I am Elizabeth Bennet!

This evening I was reading Cuckoo's post about Knit Club and she wrote about Sew Sweet Violet in her blog, so off I went to visit (A very clever lady who makes beautiful things). In the side bar was a picture declaring 'I am Marianne Dashwood', so I had to visit and take part in the Emma Adaptions Quiz and I am Elizabeth Bennet!

Take the Quiz here!

Do you like my house Pemberley?

I absolutely love Jane Austen, I have all her novels as yellowing Penguin Classics and must have watched every film and tv adaption of her works. My all time favourite is Persuasion with Ciaran Hind and Amanda Root. I regularly watch the DVD. I have visited Bath to stand in the colonnade, I lived in Winchester for four years and often walked through the city imagining... and a few years ago I went to Lyme Park.

Your family they are well?

I watched Pride and as Pickle-Lily called it Pred Juice when it was first aired many, many years ago the Jennifer Ehle version. Mr PL was supposed to be decorating but ended up watching it with me. We now have regular P&P 'fests' watching first the videos and then the DVD together and all the Sunday afternoon repeats. We can quote huge chunks of it and then we went to Lyme Park. If you don't know P&P was filmed there. We so embarrassed our children. As I am typing this P is begging me not to write about the embarrassing part. Well dear reader, we acted out several parts of the programme 'in situ'. The children actually ran away and hid.

How much longer are they going to do this?

P.S. Mr PL came home and read this post and the conversation turned to Sense and Sensibility and to the Vicar of Dibley when Harry proposed to Geraldine. Love it!
PPS Mr PL said I ought to explain the caption 'Have you seen my house Pemberley?'.
About the same time as Colin Firth was strutting in his breeches, Victoria Wood was entertaining us all with a character who went about in her duffle coat and beret saying 'Have you seen my friend Kimberley?' and we changed it to 'Have you seen my house Pemberley?' - if you had seen it you'd know what I mean! I'm off to search You Tube to see if it is on there!

Banana Bread and a cup of tea

My new tea pot

Pickle-Lily and I have been enjoying The Great British Bake-off over the past two weeks and have already decide on who should stay and who should go. I usually watch it with a lovely cup of tea from my new funky tea pot that I found in a local charity shop and a slice of something ...

Banana Bread

One of our family favourites is banana bread or cake. This is great at using up any over-ripe bananas if you have them and very easy to bake. Whenever I make this, it is usually eaten warm from the oven spread with butter, but I do believe it is just as good cold (it never really lasts that long!). The recipe is on the Bakes ... page.

I've just remembered I need to send you all to Wendy's Handmade Monday page to read all the other blogs!

Fibrefest

Last Sunday P and I went to Fibrefest in Devon. We had a great time, met lovely people, spent money, had a great hog roast roll and talked to the animals! Pickle-Lily took over a hundred photos!!

Mohair goat

The animals ....

A very curly sheep

The alapacas

The people ...
These included Sara and Darren from Sara's Textile Crafts and Suzie and Annie from The Wool Sanctuary. We also chatted to lots of other interesting people along the way.
We visited 'Above and Below the Waves'. this incredible knitted project, that had a marquee all of it's own. P visited it at least three different times during the day and found new things on every walk around or through. We met Alison Murray, the amazing lady who created all this! She chatted for ages telling us how over 2,000 knitters contributed, it takes about three days to put up, never put knitting on ice rinks - it freezes - and about her next project. Why not visit her website to find out more about her?

The mighty shark!



Knitted coral





Nemesis the sea monster




Rock Pool



Alison Murray

Look at the detail in Neptune ....

and on this bucket.

We had an amazing day - and there is more to come as we watched the alpacas being shorn. This involved two men having to tie down the poor creature who complained all the time. We were also warned he might spit (apparently it's green!) or wee everywhere! They talked to him all the way through and the end he seemed quite happy but a bit grumbly ( reminded me very much of a teenager being forced to go for a haircut!).



Before



During





After



Sock Rabbit, Connies and Kacie!

Making rabbits

Last week Pickle-Lily and I went to the new making shop in Weston-Super-Mare called Connies . This is a lovely shop full of lovely things and run by lovely staff!
P was taking part in one of their sock animal children's workshops, where we met Sarah from Fairycraft . Sarah taught P how to make a rabbit out of just one sock. P had a brilliant time, even though her arm is still in a cast and now wants me to book her in to all the other sock animal workshops.
Connies is a super place for children and grown-ups as I could sit and have a cup of tea and knit while P was sewing - bliss!
A special mention to Kacie who was very friendly and gave P's rabbit a little glow in the dark bead necklace. P has now named her rabbit Kacie after her!

Meet Kacie

Bread Pudding

This is in honour of the Great British Bake Off returning to our screens this week!
Both my husband - Mr PL and son LOVE bread pudding, so I thought for a change I'd share a bake with you. Now I go to the supermarket and buy a cheap loaf just for the purpose of making a bread pudding for them. It does of course use up old stale bread, but I never seem to have enough of that around!

Bread Pudding

I was planning to take a photo of the whole pudding - but it was got to first, still at least you get a glimpse of inside!
Please look for the recipe on the Bakes ... page.

