I needed a little instant gratification after the crochet blanket, not least I am going to need some new mittens this winter.  This has been in my stash for a while, its a kit I picked up at a show from Fyberspates.  It is knitting up beautifully, I am really enjoying the process.  It is Hinksey by Lily France knitted in Fyberspates Scrumptious Aran (45% silk, 55% Merino) in Moss on 4 mm DPN.

I obviously like this colour, it matches Toile’s collar perfectly.

Oh the Handmade Fair at Hampton Court was a joy, a sheer joy.  The atmosphere was incredible, when I say it was beyond any reasonable doubt the best fair that I had been to, it is an understatement, it was an absolute pleasure.  Many, many, many of the stallholders were new this year, so there was an incredible amount to look at that I had never seen before, there was an absolute buzz from the stall holders and all the customers seemed as happy as I was.  Here are a few snapshots, there were two huge tents filled with stalls, two Grand Make tents with an impressive line up of workshops and demonstrations, a Super Theatre tent, and was supported with tents from Rowan, Etsy, Mollie Makes, Prima, Janome, Hobbycraft, Coats, Lush and many other stalls.  I think if you were doing workshops you would need more than one day.

As you can see there were some wonderful stalls, and this is such a small percentage of what was there.  I spent a wonderful hour chatting with my lovely friend Martin Storey about Rowan and Uni, family and ideas in the future, it was such a nice moment.  And I eventually found my lovely friend Belinda Harris-Reid, we had such a good giggle, she has so much energy, a force of nature. Look out for her venture p-Lush at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry on the 27th and 28th March, it promises to be an amazing event.

I hadn’t known about World Pomination, Sense being the official charity to benefit,  where the aim was to break the Guinness World Record for the longest line of pom poms which with 7,200 fluffy globes they smashed. 

And then of course there was shopping.  Just some gorgeous fabric and a little alpaca, a shawl pin, some scissors and a huge crochet hook and some potato print, yes potato print, cards with chickens on them and a Rowan book.  Toile thinks its a pretty and perfect haul, especially the alpaca, she really likes the alpaca.

Giddy with excitement I got up at the crack of dawn on Sunday and then took one bus, two tubes and one train to get to Hampton Court.  Kirstie Allsopp was presenting the first ever Handmade Fair and I knew it was going to be good, but I had no idea of how good.  I’d decided not to partake of any workshops, having my fair fill of those whilst at Uni, I was there to soak up the atmosphere and to do a little light shopping.

I’d had a quick look as to how to get to Hampton Court once getting off the train and had noticed how far away the Fair had been placed away from the entrance, but had no idea of just how beautiful it would be to walk through the gardens.

Firstly we crossed the Thames, and it was at that point that you could just get a glimpse of Hampton Court and I felt my heartbeat quicken.  It was just so pretty.

As we walked up the drive towards the entrance. 

Beautiful chimneys.

And borders

and trees.

And finally the entrance to the show.  I’d had a lovely walk seeing the beauty of the gardens and was really looking forward to the day.  As an aside I once went to a talk by Lucy Worsley, English Historian and Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces and during it she had said Hampton Court was her favourite Palace, I’ve not been inside it yet, but I can see why and its on my to do list soon.

Sometimes you don’t want your five a day, or even your one a day, you just want a very simple supper and this one is pretty simple.  Take some old potatoes, peel, cut into large chunks, pop into a pan with water and a good pinch of salt,  bring to the boil and then simmer for just five minutes, drain, allow to go cold.  Its quite important to allow them to go cold otherwise they break up when you grate them,  you could do it in the morning whilst your drinking your coffee and then place the potatoes in the fridge for later.  Then grate them, squidge them into quite thin patty shapes and cook over a moderate heat in a frying pan with a teaspoon of rape seed oil until they are cooked through which takes about ten minutes, turning them occassionally,  placing a slice of cheese on them as they finish. 

Tasty, simple, cheap and reasonably nutritious.

