Hooray! Hooray! Oops!

Well, I went and pressed the button and as if by magic (okay, the 'magic' of Royal Mail who delivered quickly, but decided to deliver everyone on our street with their next door neighbours mail today. Lucky we are all nice, honest people on our street) today the rest of my fabric for P's quilt arrived. Beautiful,no? And the colours seem to work really well together. Just a slight hiccup...I spent ages deliberating over shades, patterns, price per fat quarter etc. and then failed to notice that the lovely multi polka dot in the top picture is actually fine needlecord as opposed to the cotton of all the other fabrics. Oops.
Anyhow, no problem, I'm sure I'll find a use for it- at the moment I'm considering a Noni felted market bag which I made (complete with the fiddly fuschias, which I wouldn't do again) for my mum's Christmas present a few years back. I think the larger size, lined with the polka dot cord would be rather lovely.
Of course, the real problem I'm left with is that my careful calculations for how much fabric I need are now out by one. I rifled through my fabric stash and could find any number of blues, pinks, florals etc. but no green to speak of at all really. Then I had a peek in my wardrobe and found a Howies skirt from a few years ago. I think I originally fell in love with the cute little mushroom print fabric, but the style has never really suited me- it's just a tad to short and flouncy for someone of my shape and age. I've hung onto it because it wasn't cheap and because I still harbour one of those daft hopes you have about certain garments that one day you'll try them on and magically look good. So what better than a reality check for my wardrobe and a chance for that sweet fabric to look so much better as part of a handmade-with-so-much-love quilt? You can see it nestled in the middle of the 'final collection' in the second picture. It fits the sort of 'magical woodland' theme that seems to have developed in the prints (the fish are obviously in a pond in a clearing!) and gives another lighter shade to the mix.
I've given myself backache tonight, sitting for too long on the floor and using my brand new birthday dressmaking scissors to begin cutting out squares. I'm trying to keep track of the time I'm taking to make the quilt and so far, with planning, choosing fabric and now cutting out I'm on 3 and a half hours of uncharacteristically careful work so far. It's providing a bit of contrast to the knitting though- at the moment I'm working on a commission (I love saying that!) for Audrey's Tea Shop, which involves fiddly colourwork that it's good to have a rest from sometimes. I'll post some pictures of that soon.

Birthday

It's not always great having a birthday in the middle of winter. One year snow meant that nothing arrived by post until a week after the big day. No problems like that this year, a positive flurry of lovely cards and gifts arrived despite the weather. Among them was my lovely new Cath Kidston oilcloth satchel. It will no doubt become a mama bag, filled with spare clothes, emergency crackers, drink bottles etc. along with my usual detritus of knitting, receipts and interesting leaflets and flyers. Still, it is sooo pretty and should last for years and years.
C having taken the day off to spend with us, we went to Lancaster, where, following lunch at the Whale Tail I began the fabric stash I hope to turn into a quilt for P's move to a proper bed. This needs to happen later in the year and I'm toying with a futon-style bed on the floor as he is so wriggly in bed I think that otherwise he'll always be falling out and waking up. We also need to sort some safety issues out before he's able to roam free in his room, but when that's done I want to make the transition a positive one so I thought it would be a good opportunity to try making my first quilt. I think it's just going to be straightforward squares so that I can focus on being careful and precise (uh-oh!) in shades of green, just to make a change from the cot quilt in seaside colours he had made for him by my mum. I've just spent a happy hour on Fabric Rehab creating a shopping basket of fabric that would mean I could get going. Just got to get the nerve to hit the 'buy' button!

