Easter Crafts

Happy, happy Easter! I love Easter days! There's always such a sense of anticipation - spiritually, obviously for me, but also perhaps that sense of spring, that the year has turned, of being the right time sow seeds, enjoy a few days of holiday...it's all about being re-created and re-creating.

On Saturday after the all-too-necessary evils of a bit of housework, and with my husband away for the day, the boys and I had a very creative day. We started with some wonderfully smelling beeswax candles, made in eggshells (following inspiration from Explore and Express and a tutorial from Magic Onions). The boys cut the wicks and J tied them onto bamboo sticks. T poured the wax pellets into an old baked bean tin (impromptu bain marie) and inspected their melting progress in a slightly overfull steamer.

Then we moved from melting wax to melting chocolate - a rather more popular choice - to make some little nests on a spoon - simple and fun - and with lots of tasting and chocolaty fingers along the way! We popped them in the fridge, while I told the boys the final part of the Faces of Easter Story.

 We headed out to the garden and woods to get all we needed for our Easter garden, which turned out to be quite an installation on our kitchen table! I was surprised but pleased that they enjoyed arranging the flowers, which J especially did very well. he also found the big rock to close the tomb. T put his clay bird in pride of place. Our wheatgrass has grown very well!

Finally, it was time to eat the wee nests, which were a big hit. It was a great afternoon, after all the activity of the last few days.

 

A funny old weekend, but a good one. All my plans for celebrating my beloved's birthday went topsy turvy - starting at about 3am when the sound of vomiting came from our youngest's bedroom....sigh! So some things had to be put on hold...but perhaps that was a good thing. We awoke some hours later to snow drifting down. After such a mild winter this was a beautiful and welcome gift. We spent a restful, peaceful day eating his favourite pains au chocolat, lying around by the new stove, luxuriating in the heat. A bit more food, a bit of snow, cake, balloons and a pile of love - he's easily pleased. A gift of a man.

 And Sunday? Sun and snow, an irresistible combination. We headed out for a walk and our worship, thankful for all the beauty that surrounds us.

Oh yes, and a bit of chicken love too...The man and his cockerel...

PS Sorry about the non-appearances of photos for a few days - took me a while to work out why - I'm just not a techie girl. here's hoping!

A Cosy Mummy is a Happy Mummy

I've been meaning to post something about this coat for a while. I got started on it..oh, about 2 years ago! I bought the tweed - for a bargain five quid - and the pattern (a vintage Vogue) at a sale, thinking that coat making was way beyond my skills, but at the price, it was worth trying. And I was so right, it was horribly difficult, even trying to cut the pieces out, matching up the pattern. Then we decided to move house, so it all got packed away and neglected in a box for 18 months. I must have mentioned something to my mother-in-law, because when she came to visit us last October, she made me pull it out and gave me hope that it might just get finished. She helped me choose the lining and wonderful wooden buttons, and then we got cracking! You can see the pictures here. It was quite an experience, because she doesn't speak English, and I could barely understand the instructions on the pattern, never mind translate them into French for her. My machine whined and complained, but by the time she left, we had got most of it done. You can imagine what happened next...somehow, those odd little hemming and finishing jobs got put off, then it was almost Christmas, then the holidays, and still that unfinished coat was left hanging up in. However, in the freezing weather after New Year, I sat cosily by the fire and finished it off.

And I'm so glad I did, I have worn it and worn it again during this chilly winter, thankful of its length and warmth, and being big enough to snuggle many layers underneath. Merci encore Belle Mere!

I'm not sure I always looked this happy when I was sewing my coat, but this is the beautiful card my beloved and my sons presented me with yesterday. Along with flowers, tea, croissants and kisses. In bed. Cosy and happy.

Bon Année! Happy New Year!

Happily for me, the French don't send Christmas cards, but instead send greetings for a 'Bon Année', so this naturally falls into my husband's department, at some vague point in the New Year. Here is his drawing (right click on it to see it larger) for this year's card - very apt, as we have spent the Hogmanay celebrations totally and contentedly snowed in. In fact, it snowed non-stop for all of New Year's Eve, and we have over half a metre of white lovelieness everywhere. Heaven sent? Well, it depends on your persepctive, but we love it. We have plenty of firewood, food, bread just baked, a few odds and ends of festive bottles to finish, and nowhere pressing to go. Might as well cosy up and enjoy it. Knitting a little, watching a bit, munching now and then...it's a good start to the year!

Happy New Year to you!

Preparing

Somewhere in the fantasy department of my mind I had thought I might manage to post every day during Advent...ahem, things seem to have gone a little astray and the reality has been the usual whirlwind of creative activities, baking, decorating and trying to keep up with an exploding calendar - whilst all the time telling myself to try to simplify, let go and move away from all that has little to do with my personal vision of Christmas! Phew! But our family have arrived, most of the essentials are done(ish), the snow has fallen deeply and beautifully and we are starting to feel that Christmas is really on its way...aided by a nice wee glass of port...

