Bubbly Scrubbly

Try as I might, I seem unable to focus very well at the moment. The curse of the crafter I guess ~ a million and one ideas bubbling around in my head like champagne bubbles and just as hard to pin down. But necessity being the mother of creation means I get to share this little beauty with you, a crochet scrubcloth.

 

I wanted a little in-front-of-the-tv project, and I've wanted to make a sturdy cleaning cloth for a while now, though this would make a great washcloth, or even a pot-stand for the kitchen! And it's a great way to use up little odds and ends of wool. The pattern is so quick and easy, alternating trebles and dc's to produce a bubbly textured cloth in around an hour.

To make your own Bubbly Scrubbly, you will need:

2 small balls of DK cotton yarn (approx. 15g of each)
6mm crochet hook

Chain 20
Turn
Chain 2, 1tr into top of 3rd stitch from hook (20th cast on stitch), 1dc into top of next stitch, continue alternating trebles and dc's to end.

*Turn
Chain 2, 1tr into top of 3rd stitch from hook, 1dc into top of next stitch, continue alternating trebles and dc's to end*
Repeat the last row from * to * approx. 14 times more (16 rows in total) or until your cloth is square.
Fasten off and weave in ends.

 

 I'm so pleased with the way this turned out, I almost don't want to use it for cleaning!

Birthday Croissants

Today is my birthday so I thought I would treat myself to a bit of a naughty breakfast  ~ Cinnamon Apple and Chocolate Banana Croissants.

These are incredibly easy to make and oh so delicious! And apart from the actual croissant dough, the ingredients are things most of us have in the house all the time.

You will need:

1 can of croissant dough (6 croissants)
1 banana
1 apple
1 tsp Cinnamon
4 desertspoons Demerara Sugar
Chocolate spread (a last minute idea that isn't in the photo)

(this will make 4 Cinnamon Apple croissants and 2 Chocolate Banana)

Preheat your oven to 200C / 400F / Gas 6.


The first thing to do is pop your can of dough open, and it really does pop!

Gently unroll and separate out the triangles. The dough feels foamy and is very delicate, mine ended up with several little crescent fingernail marks!
Peel, core and quarter your apple, then cut each quarter in half. Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a little bowl then sprinkle about a dessertspoonful of this mixture over your dough triangle. Add 2 of the apple pieces and roll up as tightly as you can.

 

 

Gently spread the chocolate spread generously over the remaining 2 triangles. Peel the banana, cut in half and add half to each triangle before rolling tightly as with the apple version. 

 

Place these a good distance apart on a greased baking sheet and bake for 10-15 mins. I sprinkled a little more of the sugar mixture on top of the apple croissants for good measure.

Transfer to a cooling rack for 5 minutes while you make yourself a cuppa, then enjoy!

The Cinnamon Apple croissants had a lovely bite, and the Chocolate Banana ones were dreamy ~ the banana simply melted in the mouth, though the chocolate had a tendency to drip out everywhere (napkins ahoy!)

I think this idea would work well with all sorts of fillings. Bacon & Brie? Cinnamon Sultana? Hmmm, what other fillings can you suggest?



Lazy Days

It's Sunday, and all I want to do today is curl upon the couch and have a nice nap. I did, however, manage to browse Etsy and curate a super sleepy treasury.



Red & Gold Jacquard Sleep Masks from Blum Art



Jasper on Red Couch from Acey Thompson Art



Vintage Crochet Pattern from Touch of Nostalgia

You can see the whole treasury here.

Well I think I've done enough for today. Time for forty winks.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A Sneaky Peek

I may not have blogged for a while, but I have been busy working on new designs for the shop. For some reason I always seem to get ideas for things that take aaaaaaages to make!

 

 

I've also been fiddling around with some photo editing, can you tell? 

As you can see, it's all about yarn at the moment ~ you could say I'm hooked! (cue groans!)

I just love the 70's look of this shot.

Starting with Smiles

Hello Everybody!
I'm so glad to be back, I can't believe how much I missed posting for the past few weeks!

I'm going to start the New Year off with a simple little idea that's been doing the rounds on Facebook, Pinterest, etc ~ a Memories Jar. The idea is to write down all the little things that make you smile and pop them into a jar, then on New Year's Eve you open the jar and enjoy reliving all the wonderful memories. This is something that I could really have used in 2012, as all the amazing fun we had at the start of the year (my 40th in Oslo, the Jubilee, the Olympics, to name but a few) was eclipsed by Mum's illness and subsequent passing.

All you need is an empty jar. I sprayed the lid of mine a cheery pink and used an old gift tag as a label, but you can make your jar as plain or as fancy as you like. I received a lovely peacock memo block for Christmas which is perfect for noting down my memories. They needn't be big fancy occasions like the Jubilee; a movie night cuddling under a blanket with a loved one sounds like a perfect entry to me, or how about when you reach a particular goal such as weight loss? Whatever makes you happy.
For now I'm going to see about starting my jar off with that movie night.
Now, where did I hide that tin of Roses . . . ?