Toile and I ventured home last week to spend a few days with our loved ones.  Well my loved ones, Toile hadn’t become known to her loved ones at that point, although this is her second visit, the last time she was very tiny so we kept her wrapped up in cotton wool as all good cat owners should tiny almost defenceless (perhaps we shouldn’t mention the vets war wound) kittens.   I didn’t manage to get out and about as much as I would have liked to start with, down to Son no.2 giving me a huge bear hug which left me feeling wounded and quite ill for three days, we think he must have put some sort of slight dislocation on my shoulder, I just know that there were many times I was severely tempted to ring the NHS just for some advice, the pain was incredible.  But I got better, time is a great healer, that and the fact that I would probably pick up more than I went in with if I sat in A & E for several hours.

But what this did give me was lots of time to cuddle Toile.

How can you resist that face.

So adorable.

And occasionally she escaped the bedroom and occasionally Pip’s curiosity got the better of him as we would hear him tip toeing up the stairs to stand outside the bedroom door ready to poke his nose in to see what this mewing and bouncing around was all about.

So we thought it was time.

It went well.  Pip is very cat steady and Toile had come from a family with a pet dog, so I knew we stood a good chance if both of them could just hold their nerve.  

Although there was a moment where Toile did become just a little bit nervous, but then her very good nature and a cats natural curiosity got the better of her.

And she thought she would have a little sniff.

And then there was nose touching.   And a minute or so later there was Toile rolling around on her back, paws waving in the air giving her best come and have a play body posture, whilst Pip is looking at me all confused with a ‘what does she want look?’

Its early days but it looks promising.  Maybe next time we will introduce Eric, we are leaving Florence until last, not sure how that is going to go at all.  They will either be best friends or they will hate each other.

I think we can safely say that Toile has taken to the blanket in a big way.

Every time she has gone quiet I have found her sprawled out on it.  As she is the only one that has witnessed string being made into fabric, I wonder what she has thought of that process.  Whatever it is, she is a happy girl with the outcome.

And I think we can also safely say, that her owner is in love with it too.  I love, love, love it.

It is everything I want it to be and more.  Next time I get the sewing machine out I will make a tag to sew onto it with my name and date.  You never know, in fifty years you might find it in a retro thrift shop and someone might resurrect it and patch and wash it and throw it over old sofas with love and other pussy cats might come along and notice the warmth of the wool on their paws and fall in love too.  And they will always wonder who mandycharlie was, maybe I’ll put a link to the blog, that would be a modern twist on finding a retro blanket.

And for those with more of an eye for the pattern, this was made from Rowan Purelife Home, called Granny Squares Throw by Marie Wallin in yarn Rowan Renew.   I used two more balls than called for in Trailor 681 and some of the others were short by a ball, but I simply can’t remember which ones, and I crocheted with a 5.00 mm crochet hook.

Hubby had been and gone and left just under half a  bottle of red.  Tempting as it was, I thought of other ways to put the wine to good use.  Not least I’d just picked up a very good buy of chicken thighs.  So I skinned the thighs and added them to some fried onion, garlic and chopped up bacon, added the wine, a tin of chopped toms, a few mushrooms that were rescued from the fridge and a good sprinkling of oregano, salt, pepper and some water to cover the thighs and let them burble for a bit, about an hour and a half.   And during that time I cooked off some potato and swede and mashed it together and cooked some just picked runner beans with a couple of young carrots.

It was really, really yummy, with plenty left for the freezer.

Just a quick post, I’ll try and get some photo’s in daylight for the weekend, and there are about three rows of ends still to sew on the wrong side, but essentially it is finished.  I’ve crocheted and sewn in for about twenty five hours in the last two days – so I’m slightly knackered…  But I just needed to get this done, before it drove me crackers!

I love it. It sings to me as much as I knew it would, the colours are just so lovely.  The weight of it feels so snuggly, the wool keeps you toasty warm and the size is just perfect to snuggle under, its wide enough for two sitting and long enough for one lying (its over 6ft 6″) so very useable for the taller members of our family.  Its just perfect.