~Simple Pleasures~

Saturday night Simple Pleasures...
Chicken, leek and ham pie ( and a glass or two of white wine!)

Pie filling recipe from 'The Hairy Dieters' by Dave Myers & Si King

...and Strictly Come Dancing! xx

~Another wristwarmer TaDa!~

I'm not sure why I'm obsessed with knitting wristwarmers? Maybe I have learnt (expensively) how I lose interest half-way through a jumper or cardigan? Anyway, I am still knitting here and there, whilst in my PJs on the sofa at night...  These wristwarmers were knitted for daughter Laura...

...and are from this book 'Learn to Knit Love to Knit' by Anna Wilkinson (click to go to Amazon books)

I borrowed this book from the library in the village - an affordable way to get access to lovely craft books.  The wool was a 'bargain basket' blue cotton DK yarn 100g ball for £1, and the pink is a luscious ball of  Yorkshire sock yarn (expensive and precious) that I bought last year.

Very easy peasy...essential when you need a simple project to do when watching Downton!

~Simple Pleasures - Rainbow of Cookbooks~

At breakfast I decided that I'd like to put my cookery books in the kitchen in colour order...

A    R A I N B O W   of cookery and baking books!
(Sometimes it's the little things that please you or cheer you up!)

~Thrify Handknitted Pressies & Tea Cosy Pattern~

I thought I'd do a 'Ta Da' post for this titchy tea cosy I've knitted for my sister-in-law's birthday at the end of March. It fits snugly on it's teapot-for-one which I found on my vintage travels.  How come I always love (and want to keep) the things I knit for other people?!?
This project has been knitted from my wool stash of odds, ends and the never-even-started projects. Having done a bit of blog reading tonight,  I would wholeheartedly like to join Tina at Tea and Woolly Socks in her No More Buying Yarn Stash Busting Campaign.
So here's the tea cosy...

It's a made-up pattern; the main body is knitted in Louisa Harding Fleuris, colour Meteor - a 70% Bamboo 30% Wool yarn. Using your stash makes you choose colour combinations that maybe you wouldn't normally, if you get my meaning.  I think that it is a good thing. 

The pattern; I knit this in chunky wool on 6mm needles.

The main body basketweave pattern was done in 2 halves by casting on 40sts, or a multiple of 4 sts, 

Row 1 Cable 4 fwd to end

Row 2 Purl 

Row 3 K2, then Cable 4 back to last 2 sts, K2

Row 4 Purl

Then for shaping I just make it up as I go along. Usually it's K2 tog across the knit rows only, then draw remaining stitches up. The roses hide this bit anyway! The roses and leaves are from the tea cosy book I have posted about before, Really Wild Tea Cosies by Loani Prior.

~World Book Day~

A quick post to celebrate World Book Day.
As I'm 43 I didn't dress up as The Gruffalo, Horrid Henry or Where's Wally, but I just wanted to share my latest good read with you.
I got this book as a birthday present last month - The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.

It was published last year, so forgive me if you've read it already.  My finger isn't on the pulse of what's hot in fiction; I rely on accidentally finding good books or else am loaned them by friends.
This book is so wonderfully well-written, clever, funny...and so sad yet uplifting that I had several proper crying episodes.
If you fancy it, a review can be found online here.    To be recommended.

~Knitting Book Giveaway~

As promised here is my first giveaway of 2013...
It's a lovely craft book called 'Vintage Knit Knacks' by Sue Culligan, and you can read more about it here

I was going to have a gardening giveaway, but as Spring has not sprung and the snow and cold snap are forecast again this week, what better than a bit of knitting by a toasty fire?
Along with basic knitting advice, there are patterns for 20 projects including socks, mittens, bottle cover, cafetiere cosy, bookmark, gadget case, to name a few.
To enter just leave me a comment below before 12 midnight on Friday 22nd February.
Good luck
x Sally

~A Cup of Tea with Lynn Hill~

At the end of January I had the opportunity of a quick chat
over a virtual cup of tea (Yorkshire of course) with Lynn Hill, creator of the Clandestine Cake Club and author of it's new Cookbook.I wanted to find out what had inspired Lynn's love of baking...

What was your background; how did you come to love baking? 
The last job I had before I retired in 2007 was in the customer service sector of a bank. I worked there for about 12 years. I came to love baking through cookery classes at school and my mother always cooked and baked at home, even when my sister and I were very young. At a very young age I seem to remember my father used to come home with a rabbit or 2 and mum would cook them. Rabbit is a delicious sweet meat, I remember it well. She used to bake bread, pies and cakes, all the traditional home baking that I'm glad to say is still done in many homes today.

