Pink Sunday

Oh my goodness, I can't stop looking at these gorgeous flowers!  Their colour is just amazing!

They are alstroemeria, I think.  I usually have white ones, but chose these because when I got them they hadn't opened and looked almost white.  Love the little plaque - sit long, talk much!

Wow - I love them!  Think the lovely spring sunshine is making everything look so bright, even indoors.

Got this little punnet of clementines at the supermarket, such gorgeous colour here too.

Have a lovely Sunday.

Love, Liz

Measure by measure

These two little pewter measuring cups have been in the family for many years.

They are like mini tankards.  The small one is just four and a half cm high and holds 25 ml of fluid.  The larger on is five and a half cm and holds 50 ml of fluid. 

Think they were used in a pub to measure out alcohol.

The wording on the underside is "Harry Mason Ltd, Birmingham" - the company still make items for bars and has been in business for over 200 years!

I keep these in my china cabinet, but now that I've photographed them, I was thinking it might be time for a polish, but I love the patina of age on them.  What do you think?

Have a great weekend.

Love, Liz

My afghan coat

Look what I found lurking at the back of the wardrobe!  My original afghan coat from the 70s!

It was so cosy and warm and of course, super trendy ... at the time!

Looks well worn, doesn't it.  These coats were very popular for a while in the 70s.

I remember some afghan coats had embroidery on them and were much longer in length than mine.

Do you remember afghan coats?  Did you have one?

Love, Liz

Tea for two

A pink and white knitted tea cosy is one of the stars of the show today.

It is joined by two vintage cups and saucers, also pink and white.

I rediscovered this gorgeous vintage embroidered tray cloth in my fabric stash - how on earth could I have forgotten this beauty!

Aren't the colours wonderful.  When I see pieces like this, I often wonder about the woman who made it.  I'll never know, but I often think about how pieces came about.  Were they made to give as gifts or to brighten the maker's own home?

Or, perhaps like my own stitching, they were just made purely for the love of creating - the love of doing something which gives pleasure.  After all the years, these lovely hand crafted pieces still give some of us a lot of joy.

Do you ever wonder about your vintage finds?

Love, Liz

Friday Finishes

Got two little cross stitch finishes to show you today.

Love this little sheep - so cute!

This is the little house I showed you the start of last weekend here.  Really enjoyed sewing this one. 
Both patterns are from Cross Country Stitching magazines from the 1990s, although I've changed the colours.

Hope your crafting week has been a good one!

Love, Liz

Tiered tray and teacups

Tiered trays - anyone who follows fellow bloggers across the Atlantic will perhaps have noticed the popularity of decorated tiered trays.  I usually come across trends when they are on their way out, so these have probably been around for years and I've just noticed!  Anyway, I thought a tiered tray would be a great way to bring a pop of colour into my white kitchen, so looked around to find one.

Couldn't see anything that I liked so, after showing a few pictures to Hubby, I just happened to ask if one of these would be easy to make.  Of course the answer was yes, if the the right components could be found.  We found them!  Two box frames from Ikea, a wooden candlestick, the thingy bit from a curtain rail and four knobs from our old kitchen doors were all he needed to make me a gorgeous tiered tray.  (I think he's a keeper!)

I decided that I wanted to bring some pink into the kitchen so looked around at my vintage bits and pieces to see what would go together.  This is what I came up with.  Some vintage crockery and linen, pink flowers, a gorgeous, almost pink stone and some other bits and pieces put together and I had my first tiered try styled!

I love this thing, because it means that I can show off some of my little vintage bits and pieces.  Being grouped together they make more of an impact than just on their own.  I can change the colour and style with the season, or if I just get bored!

Blogging is a great way of getting ideas for crafts and decorating - there are so many creative bloggers out there.  Pinterest is also a fabulous resource for ideas - although in my case it is slightly addictive!

I love my tiered tray both because Hubby made it for me and also because it means I can bring some of my "treasures" back into my kitchen.  For those of you who have seen tiered trays in blogs and online, you will notice that there is not one single bit of the ubiquitous Rae Dunn ceramics in these photographs (although you might notice some Cath Kidston).

