Happy New Year 2010

I hope you all have a happy and joyful New Year in 2010.

All chores done!

Just one last one remains, and that is to wish you all peace and prosperity in 2010 and for your Christmas Holiday to be the best ever.

Good health and good luck in the New Year.

Christmas Cake

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 stick butter
1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
Lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup of nuts
1 bottle of wine
2 cups of dried fruit

Sample the wine to check the quality. Take a large bowl, check the wine again.

To be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Repeat.

Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.

Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it's best to make sure the wine is still ok. Try another
cup.... Just in case. Turn of the mixerer thingy.

Break 2 eggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Pick the frigging fruit up off floor. Mix on the turner.. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the wine to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something.
Check the wine. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table.

Add a spoon of sugar, or some fink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven. Turn the cake tine 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl through the window. Finish the wine and

wipe counter with the cat.

Bingle Jells!



Thanks to Sally for the above recipe, I have to say that I have not tried and tested this one.....But I will be pleased to read comments from any of you who try it with any success! Good luck.

Chair number 2 finished

Well I had hoped to finish the rocking chair last night, but the covers fought back, sigh... But at times like that I put down what I am doing and take a rest from it. So today I avoided all contact with real sewing and only posed with my tent in the snow for the 'extreme sewing' photograph for here. I did enjoy this competition and I have been a fan of Lisa Lam for a few years now. It was her blog which first inspired me to start one myself. She is very clever at making up competitions for her free give aways and this time the number one prize was a Janome sewing machine. So I thought, nothing ventured....

But I expect you are hoping to see a shot of my other chair now that it is finished and I would hate to disappoint you, so without further delay may I present my Ercol rocking chair which has been in my husband's family for about forty years. I have been its owner for the last 25 years or more and I have recovered it once before. It is a little more worn now but I love it so much that I will just hang onto it.

You can see the newly sanded floorboards too, which look good after all the crawling around on my hands and knees.  So I just need to put the pictures back on the walls and then it is done.  The Christmas tree is already up, perhaps I will post a photo of it next time, until then I need to do a spot of dusting around the house....

Finished the chair covers

I finally finished the covers today and the result is not bad.  I have not used such bright fabric before and stripes are always a challenge so it went better than I expected. The only down side is that I am not sure the fabric goes with the new rug...Well I will just have to make some more covers I suppose when I have time.  Meanwhile I have been finishing off the lounge by touching up the skirting board with primer paint where the sanding mouse knocked some of the paint off. Tomorrow I should be able to undercoat and then top coat maybe later if it dries in time, if not it will be Wednesday.

I helped to put the Christmas tree into its container after we cut an inch off the bottom so it would take up water. So the tree is outside keeping cool. The next job is to make Christmas cards and we usually do this one between us (DH and I). His broadcast on Radio Cumbria was played today and he will be featured all week on the Ian Timms show, so I have put a link at the top right for those of you who want to listen to his side of the diary for the same week I kept mine.

Hard work but worth it..

Well I won't go into the saga of how my new sanding mouse blew up within 25 minutes of using it and what happened next, but it was quite a week and now I can stand back and admire. Well not quite because there are still things to finish off, but I have even started to imagine a Christmas Tree in the corner....

Yes the floor you see has now been sanded and sealed with 3 coats of special floor silk finish varnish. It looks lovely to me and was worth it. I especially want to thank the wonderful, friendly staff here for letting me take home 3 oriental rugs to try before deciding which one to purchase. If you want really good service go and see them, they are a local well known Keswick firm and I always know I will find something I love there. For those of you who are interested, it is an Afghanistan rug; hand made and is a Kazak. I will cherish it! The colours sing. The man in the shop told me to write the date on the label when I bought it as it will still be unworn in 20 years time.

I did make something else this week but it was posted off to Palm Springs to my DD so I must not show a photo as she follows this blog. (Hello sausage! :-) 

Anyway, I am now going to settle down and think about some Christmas shopping and even go and look for a fir tree. I usually buy a Douglas Fir from Whinlatter.  It became a tradition with my last two terriers to go there and take a shortish walk up onto Whinlatter Summit and then go back and pop them into the car whilst we chose a suitable tree. Sadly Jock and Bramble are no longer with us but I continue the tradition with my dear Border Terrier Bella. She loves sniffing around trees and especially Christmas ones! It will make such a change from the last few days on my hands and knees.

Dalemain Christmas Lunch

Last Thursday was the Keswick Embroiderers' Christmas Lunch in a Medieval Hall.  Here are just a few of our happy diners. May I introduce you to our new Chairman too. The central lady in the photo is our new Chairman Val Osborn and she is a keen hand and crewel embroiderer.

I did not hear any complaints about the food, so if you want an unusual setting for your lunch next year contact Dalemain. We had a three course lunch for £16.50 per head and we were there for just over two hours, so no one hurried us. You do need to on the ball with your bookings though because they fill up quickly. Below you have a view of the hall and its huge log fire!

The next meeting of the EG will not be a meal but a workshop in Threlkeld Village Hall as the Friends Meeting House is still being assessed for flood damage and will not be ready for a few months. So all future meetings until further notice will be in Threlkeld. But you can find out all the latest news elsewhere as Keswick now has another editor of their blog and it has also changed to the following:- Keswick Stitchers. So if you have any contributions or photographs to share please email them to the new blogger Lesley. I have included her email address and a link to the blog in the right hand column about Keswick EG. I am still an active committee member but I have relinquished some jobs for the time being in order to pursue other interests I have.

Tomorrow, is the first of the 5 Radio Cumbria broadcasts I recorded for the Ian Timms show so if you tune in at approx 5.45 you will hear yours truly. They tracked me down because I blog so who knows maybe it will be Lesley's turn next!

Christmas sewing and broadcasting on Radio Cumbria

Well I had to start sometime and this is my first effort. I made some of these last year and they looked so pretty that I thought I would make some more.  This one uses green velvet for the top and very pretty upholstery fabric for the body, whereas last years were the reverse with green velvet bodies.

I have not had time to do more on my upholstery chair because I was head hunted by Radio Cumbria last week. The upshot can be heard next week starting on Monday on the Ian Timms show.  I will be broadcast at approximately 5.45pm on a number they call 'Little Cumbria'. They asked me to keep a blog type diary for 5 days and then to read it out at their recording studio. I will be played each day until Friday. So I hope you can tune in and listen to my radio blog.....

My 'management' was also roped in and you can hear him and his exploits the following week. Oh the things we do for fame...I will post links on the site after the broadcasts so if you want to hear me you can find the items more easily. I have to say I actually enjoyed doing it once the initial nerves settled down but the funniest bit was in the middle of the recording he started to cough and Bella was in the studio too so any minute I thought she would start to bark.....Anyway, we stopped the recording and he left with Bella and then I carried on.

I have to go and do some more work on my lounge floor now, so until next time, take care.

Good News for HEN's

Wow this is such good news, a new free online magazine has just been launched, go check it out girls......

http://www.needlemagazine.com/

I have also added their website to my list of useful sites and their blog to the blog list, have fun.