Mince pies have been made in vast quantities, with plenty of small helping hands...

A few little gnomes have been sent off on their voyages...

The house looks and smells Christmassy, with many more homemade decorations, from big and small hands, added this year...

Did you know Santa speaks Gaelic? And travels on a steam train? How perfect is that?

We have heard the Christmas story retold, in a sweet and creative number of ways, with my boys being a thoughtful and serious Joseph, and a somewhat wayward but terribly cute sheep.

The run up to Christmas is a terrible time to decide to make a quilt, but sometimes the beautiful ideas that inspire me on other people's blogs - I'll share in the New Year, as I'm starting to wilt at this late hour - just have to be followed up, even when a trillion other things are calling. The result has made me very happy, so I'm glad I went for it. I want to make a really big one now!

And snow! Gorgeous, deep, dramatic snow, that has caused the schools to shut (oh blessed relief!) and has created all kinds of chaos, but is such a wonderful gift, imposing a certain stillness on us all, just as we needed it.

May you have a warm, joyful and peaceful Christmas! With much love from Featherglen!

Belle Mere and Nightmare (and Cake)

Well, I nearly started this posting with a massive rant about nightmare changes in Blogger that are driving me crazy, but that isn't what you come to my blog to read all about, so I'll take a deep breath and try to contain myself! (Actually three hours later and I'm not sure that I can - ARGH!!!!) But if my photos are not in the order or size I was quite hoping for, my spelling is a bit odd and Featherglen is not the haven of calm it usually is, you know why...

I haven't had a lot of time to blog recently, mainly because my mother-in-law (or 'Belle Mere' as the French so tactfully put it) has been staying with us for a few weeks. As she lives so far away, we don't see her more than a couple of times a year, but it is usually quite an event!

So we need to have the welcome party out...

And a decent cake. This is a fabby doo recipe, which is easy peasy and has so much fruit in it you can almost convince yourself it's healthy, ahem...

You need...

125g marg/butter

90g muscvado sugar (the very dark brown stuff...mmmm)

1 tsp cinnamon or allspice

50g walnuts

450g dried fruit - I like a mix of raisins, sultanas and cranberries, but use whatever is to hand

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 teacup water

Put all of this into a big saucepan and bring to the boil. Let it boil for about 10-15 mins, then let it cool a little. Meanwhile heat your oven to 150 degrees C, line a medium sized cake tin, make a cup of tea, ignore the mountain of laundry etc.

Then, add..

2 eggs, beaten

260g flour (I like half wholemeal) sifted with...

1 tsp baking powder.

Top with some blanched almonds if you like (I do).

Stick it in the oven for an hour, more or less. It will come out looking craggy, and if you stick a skewer in it, it should come out clean. Cool in the tin. Serve to suitably impressed Belle Mere, who LOVES British baking.

Our Belle Mere is a very civilised sort, she is a wonderful  professional artist, bookaholic, deeply enthusiastic about food and cooking, sews her own clothes, tells hilarious stories in top speed French complete with hand gestures and impersonations (it has taken me 12 years to finally be able to follow them!), doesn't mind grandsons tapping at her door at 6am, adores Marks and Spencers and, best of all, wouldn't notice dust if it was knee deep around her. Any downsides? Not really, but I expect that my boys will probably learn all the fairly rude French words from their Granny! 

So, the last couple of weeks have seen quite a few really good celebratory meals...

 

Quite a bit of drawing...

Some beautiful autumnal moments...

And LOTS of sewing. 
Over a year and half ago I bought about 3 metres of tweed at a sale for a fiver, plus an old Vogue coat for a pound, and decided to have a go at making a coat (I can't actually do dressmaking, by the by, but hey! If someone is there to tell me what to do, I'll give it a go.) However, after cutting out the pieces, we then decided to move house, so everything got packed up and I was so busy making curtains and things for the boys, that the poor old coat lay in a basket neglected. A visit from Belle Mere was just what it needed. And thank goodness she was there to help me, otherwise I would have never got beyond the first few instructions - which I could barely understand in English, never mind translate for her. Also, she does things properly. I am a complete bend-the-rules sewer, but she got me tacking and fitting and trying - and of course, it does all make a huge difference. Coat is not quite finished yet, but the end is in sight, so if I don't completely loose the plot with Blogger, I'll let you see the finished product.

In the meantime, to recover my calm, I'm knitting a lace scarf to go with the coat. It is a lovely pattern and I promise to share it with you too. Deep breaths, a bit of cake, a few cups of tea, or possibly even something a little stronger, and I will get the better of this new Blogger editor (said in a threatening voice to the computer). Until then!