Christening Bags

It has been a busy week here at 'Pickle-Lily Palace' - P has had two friends round to play which has been great at keeping her busy, the plaster came off and then went back on again for another three weeks (so the whole school holiday in a cast for her) and we went and visited a new shop / makery in Weston-super-Mare where Pickle-Lily made a sock rabbit. More about the sock rabbit and Connie's when Mr PL downloads the photos from my phone. Big brother has spent the week on his xbox - I think I have forgotten what my son looks like standing up!


Christening bags in pink and blue

 Sea Breeze ( the shop that now stocks some of my things) asked me to come up with a Christening gift for them to sell. As they were often asked for these sorts of gifts and wanted something different to offer, so I came up with Christening bags. These contain a lovely small children's Bible that has simple stories and illustration - so is suitable for children up to about eight or so. They are made in felt and lines with pink or blue gingham fabric. I took them in last Friday with some more mermaids and they both sold on Saturday! Perhaps it is Christening season. Anyway off to make some more. They are on my Folksy shop if you are interested.
Am at Brent Knoll Village Market tomorrow morning between 10 and noon. Have a good week-end.
Jo x

Handmade Monday

Hello to anyone coming over from Wendy's Handmade Monday it is lovely to meet you.

This week-end I have been busy making smaller things for my next craft fair - hairclips. Inspired by Keri and Crafty Ribbons I have made lots of lovely sets of hair clips, some with flowers and the gorgeous sparkly bling ones. Of course Pickle-Lily wants one of every sparkly colour, but they are so lovely I might wear some myself! Pickle Daddy ( or Mr PL as Caroline has now dubbed him) designed some super cards to display them on for us.

Our Vistaprint order arrived and we now have a banner to put on our stall and t-shirts to wear to advertise us, so you should be able to spot us at any event! Again designed by Pickle Daddy aka Mr PL!

Why not pop over to Handmade Monday to see what other bloggers have been up to?

Jo x
P.S. We registered with Vistaprint - didn't order as it was going to be quite expensive, then got lots of special offers which made the whole process much cheaper.

Dirty Washing!

The photo does not do true justice to the colour!

Pickle or No.1 son has been at Marine Cadet Camp for the past two weeks (or thereabouts) and the washing machine has had a holiday as well! Yesterday he returned - the smell was the first thing that hit me. I must be honest, and say for a teenage boy he is very clean. He will shower every day, keeps his hair clean and short and puts on clean clothes at regular intervals. But being 'out in the field' makes everything different I was told. The poor washing machine is now on full time and I am hoping for a sunny windy day to dry everything. Yesterday I managed three loads and there is more to go today!

Can you guess what I've been doing!

Housewife's Kit

When he went away we were issued (at the very last minute) a kit list, including a housewife's kit, this I discovered was a sewing kit for marines. So I made him one out of a travel soap dish - I thought this would keep it dry, clean and stop it getting crushed. This could be made all girly - with pretty things instead of camo style needle case and heavy duty buttons. Snips, heavy duty sewing thread in appropriate colours, big safety pins, large eyed needles and a thimble were also added. Since he came back I've added some spare ankle twists (they use these to get the baggy bits at the bottom of their trousers) and a lip salve, as he forgot both of these and they fit quite snuggly and are ready for next time he forgets them! I'm now planning to make a girly version for Pickle-Lily (great stocking filler I thought).
On a totally different note I am taking part in OhSewBeautiful's cupcake swap - why not go over and have a look it closes on Saturday 20th August.
Have a lovely week-end!
Jo x

Felt Flowers Make

Felt Flower tutorial by Pickle-Lily on the makes page

Bits and Pieces

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while, but time seemed to slip away so quickly last week, and I can't believe it is Tuesday already!


P's felt flowers

 Pickle-Lily didn't go to Guide camp in the end and ended up in a bright pink glass fibre cast on Friday. She spent the week reading and watching a lot of TV. Over the week-end she discovered, thanks to the lovely Jill at Savvy Sisters she can wet felt, one handed! Since then she has been out in the garden making lots of lovely felt flowers  for her friends as presents. P's plan is to write a tutorial for the blog on how to wet felt with the simplest easiest equipment going, so watch this blog!

P and I dragged the Pickle daddy along to Coldharbour Mill for the day on Saturday. We had such a lovely day, that's where we met Jill, sat next to our friend Sara from Sara's Texture Crafts and admired all her beautiful yarn and tops. We enjoyed the sunshine, made new friends and had a lovely day.

I spent the week making extra things as there is now a stockist of Pickle-Lily products. Sea Breeze in Burnham-on-Sea now stocks some of my mermaids, pirates, felt bags, pencil cases, brooches, hairclips and phone socks. If you are in Burnham pay the shop a visit - it is packed with lots of lovely things. I am now making lots more things to sell on my stall, as well as lots of ideas buzzing around in my head with my fingers itching to make them all! Just never enough hours in the day.

I did make this felt bag on commission for some lovely ladies I met at Cannington, and very soon it will be winging its way to New Zealand!

As well as the knitting and sewing there has been lots of the usual everyday stuff washing, ironing, baking and maybe even some cleaning! So not an exciting week but very busy, just like all the other mums, and I do apologise if I haven't commented on your blog lately I 'will do better'!
Have a good week.
Jo x