huge tomato and chopped that up finely and added it to the mixture with a chopped garlic clove.  Finally, I added half a tin of sweetcorn, a dollop of tomato puree and a pinch of mixed herbs.  I added all this to some cooked basmati and left it whilst I had my lunch and whilst the outer cabbage leaves were cooling from their five-minute dip in boiling water.

After lunch I put a good large tablespoonful or two of the mixture in each cabbage leaf, rolled it up and now all I have to do is make a cheese sauce to cover the lot and bake in the oven for half an hour or so.  They look quite good but the proof, as always, will be in the eating.  I'll let you know tomorrow if they were any good or not.

The Easiest Make - Ever

Well, that was the easiest little make I've ever done.  One extremely ancient and falling apart towelling dressing gown into two wash mitts.  Probably two minutes each mitt - tops.

I'm afraid I can't take any credit for the idea - that was all down to my clever Mum.  She'd kept hold of my old dressing gown (16 years old at least, and a good advertisement for the hard-wearing qualities of cheap Asda clothing) and when I asked why, she said she was going to make some wash mitts from it.  I offered to make the mitts for her and brought the dressing gown home with me.  I have all sorts of ideas for using up other parts of it - batting inside hot pads as well as the backing to a small rug for our very cold kitchen floor.  Of course, when I'll ever get round to doing those projects is another thing but, for now, I'm well pleased with the mitts.  (Mum, let me know if two are enough or if you want me to do some more for you.)  One bonus of being 'plus sized' is there's plenty of fabric in any clothing item if you want to reuse it!!