Cheated by Summer...

This picture was taken on a rare half decent day (note the dark clouds to the left, it rained about an hour later). There have been so few days where it hasn't rained!




Truth is I feel really cheated by summer this year.  I seem to have spent the whole summer waiting for it to happen and now suddenly it will be September tomorrow... 

Also my little big girl starts school tomorrow and boy has that crept up on me, especially as I got most of the supplies for when she starts at the beginning of the holidays.  I just cannot believe she is old enough to go to school! 

Anyway here's hoping for at least an "Indian" summer and the hope of at least visiting the beach before the really cold weather sets in....

Hand Winding a Skein of Wool Tip

Here's a handy tip if you have to wind a skein of wool by hand and like me, you don't own a fancy ball winder. When you wind the ball of wool in your hand make sure you wind over your fingers instead of just winding around and around into a tight ball.  It makes the ball of wool softer and squishier and avoids stretching the fibres.

I also sit on my chair in the lounge, feet up on a stool with the skein wrapped around my knees and I find that position for me avoids nasty tangles and knots. Strangely I do remember my mum have me hold out my hands to hold skeins of wool for her when I was a child and can recall how much it made my arms ache! I remember dipping my arms from side to side to help her wind the wool off my hands. Oddly enough I don't really remember her knitting anything!!!

Muffins!

I decided to have a go at making muffins.  After having a browse on the net for suitable recipes I sort of half followed one, adding or subtracting as I saw fit for a blueberry muffin recipe. I'm not very good at following recipes.  I couldn't see the point in adding oil and melted butter.  I only had self raising flour so I used that and added a little extra baking powder and put in a whole egg instead of just the white the recipe called for. I also used frozen blueberries instead of fresh. They turned out beautifully, a surprise really as I'd chopped and changed the recipe...

Then I decided to have a go at double chocolate chip, using the same basic recipe with my changes...

I mixed all the wet ingredients together, all the dry in a separate bowl then combined the two together. Urgh!  It was stiff and dry!  I assumed I must have weighed out too much flour so to compensate I added an extra egg and some more milk (goats lol) and the consistency was better but now I worried I'd overworked the batter.  My eldest daughter helped me to spoon it into the cases which was fun, then I got a little mixture on my finger and couldn't resist tasting it. Double URGH! I'd forgotten the sugar! Following some drastic scrapping the mixture back into the bowl out of the paper cases and adding the forgotten sugar we tried again....

This is never going to work I thought, not with all the messing around with the ingredients and the overworking of the whole thing. Do you know what though? They were gorgeous!  Even Daddy had one (I think he forgot there might have been goats milk in there...) and he thoroughly enjoyed his too! Just goes to show that you can wing it and still get great results!

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

We had a lovely day at the beach not long ago and decided to have a go at flying a kite. It wasn't a very windy day though but still much fun was had trying to get it up into the air!

Yay! Up in the air!

All other attempts after the first one resulted in the kite coming quickly back down to Earth though.



We hope to go back to the beach soon and have another go at flying our kite but the weather hasn't been too good.  I'm hard pressed to remember a day where it hasn't rained or been overcast! I do have very good memories of this day though with building sandcastles and sand tunnels and all of us including the littlest member of our family paddling our feet in the sea and managing to avoid the jelly fish....

Beara Peninsula

You've just got to love the scenery in Ireland.  We decided to explore the Beara Peninsula and certainly weren't disappointed.  Breathtaking views for literally the whole journey although the single track road for most of the way around was a bit hair raising at times!

Sunday at the Wildlife Park

Ah today has been glorious, a proper taste of summer after all the rain!  We decided to celebrate the fact by taking the girls to Coolwood Wildlife Park.  We had a lot of fun walking around the park, past the very smelly pigs grunting away to each other, the beautiful birds of prey and finally being stalked by a pair of lemurs!

Don't be fooled, he stalked us after this photo!

Pinky & Parsley

Very Majestic

He could have chosen a better place to pose!

Foxgloves

Leafy Walk

Upcycled Baby Dress

I had a rather large top I wore last year whilst I was expecting my youngest daughter so I decided to turn it into a dress for her.  I didn't have a pattern so I just took one of her bought dresses so I could work out the correct shape for the top then decided I would have little tabs with buttons on the shoulders for ease of putting it on and taking it off.  I made the buttonholes by hand.  My sewing machine is quite basic and although it can make buttonholes its not a one step process and after unpicking the mess I made twice I didn't want to risk ruining the dress!

I used an old t-shirt for lining the top part of the dress and then added a gathered skirt, enclosing all the rough edges.  I used the ties that were originally attached to the back neck edge of the dress at the sides so I could cinch it in at my little girls waist and cut the skirt along the original bottom of the top so I wouldn't have to hem it.  I think the size is roughly 6-12 months.

Now all we need is a bit of sunny weather so she can sport her new dress!

 

Here are just a few of the pictures I took along the way. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the top before I chopped it up!

Gathering the skirt ready to attach to the top.

I attached it to the lining part first then top stitched the front of the top over the gathered bottom to enclose all the rough edges.  It was fiddly but well worth it.

The pattern I made for the top.

The crease is where I folded it over to cut the front of the dress. I later rounded the corners of the front as I thought it looked a bit odd square.

I must say I'm rather pleased with the results, especially as its the first time I've made my own pattern.