Jethro Tull - A Christmas Song

I wish you all a merry christmas.

sheep art

 

I came across this picture of some sheep art. These were from an exhibition at the museum of communication in Frankfurt, germany. I cant remember the artist. Will let you all know if I can find it again. I thought these were very clever.

gingerbread houses

 

As you can see I have been in the kitchen making gingerbread. I had wanted to make the gingrbread house with the children. #1 child and I made the gringerbread pieces for the house and then I put it together. I decided we did not need to decorate it with lollies as the children have had too many already in the last few weeks.

 

Then I made another batch of gingerbread and made these shaped biscuits. Oh my gosh. Now we have to eat them all, but it was fun.

 

 

more socks.

 

Here are the finished sandalwood socks. I am happy with them but would like to try the pattern in a solid colour to see if it will show up the pattern better

 

These are a pair of toe up socks. They are knitted with cleckheaton bamboo. With bamboo stitch on the front of the cuff. They also have a picot edge. These are really nice and feel very smooth. I was not overly happy with the heel seam but love the socks.
Now I am knitting a top down cardi.

countdown to christmas

 

Well it is that time of the year again when we start to count down to christmas. Each year we have an advent candle and always light it a dinner time. When the children were younger it was a great way for them to be able to see how far away christmas was. I love candles and I especially love the decorations you can find on advent candles. This year I had lots of trouble finding a candle. At first I wanted to make one like we did last year but I couldnt find a shop that sold candle decorating stuff. So luckily I found this solitary candle, designed by Jette Froelich, a danish designer. I think I will have to stock up on the candles when I find a good website that supplies them.

 

And here is the other side of the candle, so no matter where you are sitting at the table you have a nice view.

 

A friend of mine who has just arrived "home" from denmark gave me these lovely little nisse for christmas decorations. I just love them and all thing nisse-ish. The Danes really know how to decorate for christmas.

in the garden

 

After the hot weather of yesterday I woke up to cooler and damper day. The garden seems to flourishing though. The bearded iris is a hybrid designed by my great uncle. A fitting way to remember him.

 

 

 

Delicious Death for Agatha Christie

 

As an avid fan of Agatha Christie's I decided to make the Delicious Death cake which was created to celebrate her 120th birthday. Even though I am not much of a cook I thought this would be a good tribute to the master of crime that the whole family could enjoy.
I have been working my way through the poirot tv series, in chronological order, even though my family think me a little strange but you have to start at the beginning ang and then move forward. Most of these I had seen before and even more of them I have read but I just love the whole world within a world in these stories. Next I will have to move on to the Miss Marples.( I secretly would like to become Miss Marple, visiting wonderful english vilages, knitting and solving crimes). But back to the cake.Here are the raisins and glace cherries simmering in orangs juice( decided not to go for the brandy option so the children would like the taste)

 

#3 child took this photo of the finished cake and I thought I would use it as he told me his photo was better than mine. The recipe had said to cut the cake in two and put the fruit inside but after cooling the cake it was obvious when I started cutting that it would not stay in one piece and was very crumbly, so I put the fruit ontop, as you do. I dont know why it was so crumbly, any suggestions are very welcome.

 

Here is another photo of the cake, and its chocolate topping.

 

As you can see we managed to finish most of the cake, and luckily no one has died,yet. It was fun to make but not the type of cake I would make again. I found it very rich and far too sweet for me, even if the children managed to have seconds.
So thankyou Agatha Christie for all that you have contributed to the world, I know you have given me hours and hours of enjoyement in my life.

animals on display

 

This is one of our nightly visitors. The mother possum was on the ground eating some food I had left out for them while this young one was on top of the bird feeder eaing the seeds I had left out for the birds.

 

It is that time of year again and I headed off to the show with the children and this goat stole our hearts, what an expression!

 

We also spent some time at the snake pit. The reptile rescue man and his helper stood in there with 10 deadly Tasmanian snakes. They were fasinating to watch but I was very happy for the high walls seperating me from them. These are tiger snakes and copper heads. I have one living in my garden at the moment and I wish it would go away. It seems to have taken a liking to my iris garden, just next to the verandah. All snakes are protected in Tasmania and so we are not allowed to kill them, so I am hoping it will decide this is not a good place to be.

 

And of course it cant be a show without the poultry shed. This was one of the finest roosters in the shed. WE always seem to spend far too long looking at all the chickens, ducks, pidgeons etc but you have to love them. we all went in the canary raffle and yet again we did not win, which is probably good.

Ihave been doing a little something

 

As I am still finding it hard to find suitable patterns for a cardigan that can use the wool I have in my stash(maybe that is why it has been in the stash for so long.) I decided to make these quick and very easy Evangeline gloves as a gift. Then I made a pair for #1 child. This was some lovely soft wool I got from a blue swap on ravelry. Very nice

 

Then of course I decided to work on my sock wool stash and make these Sandalwood socks. I am using some sock wool I dyed. I really like the colour and I love the pattern but it is the old adage, wrong woll for that pattern. Oh well, I will just have to knit another pair later in a solid colour to show off the pattern.

 

 

It was#3 childs birthday and we held it on halloween weekend and so here was my black cat pinata, I also made a witch but had trouble with getting the right mouth to make her look witchy enough so in the end I painted over the mouth and I dont think any of the children even noticed she was missing a mouth.

worms end wales

We went for a lovely walk along this headland at Worms End in Wales. The scenery was just spectacular. There were a few surfers out at the beach and a lot of walkers around enjoying the lovely day. When the tide is right you can walk from the head land out to the island, but unfortunately we were not able to stay there until the tide turned.

 

 

 

welsh travel

 

While we were away in the UK the children go the chance to have a go at archery and also were able to hold some birds of prey. These two things seem to be very popular in the UK and so the children were really excited to be able to have a go at these medieval sports.

 

This was a young owl that the falconers were raising by hand. It was very cute and its eyes were so compelling.

 

Then we stumbled across this old water mill where they had been crding fleece and them spinning it and eventually weaving it, all driven by water power. It was very interesting to see but a shame that it was no longer used as a working mill.

 

welsh wanderings

 

We spent some time in wales and had lots of fun driving around this wonderfully lush and green country. We stopped at this sea side town on the west coast It is called Aberayon.

 

These houses are just so beautiful.

 

 

As you can tell the tide was out when we arrived and I just loved these boats left high and dry.

home again. Jiggety Jig.

 

As I said in my last post I have been away on holiday with the family. We decided to go to europe for four months for our one and only family adventure. We have alot of family and friends over there and I was wanting to catch up with them face to face agian. So we started off flying into Heathrow and hired a car to head for Wales. We stopped in the small town of Lyneham where there is an airforce base.

 

There was also this lovely thatch roofed house.

 

As we drove on we passed some small villages with what I would have to call very english churches and cemetries. I do like a good cemetry to wander around in.

 

This was the start of our big adventure and over the next while I will post some more photos while I try to decide what to spin or knit now that I am home again and back into the swing of everyday life.