Flowery baby blankie

This blanket is for my little niece who hasn't been born yet....She is due around Aug 6th and I can't wait to meet her.... I will be an Auntie at last. A long time coming!

I made the pattern up for this blanket from lots of things I've made before. I am thrilled with the result, it is very girly and that shade of lilac is stunning.

The colours  and brands are as follows:  Robin brand DK - Myrtle. Stylecraft special DK- Fondant & Candyfloss.  New Fashion DK - Glacia.

This was such a pleasure to make if not a bit fiddly!

I made a lot of these flowers!

Then joined in the green on the back loops of the petals to make a square shape and finished off into a granny square in the lilac colour.

                                                          I then joined as I went along....

                                                                       Getting bigger....

                                                Lulu thinks it there for her to snuggle into!

                                                                     Almost there.....

                                                 I finished off with  pretty shell edging.

                           Hope the baby has many happy years snuggling into her blankie. :)

Crochet bags

I am a massive fan of the wonderful Attic 24's blog

I had to make this bag

I made the first one as the pattern is but added my own colours. It's a cute bag but a little on the small side for me who carries a LOT of stuff about.  It is now Sadie's :)

I decided to make myself the bigger version which is here

I wanted fresh seasidey colours as will be using when I go to Cornwall in the summer.

My mum fell in love with the bag so had to make one for her too. A lovely mix of sea blues and greens.
I even made a liner for this one.

These bags work up very quickly and are super easy to make.

Christmas blankets

I made these two blankets last Christmas as gifts for my brother and his girlfriend who is Scottish.

Both granny stripes.

I loved the Scottish greens and purples and it was a hit!

Bothers blanket is a nice masculine mix of cool neutral blues browns and greys.

Lulu giving it a test run

Harper's daisy blankie

I made this blanket for my friend's little girl Harper, who is one month old now. She is THE cutest little baby.

I started off making lots of little daisies which would then become the centre of the square

 The daisies were then crocheted around as opposed to be sewing on top afterwards.  I used Stylecraft special DK colours in :

Lemon, white, Iced pink, Fondant and Cupid. As always on my 4mm hook

This blanket worked up quite fast.  I referred to This pattern.  I used a different pattern for the center of the daisy as I wanted something more solid looking. There are 48 squares in total, finished off with a scalloped edge.

In progress:

The blanket is a good cot size.

Hope you enjoy your blankie in the years to come little Harper. xxx

Angee's birthday cake

I made this cake for my step mum for a special birthday and as a thank you in return for doing me a big favour a while back.

We discussed ideas for the cake and took some inspiration from Google images, then I was left to my own devices to surprise her.

The finished cake has a theme of Mexican day of the dead and of love and friendship.We, as a family have been through some hard and testing times losing people we love, but friendships and family ties support us and enable us to carry carry on, and have hope in the face of adversity.
We wanted the cake to symbolise these things, but also create something over the top that had a gothic girlie over the top kitschy feel.

This was a challenging cake for me to make, as parts of it had crucial timings especially the chocolate components and the rose making ,so had to be on the ball and work quickly. I watched a couple of You Tube tutorials to help master a couple of techniques, to try to get a professional finish.

For the base I baked 2 x 10 inch Madeira cakes with pink and back stripes running through the sponge which gives a zebra print effect when you slice into it. You divide your cake batter into 3 bowls:

Then dollop the cake batter one spoon full at a time one on top of the other and it settles into the cake tin like this..

 I levelled the cakes off then filled with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream which is piped round in a circle on one sponge to create a dam , so the icing doesn't spill out of the sides of the cake.

 I then added thick buttercream into the sides of the cake to fill out the edge. Then  I scraped a thin layerof buttercream on the whole outside of the cake which was levelled with a scraper to ensure a smooth finish to the purple fondant icing covering it.

I bought 6 kg of white ready roll fondant  in total which I dyed with colour gels. It Took ages dyeing blocks of icing with the different colours. Takes a lot of elbow grease!

I rolled the purple fondant out quite thin and draped over the cake and smoothed it all out with a plastic smoother.  I trimmed off the excess with a pizza cutter. I stuck 7 straws into the cake to anchor the top tier cake or the weight would just collapse in the bottom one. Just trim the straws once their in.

I then got to work scrolling...with black icing in a pipe bag cut with the teeniest snip on the end.

The consistency has to be not too runny nor too thick,  little things like this make or break it...You can imagine it all running  down the sides and not setting as you scroll :(..... Practice first on the side of a  tin. ;)

The top tier is an 8 inch rich chocolate fudge cake, with an amaretto ganache, covered in black fondant.

