Plain to posh by tomorrow please Mum

OK it's the first Area Band Concert that the youngest is to play in.... and the dress preference is white shirt and black pants/trousers or skirt .
Black pants ..tick
White shirt ...tick  ....."erm Mum can we add something to my shirt (a very plain white cotton t-shirt) every one else wears fancy shirts" gulp... I failed the attentive parent test again ..darn it.
Upon investigation I discovered that they had all worn smarter shirts at the in school concert and I hadn't noticed. I had been quite happy with clean and white.
At the time, in spite of attempting to do a David Bailey (or perhaps because of it) I hadn't noticed . (incidentally I failed on David Bailey attempts as I ended up with rather of lot of photos of lovely daughter with her head obscured by her music stand.)
Anyway who could resist a very tentative and polite request? not me. Off to the store for two yards of lace and a yard of beading (at $1.59 for the beading and the lace was on sale who could complain) then I tried a little hand sewing ...good excuse to listen to Towards Zero by Agatha Christie.
and Ta dah!!!! it actually worked ..although I would recommend anyone who thinks this is a good idea to modify the bead attachment..perhaps sewing jump rings to the shirt and small clips to the beading ..or looping the beading into longer loops. As I fixed it , the neck of the shirt is surprisingly restricted from stretching and we nearly took the poor girls ears off. 

 Pinned on first to see how it looked.

Yarn along ...a bit late

Joining in with  Ginny's yarn along.

Does needle-felting count? I hope so.....

Still working on Three hares wall hanging and reading Village of Secrets.

Honey hand cream ...home made

I always used to be able to buy small pots of excellent hand cream from a beekeeper on my way home from work. It was a rich honey scented cream that sank into dry skin and moisturized so well.
But now I live several thousand miles and an ocean away and I'm not even sure that the bee keeper still lives on the country road I used to travel. But I hope they do.

Anyway having made some marigold salve from a recipe I modified and being pleased with it . I began to wonder if I could perhaps reproduce the rich honey cream I so loved.

With some experiments and trial and error this is what I ended up trying.

Honey Hand Cream.
1 cup vegetable oil. (I used ordinary kitchen vegetable oil..I'm sure special oils would be extra lush but I used what I had.)
1/2 cup of Beeswax pastilles (I dare say grated beeswax would work just fine)
about 1/4 cup of honey (also just off the shelf)

Method.
I heated a saucepan of water on the stove.
Placed all the ingredients into a glass heatproof bowl over the water (Water bath style)
Gently heated the mix until it was all liquid. (Beeswax is volatile so take care)
Removed it from the heat and stirred with a wooden craft stick every few minutes until it began to turn milky and set. Then I beat it for a little while and then scooped it  into a small tin and left it to set properly.


So far on first test it's very good ..not exactly like the cream I bought but very satisfactory non the less. I daresay I will make it again and maybe experiment a little more.

Work in Progress...Three hares for Spring

I was encouraging my youngest to work on a school project and suddenly realized that I was trying to direct her work in a way she had not chosen...light bulb moment ..I wanted to make something. So leaving her to get on with her work I started my own project.
Inspiration Spring and my fascination with the Three Hares that appear in art work and have done for a very long time.
More info on the art work of three hares here....

I grabbed a piece of felt. A pen. Some felting needles and was off.

A quick and rather rough sketch straight on the felt.

Some blue and white wool roving and I needle felted away.

Black thread couched with blue silk as an outline.

More wool  and a little more thread work...bit stuck as I ran out of blue roving and it's out of stock at the store so now I'll have to wait for some in the mail..still what the heck I decided to leave a gap and carry on.

And this is as far as I've got ...goodness knows how it will end up ...but I'm definitely having fun!

When it's Sunny but a tad cold what do you do?

We are getting an increase of daylight by 6 minutes each day and have very little snow ..it's been that sort of Winter. We do have a fair bit of ice and it is very cold ...it's been that sort of Winter .... The thermometer is hovering between 1 degree f and soaring all the way up to about 12 degrees so you have to wrap up well and then your face and ears sting if the wind blows...but it is Sunny....which we love. So rather than go stir crazy what do you do?


Go for a brisk walk to the municipal green house, find a seat in the sun and sit and craft a while.

image found here http://runtrails.net/2012/june20a.htm

Make Marigold foot balm

Recipe Here
(we used a water bath for heating it all ...also we used ordinary vegetable oil with the marigold petals and it made a rich orange oil)

Bake biscuits (On list not done yet ....Gym or Biscuits ....bit of a battle going on here) Ok Gym and then Buns .....

Drink lots of tea. Easy choice.... The fruit cake munched with it was also yummy ..but I have been to the gym too.

Craft by the Stove...needle felting a wall hanging while listening to Paul Temple Radio dramas...By Timothy!

OK the Cats and Dog are sharing the stove it must be cold.

Cuddle up at night with a good book.
At the moment that is "The Salzburg Connection" by  Helen MacInnes  

 "Twenty-one years ago, with the Allies on their heels, the Nazis hid a sealed chest in the dark, forbidding waters of the Finstersee - a lake surrounded by the brooding peaks of the Austrian Alps.One of the few men who knows of its existence is Richard Bryant, a British agent. Very early one morning, half-hidden by the swirling mists, he sets out alone to discover the secret of the lake - and unleashes a series of violent reactions - and violent deaths ..." quote from Good reads

and a visit to the library gives me a choice of what next....

The Girls have been crafting ...oldest is knitting her 18th bear for Motherbear project.

The younger is embroidering for a school project ..she'd rather be knitting ...isn't that just like life..you finally master a new skill and you have to do something else!

Well back to the Radio and my project and another cup of tea :o)