Another of my knits, really pleased with this one its an adult version of the lovely children’s pattern neighborly by Jennifer Casa. I took my pattern from stitchesinplay, who has a lovely blog. The wool I used was great and luckily it grows with wear, Noro silk garden and noro plain wool.  I knitted it a little small, I need to improve my knitting style.

Any advise on knitting slacker would be welcome.

The shalom cardigan seems to be on every knitters list at some time, there are 2482 completed projects of this on ravelry and I’m sure it will increase by the time I publish my post.

After an afternoon in blacksheepwools new barn, I purchased way to much wool with no idea of projects.  The Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran in lovely bright pink, a massive pack of bargain pale pink cotton, lovely Rowan Country in green tones, for possible felting and some baby wool.

The pink aran was used to create my very own Shalom cardigan.  I changed the pattern a little, added a bit of extra length, and changed the design to close at the front and added a row of pattern to form cap sleeves.  I am pleased with the results, though still need to find wooden buttons.

I added a little crocheted flower for detail whilst waiting to find the perfect buttons.

I now have a queue of 5 projects to be completed, the first being a poncho that purchased Sirdar demin ultra for and then a few things for summer.

My first attempt at muffins, I used a recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery book cheese and spinach muffins.  Well, the mixture was a nightmare, so sticky and thick, I had to add lots of extra milk to it to be a managable consistency.

After the tricky start they tasted great, especially when warm with a nice cup of tea!  I’m going to try a few more things from this book when I get some ingredients. Yummy!

Its my first married Valentines day, I don’t usually go in for this type of thing but couldn’t resist a bit of baking.  My husband loves cakes usually, so I thought I’d try something a little different, Strawberry Jam cupcakes!!!

Veryberry Cupcakes

2 Large Eggs

Self Raising Flour

Soften Butter

Caster Sugar

Good Strawberry Jam

Milk

Weight the eggs in shells and then measure out the same of all other ingredients, apart from jam.  Cream butter and sugar, getting as much air in to the mixture as possible.  Add the eggs one by one mixing after each.  Next add the flour and a little milk, then the remaining flour and milk to make it a good consistency.  This should be mixed at a good speed.  (It should fall off a spoon if tilted, not slide or stick.)

Place cases in a cupcake tray and spoon mixture into each, followed by a blob of jam and a little mixture on top.  Take care not to put to much jam in and not to near the bottom of the case, as it sinks a bit when cooked.

Cook on Gas mark 4 for 20/25 minutes, don’t open the oven before.

I wasn’t sure about frosting, so iced them with pale pink vanilla buttercream.  I ended up with lots of buttercream left over, so does anyone know if you can freeze it?

Pink Vanilla Butter Icing

Pink food colouring

Good quality Vanilla

Icing Sugar

Creamed Butter

Cream butter, vanilla and food colouring, next sift sugar bit by bit.  Mixture on a good speed and ice the cake with a knife sticking to one direction.

The finished items,

Its shame I finished making them when the sun was fading, the lighting in this picture just doesn’t do them justice.  I only hope they taste as good!

This is impressive, Tif the star of dottie angel blog has decided to create a challenge. She will use and buy secondhand and handcrafted goods for a year.  Check the few below who have made a good start.

Abigail’s Pocatello

Mum design

May the cloth be with you

I love the idea of it and am thinking about it, but worried I won’t keep it up.  Please send me ideas and advice if you’ve started with dottie’s challenge.

Halloween was my favourite!  I sent my husband off to the shops to buy a pumpkin.  I was going to make the soup and he could have fun carving it.  I wasn’t sure about a recipe, so had a little go at making my own and it worked wonderfully.

Verymissberry Pumpkin Soup

1 small Pumkin

I large Sweet Potato

1/2 an Onion

500ml Veggie Stock (Low salt)

200ml Milk

1cm grated Ginger

2 small cloves garlic

A bunch of Corriander

Pinch  of Salt & Pepper

Chop all the veggies and garlic and roast them with a touch of oil in the oven for 30mins on Gas Mark 6. When they look soft, pop them in a pan on the hob and add the 500ml of stock along with ginger, coriander and salt & pepper and leave to simmer for a further 15mins before adding the milk and then turn the heat and continue to simmer for 10 mins.  Taste and season as needed!

Its really nice to save and roast the pumpkin seeds to sprinkle on top. (Keep them out of the hubbys sight, mine ate them all before hand.)

Yum yum yum!