It is crucial to let the chocolate cake set in the fridge at this stage for an hour before you ice it.

I covered this cake in black fondant and used my scraper to score some diagonal lines and then stuck pearls in between.

All the roses, leaves and hearts are handmade. The skulls are made from a chocolate mould kit, which I dusted with a silver grey lustre powder. Sadie gave a helping hand dusting these.

The sugar roses are the most time consuming part of the cake, though quite relaxing to sit and make as you get into a rhythm.

The leaves were made with a leaf cutter in different sizes.

I found it best to let the roses and leaves have some drying out time after you make them, to harden off which doesn't take long... approx an hour, or they don't hold their shape when you pin them. If they are too hard they snap as the petals are very thin and fragile, so timing is everything!

The skull  for the top of the cake on the top is a plastic one which I painted in white acrylic and coloured in with felts and paints in a  Mexican day of dead style. I placed a sugar rose in the eye and circled it with silver balls.

The cake was placed on a 16 inch board which I painted with black acrylic. I used a glue gun to stick the black spotty ribbon on with. I finished off the other tiers with silver ribbon and black.


Next  I got to work placing all the roses and leaves on, I placed them throughout to make sure I was happy with the colour and size balances, before securing them to the cake with small splodges of buttercream behind each leaf or flower.  Some of the roses had to be pinned on with thin gauge crafting wire and cocktail sticks (Mainly to the sides of the cake) you snip a piece of wire approx 5 inces long bend over to form a prong then insert through the centre of the rose being really careful not to damage any of the petals. I did damage some of them but most of the roses had a pearl in the centre which hid this and looked pretty anyway.

The roses all had a dusting of edible glitter.

The Ta Dah moment....

Angee was really delighted for the reveal which I was really glad about :) We took the cake to the venue and once in situ Angee supplied the black feather which just finished it off perfectly.

Finally how the cake looked when first piece was cut....The funky pattern worked!

I had lots of lovely comments form the guests at the party, and some recipe requests!

Shame to cut it but it's meant to be eaten! :)

My Nan's bread pudding

I can't remember a time EVER at my Nan's where there wasn't a slab of bread pudding knocking around.
 I loved it as a child and went off it for a bit over the years, so I'm going to revive it today, reason being my husband and daughter have not eaten the healthy wholemeal loaf that I encouraged them to use instead of the unhealthy white rubbish they favour.  I'ts going stale in the bread bin so thought I would use it up as my Nan would of done.

My Paternal Grandmother wasn't the greatest cook in the world, but she always made the effort to cook   and always made a roast on a Sunday even if it was just for herself, she really enjoyed herself in the kitchen. Her roast potatoes were to die for!
There are a few things she made that I really loved, and stick in my memory.  Her bread pudding. Apple pie with a lovely short pastry. Egg curry. Chicken soup/stew with butterbeans, and a mean hotpot, which was always a lovely warmer when coming in from the cold from the time spent outdoors in North Wales, which was bitterly cold in the winter.  She nearly always had the chicken soup/stew on the go on her cooker top. She swore it had medicinal properties! I'm sure we have some Jewish blood going through our veins?!

A downside to Nan's meals were the dog hairs. We all were too kind and picked them out and still ate it. I can remember always being on a diet as a teenager, and every time I visited her, asking her to make me something healthy, so she would proceed to cook me chicken breast cooked in concentrated butter with sliced new potatoes cooked in tons more butter. I would eat it to please her, but hint that maybe next time she could use a knob of butter rather than half the packet!

Anyway back to the bread pudding. Nan never liked to waste food as I do not, and she never weighed ingredients, but I watched and helped her make this loads of times , but will list approx measurements  as a guide should you fancy making it.

How to make it:

600g bread
500 g dried mixed fruit
3 tbsp ground mixed spice
pinch salt
140 g sugar
100 g melted butter
3 medium eggs
800 ml milk

Pre heat oven to Fan 160

Grease and line a square Pyrex dish or roasting tin.

Break all the bread up and pour all the milk over it and squish it ll together with your hands, then add all the other ingredients.

 Keep mushing it all together with your hands then turn into the dish.

Flatten out then bake for 1 1/2 hours. Watch it doesn't burn , cover with foil for the last 30 minutes if you need to.

Let it cool a little then turn out onto a wire rack, when completely cooled peel off the greaseproof paper and  slice into squares. Keeps well in a tin or the fridge.

I have just realised this is my 100th post today, kind of nice that it is about my Nan. Hope you approve Nan. xx