what a difference a day makes

After a busy night, all noise (lightning, thunderstorm), but no substance (very little rain), it is very much cooler here and a return to normal activities.

This is the start of my jam making time and I had some fruit sitting in the fridge, just waiting for things to cool down.

As you know I like to make small batches, experimenting with mixing various fruit together, depending on what is around - storing some sunshine in a jar for those colder months - strawberries, apricots and gooseberries today. 

I don't add any water, just mix the fruit with the sugar 

and let sit in the fridge until the fruit releases its own juices, before boiling (job for tomorrow).

Don't you just love all those colours together!

Before the hot spell I did make some progress on the Flower sampler, 

starting from the top section.

The background colour is much better than here, it doesn't come out very well in the picture.

This is dahlia Honka  - our last year's addition - quite a stunner.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

it has been hot, hot

...... although not as hot as in some parts of the world, but hot enough for England. 

It has been hot without any breeze, which gets oppressive very quickly. 

Most of English houses are not built for extreme temperatures.  

So my days have been spent finding the coolest shady place. It was well far beyond "stitching in the garden" weather, too hot for hands trying to hold a needle.

This is all I was capable of doing, few hexies, and reading, lots of reading.

Ideal weather for picking and drying some lavender from our front garden.

Somewhere in the middle of that heat we managed 

to celebrate my daughter's and granddaughter's birthdays in our tiny hot garden.

Call me crazy, 

but I actually made a chocolate cake for the occasion 😕,

with lots of soft fruit it worked OK! 

The weather people are telling us that RAIN is on the way to us tonight!!!!

The plants will be pleased (as will my husband who has been struggling keeping it all alive).

Last autumn I got a tiny pomegranate plant. 

It survived English winter and now it is positively thriving!

There have been other additions to out small patch, but that will be another post.

This has also been a week when "Freedom Day" arrived in England,

whatever that will mean. Make of it what you want.

I am sticking with my mask.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

catching up

Since I finished Barn Dance quilt top I have been itching to start a new project (of course!).

I am now in the process of quilting Barn Dance; we had some cold evenings here, 

so it was quite nice to have it on my lap.

Ever since I got "Beautiful Botanicals" by Deborah Kemball, I had been planning to start my own "Flower Sampler" wall-hanging, which will be 

a combination of  applique and embroidery. Now it seems a good time to start, with all the lovely flowers outside, and being able to stitch outside.

I chose a plain mustard fabric for the background, which wouldn't normally  be my first go to colour choice, but I think it will work well.

It is not as brown as it looks here.

first some prep work

and the first flower is done 

As I was browsing through my blog recently, I realised that there haven't been any posts from my kitchen for a very, very long time. I can assure you that there have been many loaves of bread and many cakes coming out of my kitchen during all those lockdowns last year, when the kitchen, my sewing room and the garden were all my places of safety. Books, jigsaw puzzles, DVD's and recipes were making the rounds of the family with all of us confined to our homes.

This is just the latest book in the line of many; 

this one has been on our book shelf for a long time, 

but I got to it eventually. 

Our local library re-opened fully last week, so it is on our list of places to go in the next few days.

On the subject of cakes - spending so much time at home didn't do very much for our waistline, 

so I am now turning again to making little healthier cakes (if there is such a thing 😉).

Now, when we can have visitors at home again, I like to have a cake around.

This weekend's cake was from one of my favourite cake books, by Amber Rose,

where she substitutes sugar with honey or maple syrup, and some of the fats with nuts. The original recipe is made with nectarines, but I use apricots instead, because they have a stronger taste when cooked; 

the result is a wonderful moist cake.

Unfortunately today is very much "indoors"; we are having a busy mix of sunshine and showers,

so I think I will go and plan the next flower for my wall-hanging.

I wish you all very productive week, whatever you are into to!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021