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Library Love...The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating...

I found a couple of exciting new books this month at the library...

The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet - Joni Marie Newman

This recipe book has 101 recipes foe veggie burgers, I haven't made anything from it yet...but I can't wait to make the garlicky ranch potato burgers, curried split pea burgers, potato samosa burger and falafel burger.  I really like that the recipes are labeled if they're soy or wheat free (I'm allergic to soya!) In fact, the only bad point is that  a lot of the recipes are heavily based on soya, tofu or TVP, all of which are made out of soya, I find this is common in a lot of veggie/vegan recipe books, especially American ones, so it's not just a fault in this book (but all recipe books! :( )

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating - Elisabeth Tova Bailey

I had to get this book as soon as I saw it, it does very well at capturing the endearing antics of the little wood snail kept as a pet by the author when she was bed bound.  It's also full of interesting snail-y facts, I have been informed and entertained.  Very good.

Have you read anything exciting recently?

Things I Love Thursday...

This week the things I love best are...

* loving my theatre job, it's so much fun, the kids are brilliant and the play is going to be sooo good * unexpected day off * charity shopping - new top for work, £4, 7 balls of posh pink wool, 25p each, 8 t-shirts for rag rug making, 10p each...yey! * burt the baby blackbird feeding himself berries, worms and a slug, clever boy! * sunshine * good driving lessons * lovely email from my favorite friend * listening to Texas, Amy Winehouse and Bob Marley * nice text messages * lots of crochet * wearing dresses and feeling pretty * chocolate microwave cake * coconut icing *

What do you love this week?  Hope you're having a great one!

Crochet Update. Mollie Makes Starburst Blanket, Rag Rugs, Granny Squares.

I am crocheting A LOT at the moment, if it sits still long enough in my house, it gets crocheted over!

I'm still going on my starburst flower blanket, from the pattern in Mollie Makes magazine, I thought I needed 200 squares, but actually I did my maths wrong, I need 400 to make a cover big enough for my double bed!  Best get cracking then!

 I'm making another t-shirt rag rug, I shall be making more, to list in my etsy shop and a tutorial for here too!

And some cushion covers from vintage yarn, I need to make backs for these and then these in my shop too!  (they look wonky in these photos!  I shall have to straighten them, or I'll be keeping them for myself (what a shame!))

I also made another pink haired hippy dolly...

What have you been making?

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How to Make Sock Lavender Bags...

Ok, so does anyone else get attached to their socks?  Or is it just me?  I make my socks last a long time, and I'm always very reluctant to get rid of them once they've gone holey.  So reluctant in fact that under my bed there is a plastic box full of worn-out socks.  And as I've been sorting out stuff for when the house is sold, so I'm not moving stuff to the new house that I don't need, this box of socks has surfaced and it needs dealing with.  I cut some of the socks up and kind of weaved them into a long string to coil around to make a mat, which I'll show you another time, used some as stuffing for a draught excluder snake, but for the socks with pictures on that I like I've been making lavender bags....

You will need..socks, dried lavender, needle and thread...

1.  Take your sock and push the toe up through the hole, so the toe is just poking out and the heel is hidden inside....

2.  Sew up the opening at the bottom with the needle and thread...

3.  Push the toe of the sock through the hole, so it forms kind of a bowl, put the lavender in this sock-toe bowl...

4. Sew up the hole at the top of the sock...

5.  Put in your drawers to make them smell nice...if you add a ribbon while you're sewing up the top you can hang them on hangers in your wardrobe...use different dried herbs for different smells, use mint and keep the sock sachets in and around your shoes for sweet smelling footsies! 

Do you have any interesting uses for worn-out socks?

p.s.- I've had those panda socks since 2006, when I worked in Primark just after finishing my undergrad degree, the elephant ones were a present from my mum and so were the pig ones!  There's a photo of me playing duckies with my little cousin when he was one, wearing some spotty socks, I still have those socks and he's now 8!

Things I Love (almost on) Thursday...

This week I love...

* working! yey! * selling my first thing on etsy! yey! * buying lots of 10p t-shirts to make rag rugs from * baby burt the blackbird learning to eat berries off the tree and eat a worm, all on his own, I'm so proud! * chips * chip butties * aldi mega mouse crisps! * reading harry potter and Eva Ibbottson * listening to Lily Allen, Norah Jones, Texas and Placebo * my brother and his girlfriend visiting * making the man-garage at volunteering all tidy and clean, while the man was on holiday! mwahahhahhhaha! * being asked to steward at a council event tomorrow, I shall get paid, a voucher for lunch, a high-vis jacket and a radio! *

What do you love this week?  Hope you're having a beautiful one!

Small Harvests...

This month we've been enjoying picking little bits of what's ready in the garden each day...peas, beetroot, spinach, gooseberries, rasperries, plums (which are excellent, we thought the tree was a damson but it's not!), broad beans, purple sprouting brocolli and our first crop of red rooster potatoes! 

What are you eating from your garden?