Nurture

It could be that it's just a coincidence of child development, or it could be that P senses what's coming, but yesterday evening we saw a new behaviour from him. The vintage baby doll was something I bought at a car-boot sale as a child and it's ended up being a sort of ornament (although my husband would dispute its aesthetic qualities) in the majority of my adult dwellings. Around bath time last night, P found her and immediately started cuddling her, holding her in the air and cooing at her and referring to her as 'baba'. For the rest of the evening, and on and off all day today 'baba' has been carried around, cuddled, 'fed' and given 'drinks', put down the slide, nestled in cushions and bounced on the baby chair. Again, it's not a behaviour we've ever seen before in him, but it does bode well for our new arrival. That said, for all his boundless energy and fearlessness, our boy does have an incredibly delicate and gentle touch- usually reserved for carefully pushing buttons and switches, undoing fastenings etc. I saw this again today when he clambered onto a chair to examine the basil plant I'd left on the window sill (it wouldn't survive in our arctic kitchen). I encouraged him to rub the leaf and smell the scent, but having done that, and seen how the leaf ended up ragged and squashed, he was oh-so-gentle until his curiosity was satisfied.

Unexpectedly good

I can't claim to be the originator of this idea for a sandwich. I was taught to make it by my sister, but I've a feeling even she got the idea from somewhere she used to go to eat. It's definitely a candidate for the Holy Eye Cookbook, however, as in a way it says something about my big sister. She has an ability to take the ordinary, do something a little unexpected but make it work very well- like hanging pictures higher up the wall than you would think or finding second hand objects and reusing them in a way that is somehow magical. This sandwich is similar- when you look at the ingredients you think 'eh?', not least as the combination ranges from Greek to Chinese influences, yet somehow it just works.
Anyhow, you take some fresh crusty bread and split it so you've got a nice big surface area. Spread this quite generously with hummus and sprinkle on finely chopped red onion and roughly chopped fresh coriander. Finish with a smattering of Chinese sweet chilli dipping sauce. On a wintery day like this the fresh, zinging flavours evoked sunshine and cut through the stodginess of all the comfort food we've reached for recently. However, this works just as beautifully in summer- filling yet light. Try it- you might just like it!

Ugly cake

Awww! It's a cake only a mother could love really isn't it? We had an unopened tub of sour cream left over from something or other and I remembered that various cake recipes used it. This one is a cinnamon swirl, where you split the plain mixture in two and then add cinnamon and cocoa to one and swirl them together in the tin. The tin was where I went wrong, as I used a silicone loaf 'tin' which, it turns out, is just too flexible. As the cake cooked it swelled outwards producing this rather unnattractive shape. It also caught a little on the top when P decided to do his 'turn the oven up to full when Mummy's not looking' routine. Even with a generous shawl of icing it's not pretty- but it tastes great, and that's the main thing (or is that like saying 'good personality'?!). I definitely don't blame the recipe, which came from this booklet which I rediscovered recently, having saved it from a couple of years ago. Don't know why I haven't used it before- the recipes look wonderful, including one for honey and multigrain bread that may be tomorrow's bake. I'll probably use a metal loaf tin this time, though...

Survival strategies

One day we'll live in a really, really warm house. Just not at the moment unfortunately! While the boys of the family seem impervious to the cold, even in the arctic wastes of the kitchen, I never seem to get warm at the moment unless I'm in bed or in a bath. P's mittens, then, are only worn on sufferance if we're going out, while I spend my days cuddled up in Grandma Crochet blankets, drinking tea and, whenever possible, knitting. The Fairisle has a double deadline now- partly to provide an extra layer of warmth and partly because I want to be able to wear it this season before the baby bump gets too big. Keep warm, everyone.

Normal

The Christmas season definitely does its job with me. Just as it did with our ancestors, the season of light and feasting in the middle of the dark winter days always leaves me feeling rejuvenated and re-energised, ready for that shiny, untouched new year. That said, much as I love the red and the gold and the sparkles and rich food, I'm always keen to return to the normal and simple once the last presents are unwrapped and the final Christmas visits completed. Then it's just a rush to get 'thank you' cards sent before our January birthdays come around. As for New Year's resolutions, well I find a whole year a big prospect, especially given what ours has in store. I have a few things in mind, but prefer to take it one day, at a push one month, at a time. At the moment uppermost in my mind is: getting back into practising the piano, making bread again instead of buying it and looking out for Seville oranges coming into the shops so that this year I can join the family tradition of marmalade making for the first time.