spring is coming

The sun is shining as I am writing this and I am quite excited about being able to post this year's first spring pictures from our garden.

I took these pictures yesterday, when it was windy, but some of them have come out OK.

at last there is some colour around

       striking anemone 

                miniature Japanese cherry

                                                            primulas and hellebores  

                                                       even the first sign of aubrieta 

and camellia in the pot is ready to pop open too

 Last night I finished another small block for Blooming Springtime.

I wish you all good week with lost of crafting!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2022

FNwF

It has been a while since I joined one of Cheryll's special evenings, 

and even this time it felt a bit rushed.

But even so, thank you, Cheryll, for getting us together and for the chilled wine; I needed it, as you will see, although something stronger was needed.

It is my husband's birthday this week, and we had a family get together on Sunday. 

So my Friday was taken up by shopping and preparing some of the food; the evening was mostly taken up by making the birthday cake, of course! It actually turned out to be a near disaster, as about half way into the baking time 

I realized I was GRILLING the cake, not baking it!!!!😓 

I obviously turned the setting one notch too far and had the grill going! 

By then the top was pretty dark and raw inside. The option was to grin and carry on, or to go out, get new lot of ingrediencies and start again. I did not fancy the second option very much, so I covered the top of the cake with a foil, turned the oven to a lower setting and carried on. It actually worked! By the time it was all finished, with lots of chocolate and cream on (after I cut off the offending top part), no one was any wiser.

So, yes, you can grill a cake 😏, but I would not recommend it! I am still recovering!

But even so, I managed to sit down for a while and finish the latest small block for Blooming Springtime (before I could smell the burning!)

This will join the other small blocks,

which now form about a third of the top.

I can see a couple of places where some corrections will need to be made, 

but in the main I am happy with it.

I will come and see what the others were up to some time this week; 

it was a busy weekend, I need to rest!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2022

baking weekend

I have realized that I haven't posted from my kitchen for a very long time, but be assured, that many loaves of bread, cakes and biscuits have been coming out of my tiny space, it was one of those things which kept me occupied during the lockdowns.

Last few days it has been like being in another lockdown, with various storms rolling over UK, storm Eunice being the latest one, but it seems that another storm is on its way. Luckily we haven't been effected by any damage so far, I am just watching with some concern our still young olive tree being bashed about; the rest of the garden is holding up OK. 

So, I retreated to my kitchen again - thankfully we haven't have any power cuts in our area (yet), so baking was possible.

Something new - I turned to one of my favourite cookery books, by Olia Hercules, recipes mainly from Ukraine (and food not that far away from own upbringing), the country currently very much in the news, sadly not for good reasons.

I have no idea why they are called Berlin, no do I really care; the main thing is that they are very nice, and easy to make. I would actually call them small pastries rather than biscuits. They are not very sweet (no sugar is mixed in the dough), as the circles of dough are dipped lightly in sugar and folded, this process repeated a couple of times again.  

After about half an hour in the oven:

Wet and windy Sunday afternoon here, so it is back to some sewing in the front of TV, 

with a cuppa and Berlin pastry. 😉

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2022

Halfway through February, is it possible? It seems that January somehow passed me by.....not much sewing going on here. It is usually a quiet month, but this year I hibernated more.

Not completely inactive, I managed to get through 900 pages of the latest instalment of the Outlander saga (book 9)!; conveniently published in November, just in time to be included in my list to Santa.

Also, my PC of many, many years, which I had been nursing for a quite a while, completely gave up last month; so a new purchase had to be made. I chose to get another PC, rather than laptop, as when you are 70 something, a large screen is the most important thing!

I am now sitting in front of 24in, beautiful screen, what a joy! 

All the Covid restrictions are about to be relaxed here in England;

it seems that we are no longer following the science, which makes me rather nervous, but what do I know?

But there is a new project in making. 

I had  something completely different in mind the last time I wrote, but I have changed my mind. 

I need something sunny and  bright.

While I was browsing through "Focus on Applique" by Irene Blanck, her "Blooming Springtime" popped up from the page, it is just the right thing, you can feel the sunshine. 

I like Irene's designs very much, this is the second applique quilt I am making from this book.

I like the simple, clear shapes. Lots of applique and some reverse applique too. The whole quilt is divided into small, easy to manage blocks. 

I plan to to use fabrics from my stash only, which desperately needs some reduction.

My first "Blooming Springtime" blocks.

This is my quick catch up, just to let you know that I am still around 😀

Enjoy your weekend!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2022

To all my dear followers - my very best wishes for 2022!

I thank you all for supporting my blog for the past year, and for being such wonderful friends.

I hope your coming year will be happy and healthy.

We usually like to make plans at this time of year, but these days this is not easy to do, but I do hope that everything you hope for, will happen for you.

How was your Christmas?

Our one was lovely, spending all of it with our children and grandchildren - very different from 2020!

I have spent this week recovering from all that happiness  😃

Christmas itself was very mild and wet in my part of the world,

even today is around 14C, very unusual.

I do have a new project for 2022 in mind,

but that is for another post 😉,

but it means that I will have to go and spend some of those fabric vouchers Santa brought me!

Happy Crafting!