Busy Inbetween Days

 I hope you are all enjoying the break, it can feel a little like limbo land that bit between Christmas an New year and you tend to forget what day it is or I do any way.  I have had a very productive few days and one of my intentions is to keep working through new recipes and all my cook books.  There is a beautiful one that one of my sons bought me for Christmas last year and I have used it a fair bit, todayI made two recipes from it and I will share those below.  I also have in mind a better way in future to document all my sewing makes especially as quite a few of them will be going back to Minerva for in house videos.  I do like to keep track and this year I have been using the papers that come with Minerva fabric for project planning but this means I have a stack of those knocking about.  What I am thinking is a scrap book with images, fabric swatch and an actual photo in it, yes this does sound like even more work but it will be lovely to look back on and remind me how much I get done.  Sometimes I can be hard on myself even though I know I complete multiple tasks, garments, etc a week so it will be a nice record.  There is a scrapbook in my possesion that has been waiting for just this job I feel. 

I will share one of my Christmas gift makes here and it is my husbands Hoody.  I made him one a little while ago from Burda magazine and he loves it so I made him another in a different colourway.  It was right to the wire as I was busy making it on Christmas eve.  This time I went for the colours in the original magazine image of navy and orange, well the orange I chose is more of a bright rust colour but it is lovely together.  He loves it, here is a picture of him in it but I think he has splashed it here with water as I cornered him in the kitchen for a pic.  

                                      It has been on since he opened it, and now needs a wash.

Todays sewing  was my brand ambassador make for Minerva and as I had made a lovely sweater with a Simplicity pattern that has been worn quite a lot, it felt suitable to remake it but this time in the dress length.  It is a lovely comfy french terry so hopefully this will be another much reached for garment.  I will share an image of it on the mannequinn but need to do full write up for minerva so please catch up with me over there for the full post on that. (it is not on yet as this is only just finished!)

My reading is going well and The Magpie Murders is keeping me turning the pages, this is a good thing as my husband bought me four books by the same author in the same genre!  There have been a few duff reads over the past months so glad  I am to get my reading head back on.

We are keen to get out and meet some family for a dog walk but so far those palns have been rained off, lets hope that the next few days will bring some dry weather so we can get out in the fresh air.

There was a lucky find by my husband in the ASDA  yetserday in the form of discounted LOR advent calenders, the coffee.  They had been priced at 25 pounds and are now down to three pounds so he brought home two.  He said it was quite funny as a couple were looking at them at the same time as him and the man was saying we should get these to his partner  and she said but we haven't even got a coffee machine.  I am intrigued to know if they could be used without?  I mean it seems to me that all the machine does it perforate the pod and slowy pour hot water through it, I could be wrong so let me know your thoughts on this.  Youngest son is a big coffee drinker so he was super pleased with this find.

From one of my cook books today I made a butternut squash soup...

I also made a fabulous fruit cake that has so many ingredients in it and luckily I had them all bar one which I subbed.  It is a vegan cake so all suitable for me and I added my gf flour mix too.

This is the book my son bought for me.

Here is the cake cooling, there is a fair amount gone already!  Sneaky gin in the background that a friend gifted me, it is rather depleted. 

So there we are a bit of an inbetween catch up, I thought I would blog while I have the time as I have not been as consistent with this for the last year and I aim to to better.  So two in a row but if I don't do things while they are on my mind I blink and a week has passed.  

Thank you for stopping by.