Mittens and candy canes

I haven't been posting much recently as I can't :( I am taking part in some secret exchanges and so all my new stuff can't be shown just in case the person they are intended for sees them.

I have however been busy ferreting away with other stuff too including going and getting myself a new job woohoo. I am really looking forward to getting in the workforce again after being a stay at home mum for so long.

I have made some candy canes as a practice for Christmas. Here is how to make them. 

You will need:

One packet of ready made regal icing

Peppermint flavouring, red and green food colouring paste

soften your icing by kneading it until soft and pliable.

Add peppermint flavouring to taste I like mine quite strong and so used a lot, if the icing starts to become sticky add some icing sugar to firm up again.

Half the icing leaving half white, half the other half and colour one section green and the other red

When you have finished you should end up with something looking like this

 make a sausage of white and a thinner one of a colour

Twist together and roll to seal them together.

Put them onto a wire rack to dry out over night. store in a sealed container until required, they can last for months as long as they remain airtight.

you will end up with something like the ones below 

I have also made some mittens to go with the girls matching sets for Christmas. I couldn't find a pattern that would work for all three sets and so I came up with on of my own using a few other patterns I found. here is the result and underneath is the pattern.

Cast on 34 stitches using 4.5mm needles

row 1 knit 2 purl 2 to end

row 2 purl 2 knit 2 to end

repeat these two rows 9 times so you have 18 rows altogether

row 19 k2, p2

row 20 k2, p2, k2, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, p1, k2, p2, k1, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, p2,k2,p2, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k1, p2, k2, p1 increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k2, p2, k2. (you should now have 38 stitches)

row 21 knit to end repeat 5 more times

row 27 k18, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k18

row 28 knit to end

row 29 k20, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k20

row 30 knit to end

row 31 k21, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k21

row 32 knit to end

row 33 k22, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back,increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k22

row 34 knit to end

row 35 k23, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back k23

row 36 knit to end

row 37 k24, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k24

row 38 knit to end

row 39 (you should now have 52 stitches) k18, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, slip the next 14 stitches on to a stitch holder, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k18.

(leave the 14 stitches on holder as this is thumb)

At this point things change for each pair you are making as you only need to go as high as the top of the little finger for the person you are making for. measure from the top of the ribbing to the top of the little finger before starting to decrease. just knit each row to end to the required length.

to start decrease, 

row 1 knit 2 together, k8 repeat to end

 row 2 knit to end

row 3  knit 2 together, k7 repeat to end

row 4 knit to end

row 5  knit 2 together, k6 repeat to end

row 6 knit to end

row7  knit 2 together, k5 repeat to end

row 8 knit to end

row 9 knit 2 together, k4 repeat to end

row 10 knit to end

row 11 knit 2 together, k3 repeat to end
row 12 knit to end
row 13 knit 2 together to end
row 14 knit to end
row 15 cast off

For the thumb
Pick up the 14 stitches
row 1 increase one stitch by knitting into front and back, k12, increase one stitch by knitting into front and back,
row 2 - 10 knit to end
row 11 knit 2 together to end
cast off

Make up by sewing the seam along one side and on the thumb.

One last thing before I go is my TUSAL report which I am very late for :(

Sunday Dinner yummy

We went to MIL today for Sunday dinner on Monday, as she wasn't here to do one on Sunday. We didn't know this plan until I was half way through cooking mine so we have had a Sunday dinner two days in a row. I can tell you I didn't eat much today as I was still stuffed from yesterday. My SIL then decided to 'do' a barbeque and so we went there for our tea. I managed to eat half of a hot dog and I was stuffed. All I really wanted to do was get home and get stitching, how sad is that lol.

Well as promised, here is my Great Grandma Churmes stuffing recipe.

4 slices of bread made into bread crumbs

one onion finely sliced

fry off onion

in a large mixing bowl add bread crumbs, sage and the fried onions mix well.

add two eggs and mix until all is combined

spread flat and bake until golden brown

I must say it is delish!!

My yorkshire puddings came out amazing as per usual. Here is my method.

 Equal amounts egg, flour, and milk.

I use one of my prep bowls full to the top.

Whisk until smooth (takes about 1 min for me)

full each well in your stone muffin pan to 1/3 full. With the stone you don't need oil or to heat it up first!! do it from cold.

This is what they will look like when cooked. 

I forgot to take a pic of our cheesecake and of the meat so I won't put them up till next time I do them :)

I haven't done much on 'The Wedding' at all really as I have been cooking up a storm, and I got a migraine so went to bed early :(

Here is where I am up to

I know it doesn't look like much has been done, but here is the chart before and after the stitches I have done.

As you can see the one on the right is coloured in more in the top right corner than the one on the left. As  (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)  and Jade were stitching more on 'The Wedding' I decided to make a start on one of my Christmas stitches. I am starting a Margaret Sherry design of a mouse and robin. Here is where I am up to.

I am going to get a bit more done now so speak soon x

Come shine and rain

 

I had an amazing lay in today, (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)

When I eventually woke up we decided to take the girls and the dog to the park. 

We had loads of fun playing and sliding. 

 

 Here are the girls enjoying themselves with their cousin Harvey.

Even Benji joined in the fun by having a go on the big swing, his tail was going ten to the dozen once the swing started moving lol.

 

 

Jessica wasn't so keen on the zip line though as it went too fast and scared her a little. She was fine as soon as she got off though so don't worry.

 When we got home it started raining and so we decided to make some play dough. Emiliy wanted green and Jessica wanted blue, so we just split the dough in half before we put the colour in. Here's how we did it.

