Birthday time again!

It was my birthday yesterday ~ another year has zoomed by at a most alarming rate and here I am another year older and I'd like to think that I was another year wiser too ~ but probably not! And although I know that it's said that age is just a number I have to say that I would like that number to be ever so slightly less than what it is just now ~ but Onwards and Upwards is the only way to go!

I had a very nice day and was thoroughly spoilt by my lovely husband who took the day off work especially to wait on me hand and foot and to make sure my day was extra special. I do absolutely love him to bits ~ He is the best!!

I got lots of lovely cards and flowers and of course there was also chocolates and cakes served with large amounts of tea.


Amongst my favourite birthday things was this lovely card drawn for me by my little boy and a little stitched picture made for me by my daughter, who has obviously been watching me stitch away over the past couple of days.


And talking about stitching, here is where I'm at just now with my Quilty Hearts needlepoint ~ I'm almost finished with only a couple more hearts to stitch.

Of course when I've not been stitching I have been hooking away and making progress with my colourful Rico cotton stripes too.

Hope that you all enjoy the rest of your week ~ have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you soon :O)xxx

Valentine Hearts

Hello ~ I hope that you are all having a very lovely and Happy Valentines Day.



I thought that today would be a very appropriate day to show you all how I am progressing with the contents of my Jolly Red Bag that I treated myself to a couple of weeks ago.


As you can see I have now completed the middle panel of Quilty Hearts and I'd love to be able to tell you that it has all been plain sailing ~ I really would! But........... unfortunately it didn't quite start out that way at the beginning!


This needlepoint malarkey might look like it would be easy ~ but to be honest, I did have one or two false starts with it and had to do quite a little bit of unpicking of stitches before I actually got into the swing of things. But now I'm happy to say that I have finally got the hang of tent stitch and am enjoying myself immensely.


This week it's half term up here in our part of the world ~ although it doesn't really seem all that long since the last school holidays. However, I'm not complaining. It will still be lovely to have the children at home and we are all looking forward to the lack of routine with some long lies and lazy days thrown into the mix. And me? Well I am also hoping to find some crafty, hooky, stitchy time in there too!

Enjoy the rest of your day and see you all soon :O) xx

Baking Day ~ Banana & Chocolate Muffins

Yesterday was deemed a Baking Day here and I decided to bake something from my new Nigella Lawson's Kitchen book which I got as a pressie at Christmas time.

This book is huge! And very heavy!

Nearly 500 beautifully illustrated pages to drool over. But it is totally jam packed with lots of very tasty recipes ~ most of which sound very yummy and seem relatively easy to make! The recipe of choice yesterday was Chocolate Banana muffins ~ which I thought sounded just the thing to enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

Here is the recipe ~ courtesy of Nigella ::

3 very ripe bananas
125mls of vegetable oil
2 Eggs
100g of soft light brown sugar
225g of plain flour
3 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 x 12 bun muffin tin


First preheat your oven to 200 degrees or gas mark 6 and line your muffin tin with papers ~ although to be honest, I don't own a muffin tin so all I did was bung some regular cake cases onto a baking tray and that worked just as well!


Next mash up the bananas ~ either with a fork or with an electric mixer, then whilst still mixing, add your vegetable oil followed by the eggs and the sugar.


In another bowl mix up the flour, cocoa powder and bicarb and add this mixture to the banana mixture whilst beating gently. Once mixed, spoon the lovely gloopy chocolatey mixture into your paper cases and bake in the oven for around 15 minutes.


Once they are done, allow to cool slightly and then enjoy with a nice cup of tea and a favourite blog or two!


Oh............ and just for the record they were very tasty ~ at their best, warm and straight from the oven. Although they would be just as yummy served warm with a dollop of creme fraiche or some good vanilla ice cream too.

I hope you all have a lovely and enjoyable weekend and I'll see you again next week :O) xx