Did you have an inspirational family member who taught you?
 I think we often used to watch our mums baking, and I'm no exception, but most of my baking and cooking skills are self taught with the odd cookery school attendance here and there. And of course I have a great selection of cookery books to fall back on.

How did you come to have a secret tearoom and where did the idea for CCC come from? 
The Secret Tea Room came about in June 2010 when I had my first afternoon tea in my own home, although the original idea came in 2009. It was part of the supperclub movement at that time and Clandestine Cake Club, which I created in December 2010, is essentially a spin off from that where I wanted to bring people together with Tea and Cake but without me doing all the baking, so what better way than to start a cake club. Sadly I don't have time for The Secret Tea Room anymore because I'm putting all my energy into CCC.

Did you enjoy the book creation process - which are the best bits of writing a cookbook?
I thoroughly enjoyed creating the book, from the moment members started to send in their recipes, including all the writing, seeing the photographs coming in and gradually page by page, seeing the book take shape. It  was quite an emotional moment when I received my copy of the book.  The photo shoots were great fun. Some of which I attended were London, Bath and Leeds and some CCC members were invited to join in the fun as well.

Available here

~Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook~

I've got a bit of exciting news to share - this lovely book arrived in the post this week...

I'm so proud and a bit giddy that my recipe was chosen for the book...

It's available to buy mid-February...

My Battenberg recipe on page 43

I've blogged about the now well-known Clandestine Cake Club before, back in October 2011 (see here)   and also in August 2011 (see here)   

CCC; the clever invention of Lynn Hill from Woodlesford, Leeds, now has over 150 national and international clubs, all enjoying the simple pleasure of bakey cakey gatherings to meet people and eat cake (and you get to take some home too). 

CCC logo courtesy of www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk

Lynn's Cookbook is really a thing of beauty - gorgeous vintage styling - lots of glass cake stands, vintage china and embroidered doilies as well as tried and tested, and tested again, recipes.I'll be back tomorrow to have a cup of tea and a chat with Lynn herself, but in the meantime, to read more about Lynn Hill and Clandestine Cake Club

• Visit the website and join in  www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk
• Lynn's baking blog at www.bakelady.wordpress.com
• and there's a good article in Yorkshire Life here

~Comfort Food~

It's already half-way through (Dry) January, with it's healthy eating and exercise attempts.  This week Kettlercise was enjoyable and not as painful post-session! Today, I was one of 5 people at work who bought the Hairy Dieters book from The Book People for £5...

I really enjoyed the series which was on TV just after Christmas, where both Si and Dave lost loads of weight.  Now I know what I should and shouldn't eat (and drink) to lose weight; but I've found these recipes really interesting with their normal meal ideas with a fair chunk of the calories knocked off. Tonight I made their Southern-style Jambalaya...

...without the prawns *bleurrrgh* and I would like to report it was delicious - real comfort food for a sub-zero evening!

~Quiet weekend~

This weekend has been a quiet one socially and I've spent as little money as possible - it's such a long month until January payday, I'm sure you'll agree.
I've been;

• Reading cosily (and lazily) in bed on a morning and at night - lovely old books I'd wanted; found on eBay and my local charity shop...
• Making a huge panful of leek and potato soup to freeze for cheap work lunches...
• Eating out - a freebie bar meal in a local pub using a gift voucher won at a Christmas raffle...
• Walking the dog at Bishop Wood this afternoon to get some much needed happy-rays of sun soaked into me...
• Knitting a little, then sewing this cushion for a birthday present.

Hope you've had a restful and cosy weekend wherever you are  x

~Log Cabin Panel~

After the last 2 and a half days spent in flannelette pyjamas on the sofa with some virus, I have felt much better this afternoon. Managed to walk the stir crazy Small Dog round the block (I did manage to get dressed first), albeit felt sweaty and tired afterwards though. Have just had an urge to sew, (that feeling that you've lost a couple of days and need to catch up) and have done a first quick attempt at log cabin patchwork.   I knew how to, but have never had a go before. I used a central 7cm square, and 6cm wide strips of ripped fabric strips, following the method in 'Quilting in No Time' by Emma Hardy.

You'll see some favourite fabrics here from my stash, a vintage paisley eiderdown fabric, some Cath Kidston, Ikea Rosali Spots and  Laura Ashley. I'm still sticking to my 2012 intention of using what I already have. This literally took half an hour - how fantastically quick compared to paper piecing hexagons and hand stitching. Not sure I got the repeat right - should it be random or ordered? -  I couldn't decide...