Things I Love (almost on) Thursday...

This week I mostly love starting my new jobs!!! As some of you might remember, I lost my library assistant job a couple of months ago because of council restructuring, thankfully I was offered two casual positions within a month of losing my job, and it's taken until now to get the paperwork sorted.  Last weekend I started work as a Youth Theatre Support Worker, it's just a summer job supervising kids doing a production of Our House, which is a musical based on Madness songs.  And yesterday I did my first stint as a Casual Library Assistant in my local library, I'm so tired!  But it was lovely to be back in libraryland and to sort of know what I was doing on my first day (they use the same computer systems and stuff, which is a good job as two of the members of staff that should have been there were off sick, so there were only 3 of us all day and it was really busy!).  Yey!  Other things I love this week are...

* sleeping under my new cath kidston rose bedding * 1940's caravan * hedgehogs waiting on the path for their biscuit * surprise plums (we thought it was a damson tree!) * full harvest basket * taking my shoes off and walking on the grass in the park after standing up at work all day * skinny pigs - hairless guinea pigs, I want some! * wearing my new dr marten sandals * reading harry potter - I want to go to hogwarts! * TORCHWOOD *

What do you love this week?  Hope you're having a lovely one! xxx

1940's Weekend...

This weekend me and mum went to our local National Trust property for a 1940's weekend...we were stopped at a check point by two 'soliders' checking we weren't Germans, then looked at all the nice displays of 1940's stuff...I was particularly taken with the pale blue 40's caravan, complete with cute deckchairs outside and crochet blankets inside, unfortunately I didn't really get a photo of that...but you can see it in the distance to the right of this big army tent....

There's a lovely walled veggie garden...the picture above shows hyssop, which was completely buzzing with bees and butterflies, and below are some Egyptian onions, can you see the onions are on the ends of the stalks, two things on our 'to buy for the garden' list next year!

There's also a transparent bee hive, so you can see the bee's doing their honey making stuff!

Here's mum making friends with the free range chickens...

Did you have an exciting weekend?

My Green Bag Lady Bag...

A week or two ago I entered a competition on The Green Bag Lady blog...I didn't win the competion, but I was sent a lovely, pink reusable shopping bag!  So far the Green Bag Lady has given away 16,274 fabric shopping bags, free, in exchange for the promise to stop using plastic ones.  My pink bag is great, not only because it is pink which is my most favoritest colour, but it's also got nice short handles, excellent for short arses like myself who end up dragging long handled bags along the floor if we're not careful!  It's also flowery! Yey! 

Do you have a green bag lady bag?? She's having a give away on her blog that ends today, winners get a lovely set of bags, any one else who hasn't already got a free bag will be sent one, what are you waiting for??!

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Things I Love Thursday...

This week I Love...

* sunshine * re-reading allllll the Harry Potters, I'm on book 5 now! * making a crochet bunny * postman bringing me wool and a green bag lady bag and mollie makes magazine * yesterday lunch time - homemade potato cakes, sunshine, lovely breeze, birds chirping, reading mollie makes * loooong walks * making felt, and seeing old friends at the workshop unexpectedly * sleeping under clean, cath kidston bedding * making sock lavender bags * Torchwood excitement! * booking tickets to see a live screening of Henry VIII at the cinema in September with my mummy * baby birds *

What do you love this week?

I Love Where I Live...

Beautiful!  Hope you're having a lovely, blue skies and sunshine sort of day!

Baby Blackbird (and friends)...

Last night a horrible big jackdaw tried to eat the baby blackbirds out of the nest at the bottom of the garden.  Cue the blackbirds, mum and me going ballistic and scaring the jackdaw away and one baby bird escaping (I'm not sure how many babies were in the nest to begin with, so I'm not sure if any of the blackbird family were eaten).  The baby left his nest, but he's obviously not quite big enough to be ready, he spends his days flopping about the garden, with his beak open reeeeaaalllly wide waiting for daddy to feed him.  Last night I said some very rude words to the new neighbours cats, who were performing a pincer movement on him and were about to pounce!  He's very sweet.  I think I shall call him Burt.

We also have a sweet young pigeon frequenting our watering hole...wonder if he knows you're not supposed to sit in it!

We also have slightly more sensible baby sparrows, starlings, robins and dunnocks in our garden at the moment, who don't sit still to have their photos taken!

Do you have any bird families in your garden?

Because I Felt Like it...What I Made at the Felting Workshop...

At the weekend I went on a felting course, run by a local couple who teach bushcraft and outdoor skills.  It was really good fun, vegan lunch and cake was provided and a lovely time was had by all.  We started with a big pile of sheep fleeces and after adding lots of water, soap and elbow grease, ended up with a hat each.  As you can see my hat is a little redonkulous, I am however a fan of redonkulous head wear, and it's quite possible you will find me with this on my head, in public, at some point.  Slightly too warm for that at the moment though, so for now I've bopped the tip of it in and turned it upside down to form a fabric bowl to hold my crocheting supplies!

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