You will need, (I used one of my Pampered chef prep bowls as a measuring guide, which works out at one American cup size)

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

1 cup water

2 teaspoons cream of tartar (get it from the baking aisle in the supermarket)

2 tablespoons cooking oil

gel food colours of your choice

  

 Put all ingredients into a pan (I have one we use just for crafting so I don't ruin my cooking ones), cook on a medium heat stirring all the time!! (that is important!!) 

It is not far off being done at this point, so be careful. it took about 5 mins to get it here.

put the dough on to a floured surface we chopped ours in half at this point and add a small amount of food colouring, the more you add the more intense the finished colour, but you run the risk of the dye being transfered to the kids hands and/or clothes.

Then knead to spread the colour throughout.

You might want to wait a little for it to cool before giving it to kids to handle!!

 

If like today the rain stops while you are making it then send the kids out to play with it in the garden (save extra clean up in the house lol)

 I have also been doing some more of my cross stitch, OMG today is the first time I have used light shades. This is a type of thread that reflects light, but it is bloody awful to work with. It feels a little like plastic but snags like it has glitter attached. I must admit though it does look pretty good. You can kinda see the light reflecting in these pics.

Because I have done the light shade (which took so much longer to do than normal stitching) I haven't done much else on the rest of the pic but here is my work so far.

Not looking too bad, if I do say so myself lol. Anyway, time for me to go to bed, who knows what the kids will have me doing tomorrow, though I have a sneaky feeling Kerry will want to make more play dough, as she missed out today. Speak soon xx.

Nails and day 2

 

Well the girls had their nails painted last night as promised. Only Jessica and Emily had theirs done because Kerry stopped at her cousins house. they thoroughly enjoyed picking out their colours and having the paint put on. Emily had to have hers done twice as she scratched her leg and ruined the first coat lol.

And as promised here is my update on my work in progress (WIP).

Can you tell what it is yet?? Answers in the comments section please x

I have also finally gotten the picture I need for a very special cross stitch. My lovely sister in law (SIL) got married last year and I am going to cross stitch one of her wedding photos for her. I am just waiting for the software to change the photo into a chart and then I can get started. Woo Hoo. Very excited about it and will of course keep you up to date with it. I know my SIL doesn't read this so I am safe sharing it with you. 

We had a lovely Sunday lunch at my Mother in laws today. Most Sundays she does one but on the days she doesn't myself and my SIL fight over who get to cook it. Call me mad, but I love doing Sunday dinner. I must admit, it does help that I have all my Pampered Chef stuff to cook it in, making it super easy. I also love making things like sage and onion stuffing from scratch using the recipe that has been passed down five generations the first I know to pass it down was my Great Great Grandma Churms, and that I am teaching my girls now. When I next make a Sunday dinner I will post up the recipe with the step by step instructions on how to do it.

I also love going up to my MIL for dinner as we get to ride our bikes up there. I bought a Trailgator which attaches Jessica's bike to mine so we can all travel together. It took Jess a long time to get used to the 'bar' as she was used to riding on her own with stabilisers, but now she loves it. I am hoping that when she starts to ride on her own she will be able to balance better on her bike to start with as she will be used to how it works being on the back of mine. Hopefully this 'training' will get her off to a faster start when she does get on on her own. 

Will update on the cross stitch later xx

Teachers gifts and getting back

Well I managed to get some of the ingredients for the teachers gifts, and I had to improvise on some too. The recipe I have uses coconut oil, but I could not find any locally at all and so I decided to try olive oil with flavouring instead, I will tell you in the recipe.

I suppose I should tell you what we made... All natural vanilla body scrub. It should have been coconut (I should have used coconut oil) but as I said earlier I couldn't find any. 

The kids had great fun making it, I had to try to keep them from eating it though. They thought it was delish lol.

Any way, here is how to make amazing body scrub. I will tell you the recipe I used but I will tell you we made two huge batches (quadrupled it both times and it made enough for 8 jars) this recipe is enough to fill a Kilner jar, there is nothing on the jar or the information on the jar to say how much it holds so use this recipe wisely lol.

You will need

1/2 cup demerara sugar

1/2 cup golden granulated sugar

1/2 cup white granulated sugar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 tablespoons of honey

put the sugar into a bowl and mix to distribute the different sugars evenly, 

add all the other ingredients and mix to coat everything evenly, don't worry if you get a few clumps it adds to the effect but you don't want them too big. 











Spoon into the jar and seal.

We then made labels to put on the jars, 

I wrote all the wording but I got the girls to write their own names onto the labels for a bit of personalisation.

They chose the yellow colour, not 100% sure why. 

  

We then added some ribbon to the tag and tied them to the top of the jar. The girls were so proud of themselves bless 'em.






We will wrap them in tissue tomorrow ready to give to the teachers.

Today, I have also been getting back my stitching bug, I used to love cross stitch with a passion and today I decided to start on some stitching for Christmas. 

I chose my design, out of my thousands I have, and chose a small one to start me off (I don't count the bookmark). The design I chose has only ten different coloured threads and guess what I only have five of them in my stitchy stash. So before I could change my mind about getting started I went straight onto Ebay and ordered my missing threads, (this section removed as it mentions my OH) but I also bought myself some more fabric. I am going to start stitching again and I have set myself to do one hour each day. I can post pictures on here of my works in progress and you can even rate them for me :) Here is what I have done so far today.

You can't really see the white stitching I did but that is because it is on white fabric, which by the way is super difficult to do without daylight, so I gave it up as a bad job lol. I think I haven't done too bad for the first proper stitching session I have done in a while. What do you think?