I’ve found these new sheepskin boots, they look a great alternative to Uggs in the UK and seem to be real sheepskin and better quality. I would love a pair, with all the snow here at the moment!

Life’s back to normal work and sleep, work, sleep and eat.  Though I have found time to make this yummy recipe I wanted to share with all you fish lovers out there.

I have recently found lemon sole, not the most flavoured of fish but great if you cook it with creativity.  So here goes,

place the fish in a flat dish, making sure you score both sides to let the flavour in.  Set the oven to Gas mark 6 and start chopping the ingredients.  Tomatoes, garlic, basil, red onions, mushrooms, lemons, salt & pepper I roughly chopped them all and placed them over my fish and then made a dressing of lemon, garlic and olive oil to drizzle over the top before placing in the oven.  I only cooked two pieces of sole and this took about 10 – 15 mins.

It works really well with salted Canarian style potatoes and salad.  Wonderful!

After a wonderful wedding, quite a lot of injections and a little help from our friends and family we were all set for our trip to Africa.

A rather long flight, though free champagne and then my first time on light aircraft we arrived in Zanzibar.  A bit of culture and then a well earned rest by the coast!  We headed to Stone Town and the Zenji Hotel.  Stone Town is steeped in culture with its winding alleys, bustling bazaars, mosques and grand Arab houses and for Richard a wonderful amount of carved, wooden doors – there are more than 500 different examples, though we didn’t see them all.  It really was a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways, where the local people are glad to show you the way.

Our time in Zanzibar wouldn’t have been complete without some, chill out time on the beach.  We headed an hour north and a very bumpy cab ride to Nungwi on the northern tip of the island. Nungwi’s beach is more a series of small beaches, but it has no seaweed and very little tide compared with the rest of the Island.   We stayed in Flame Tree Cottages further away from the main tourist area and it was lovely, very quiet and had a great little beach restaurant.

Whilst on Zanzibar we tried snorkling off the most idilic island and had a great tour of the local village from Romeo (found most day on the beach near flame tree).  We visited a turtle sanctuary where injured turtles and other marine animals are nursed back to health before being released into the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Though lets not forget the Dhou trip and seeing Dolphins, it was just great.

The second leg of trip involved more light plain journeys, before arriving in Selous the largest but least well known of all Tanzania’s game parks.  We hadn’t even touched down and I’d seen my first Giarffe.  Arriving to cool towels mango juice and a surprising game drive straight away, we knew we’d made the right choice with Selous Impala Camp.  The camp was amazing and our tent was right at the edge of the Rufuji River.  On our first night we awoke to a bull elephant tearing at the trees next to our camp, a scary experience.  The food was great, our driver was great and we saw a massive amount of animals from lion cubs to kingfishers.  I could have lived there!

A lass we had to leave and set fight for our last port of call The Tides on Oshongo beach.  This was truly in the middle of no where, landing on a field where the whole local village was gather under a small tree to see us and the plain arrive.  We drove through very poor areas of Africa to arrive at a beautiful palm tree beach on some unspoilt coastline.  Our days were spent relaxing read talking to local children and more relaxing.  Just what we needed at the end of our trip.

I just want thank all the people who bought us gifts and excursions relating to our amazing honeymoon, we loved them all.

On 07.08.09 I got married to Richard Holt.  The day was lovely and I now have a few pictures to show to the world.  Our photographer was Victoria Hamilton and she was super and has captured so many perfect memories for us to treasure.

The day started at my mums and after a few hours getting my hair and makeup done then squeezing into my dress I was ready.  I managed to find all the tradition items, old, new, borrowed and blue.

When my Dad arrived we had a few family pictures in the back garden before mum and bridesmaid left for church.  At which point nerves set in, so I decided I needed a few pieces of toast to stop my tummy growling at the alter.

I had picked a wonderful car to take me to the church, a vintage 1930s Austin. It was totally fitting for the vintage styled day.  Though rather tricky to get into in a tight corseted wedding dress!

Richard got a little surprise as well, his sister and friends had sorted out a Delorean to get him to the church on time.  This was a massive hit and I’m sure calmed his nerves and the guests loved it later.

The bestman and bridesmaid were great and made the day extra special by helping it run to perfection and earlier in the month organising great parties for us.  So a big thank you to them and all the others who helped us sort out our perfect day!

In the end the day was perfect and I married a very special person who I’ll be able to share the rest of my life with.  A big thank you to Richard! x