Vera goes to Duxford

Well here, as promised, is Vera. We all went to Duxford today - one of my most favourite days out. Vera had a great time too - she got to try on this tin helmet just in case of air raids. It was very heavy and poor girl, she was nearly squashed.


But travelling round the corner she came across this rather scary looking tiger. Good job there was a thick glass screen between them.

But never fear, this dashing young American Air force Pilot came to her rescue. And she was very smitten, let me tell you!


She wanted a ride on Concorde but this was the closest she got to sitting on it - the wheel!. (That's my 2 children up front, the man at the back kept frowning at us all, he obviously didn't understand about Monkees).


Oh but Vera got to ride on an army truck - it was huge, but she's a brave young thing and wasn't at all scared...


... not until she got stuffed down the gun turret of a very, very big tank that is.

But all frivolity aside, the Imperial War Museum is essentially about war. And whilst being totally absorbed by the sheer magnitude of some of those planes, some things just hit you and make you really think about just what it is you're looking at. For some it's the World War I boots at the entrance to the Land Warfare building.

But for me it was this picture. I couldn't stop looking at it. How young does this 'man' look? Fast asleep he looks like any little boy to me. I wonder how far into the War this was taken. Did he survive? What horrors did he see on the Normandy Beaches? Did his mother ever see this picture? I'm sure it would have broken her heart if she had.

It's a hat!

Now I know it looks more like one of those ghastly toilet roll cosies, but it's a hat - honestly! It will look better on a baby I'm sure, only I didn't have one to hand for the photo. It fell right over Vera's face so she couldn't even act as my model.

Haven't taken any pictures of Vera lately have I? Well I'm taking the boys out today (in the hope that they will stop arguing for a few minutes) so she might very well come with us. To keep the peace you understand.

I have a few newcomers to this blog, so maybe you don't know who Vera is - come back tomorrow and you may find out!

Sensible Cake

I don't often do sensible cakes. For some strange reason I seem to have got myself a name for doing silly cakes with crazy people on. But once in a while it's nice to reacquaint (what a strange word, but apparently spell check says it's right) myself with the more formal skills of cake decorating. I'm far happier doing little people, flowers take far too long, and damp weather like we're having at the moment can ruin them.


I had a lovely e-mail from Merry Mog the other day (she's really called Maureen, but Merry Mog sounds great I think!) Anyway, apparently I've given her mojo back - she gave me a lovely big picture to put on the blog, but I can't remember how to do that. Merry has now started crafting again in a big way, knitting and sewing and baking... It sounds a veritable hive of activity at her house, and I'll bet with all that baking going on, it smells pretty good too!

Thank-you Merry, but I really didn't know I had your mojo in the first place.

Soggy Bank Holiday

On Sunday we all went out. A rare occurrence for all 4 of us to go out at once to something other than a football match. We went to a Craft Show at Burleigh House (this is the house used in the film version of Pride and Prejudice where Lady Catherine lived). The house is beautiful , so pretty and fairy tale like.

If only the same could be said for the weather and the 'Craft Show'. It rained, and it rained and it rained. The stalls at the show were not at all inspiring, most didn't even involve a craft as I would have described it. Hardly anything looked hand made, and there wasn't a single hand-knit at the place let alone a ball of wool. Did anyone else go? Am I just being very fussy? I shan't waste my time or money (£15 for us to get in) going there again.

Fortunately there was a redeeming feature. Mum and dad live just a few miles away, so we called in there for tea. Look what we had for pudding!

This is called Tipsy Cake and brings back so many memories of my childhood. I was always allowed a tiny piece of this when mum cooked it at parties. It's basically chocolate cake, doused in sherry and covered with cream. Very delicious thank-you mum!

This is my mum. She's lovely - and not just because she makes nice puddings! Do you like her cardigan? I made it for her ages ago - it was what I call a freebie as I didn't have to buy any new wool for it, using up scraps from the stash basket. This was in the years before The Stashbasket and was just a carrier bag of scraps left from previous Kaffe Fassett projects.



Hmm, I could make a few more of those right now. Oh no, just as Startitis is getting under control as well. I only cast on one new thing today. I'm obviously on the road to recovery!

Saturday pudding

Lemon Meringue Pie.
One of my favourites!

How to make a felted jumper blanket

Before I start, let me just say that I'm really not very good at this sort of thing, so please let me know if I explain something very badly or don't tell you enough information. I shall try my best!

You see, I start off all wrong - why is this photo so much smaller than all the others?!

First of all, collect together a pile of pure wool jumpers. They must be the sort that say on the label 'hand wash only' - the machine washable jumpers just don't felt. Cashmere works too, but not as well as lambs wool in my experience. I have used 8 jumpers here, but have some large bits left over. Bung them all in the washer on a hot wash - 60 degrees works for me - with something bulky like a pair of jeans.

When they're washed and dried, give them an iron - yes, sometimes that ironing board has to be used people! Then take a piece of A4 paper, and using the narrow side as a width guide, cut out lots of pieces of felt. They must be all the same width but different lengths. You should end up with a big pile of rectangles like this:-


Find a big space and lay out your rectangles into a pattern that looks right to you. Lay them in vertical strips, each strip being approx the same length - don't worry about this too much, you can trim them much later.

Keeping the vertical strips together, machine sew the rectangles, leaving a half cm seam.

When all the vertical strips are sewn, lay them all back out again so you remember where everything goes and machine the strips together. This will give you the basic blanket shape.


Trim off any wonky edges and pieces that are too long. Get the iron back out (believe me, this is so much more fun than ironing shirts!) and press the seams flat. You will find that thicker jumpers lay flat and the thinner jumpers are much easier to bend. That doesn't make sense reading it at all, but when you do it, you'll know what I mean, promise!

Now you need to sort out a border. I was lucky that I had 2 orange jumpers here, but you can use different shades - using contrast colours makes the middle stand out more. Cut out long strips approx 3" wide and sew them together to make 4 lengths, slightly longer than each side of your blanket.

Back to the sewing machine and sew the border on, again taking a half cm seam. Iron it all flat.

Now for the fun stuff - cut out 4 different motifs to applique on and embellish with embroidery, buttons or ribbon.

Hand stitch the motifs on the corners of the blanket - or anywhere else you might like.


And here we are - all done.


Was that OK?

It's a very forgiving design, all sorts of mistakes can be hidden on the back! If you do make one, please let me see the results!