Love, Liz

Cosy craft day

Snow and sleet in Greenock today and cold!  Hubby and I went out and got some shopping and now we're glad to be back home.  Got some gorgeous gerbera  and put on some little lights to brighten up my kitchen.

The kitchen table is my new favourite place to sew.  I'm working on a new cross stitch - another little house.  Love these colours.

That's us in for the day.  No need to go anywhere.  Just going to sit and craft while the rugby is on.

Hope you are warm and cosy wherever you are.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Love, Liz

Finished and framed!

I did it!  After all your wonderful suggestions I decided that I had to do something immediately about all the little cross stitch pictures I had in my box.

I found a lovely vintage style frame that I had in the cupboard and with the help of a bit of gingham fabric, added a little cross stitch flower basket to it.

I think it looks fine.  OK - so no one needs to know that it is all held together with double sided sticky tape, do they?!

Love, Liz

Thank you friends

I just wanted to say thank you to all the lovely people who commented on my blog yesterday.  You have given me lots of suggestions about what to do with my finished cross stitch projects.  As usual, it is the finishing off that I least like with my crafting projects!

Last night we were bombarded by Storm Gareth - very high winds and lots of rain.  Couldn't sleep for fear of the windows blowing in or slates falling off the roof so got up and read some lovely blogs and scoured Pinterest for gorgeous images - that calmed me down a bit.

Nice day now, but I believe there is more bad weather to come.  Hope all is well wherever you are.

Love, Liz

I'd live here!

I've finished my little cross stitch house.  I love it!  I can just imagine what this house looks like inside - sort of colonial chic - not to cluttered but with beautiful antique furniture.

It was a joy to stitch - couldn't wait to get it finished.  The pattern is from Cross Country Stitching (May/June 1991).

Also finished this little angel, isn't she cute?

Pattern from Cross Country Stitching (December 1993).

While I love stitching little projects, what to do with the finished articles is always problematic for me.  I've enough framed pictures, so don't want to go down that route.  What on earth am I going to do with them?  Any ideas?

Love, Liz

Thanks, Maw Broon

Maw Broon, you are my hero!  I've never been great at making scones!  Cakes, pancakes, dumpling everything else I'm passable at, but scones have always been my downfall.  Until last week. 

I decided that I would give scones another go, and picked a recipe book at random from my collection - Maw Broon's Cookbook.  Of course this Scottish stalwart had a recipe for scones - and it worked!  Yeah!

The scones look a bit rough, probably because I wasn't expecting them to be a success and didn't take much care in presentation, but they actually turned out edible!  Crumbly and delish with lashings of butter.

Chose a vintage plate (charity shop find) at random to put them on and found out that it had a Scottish connection too - made by Haviland, France for McDougall & Sons in Glasgow.

The Broons are a Scottish cartoon strip family made famous in the Sunday Post newspaper published by D C Thomson.  My Dad used to read my brother and I the cartoon, with all the different voices on Sunday evening at bed time and we used to get the Broons or Oor Wullie annual at Christmas.  I bought them for my sons too.  Love the older cartoon characters.  I've noticed recently that they have tried to update them - do not like that at all!  This is how the characters I love look.

The Broons D C Thomson

Going to see if my luck holds and make another batch of scones next week.

Love, Liz

Cream and pink tea

My latest (sewn up) tea cosy in lovely shades of cream and pink, with just a few colour flecks through the wool.

A bit different from my usual bright tea cosies.

Loving gypsophila just now.  Love its other name - baby's breath, just so beautiful.

I think that gypsophila has had a bit of a bad press from the days when it was usually teamed with bright red carnations, even although it is part of the carnation family (I only found that out when I checked the spelling online!).  But it seems to be all over the place now and love it just on its own.

Really enjoyed knitting this tea cosy - I'm right into pastels at the moment.  Enjoy your Friday.

Love, Liz

Can you guess what it is yet?

I've been busy crafting over the last few days.  This is my latest cross stitch - can you guess what it is going to be?

It is going to be a little house with a very ornamental roof.  I'm enjoying this one!

No prizes for guessing what this is going to be. 

Yup, another retro tea cosy.  Love the bright green!  I do my cross stitching when the light is good during the day and sit knitting in the evening - perfect combination.  Are you enjoying your crafting at the moment?

Love, Liz