Fresh and Gentle Days

Hello Lovelies, 

this morning I'm baking a cake so I thought I'd write a post whilst it's in the oven. I do love a bit of Saturday morning baking. I'm trying THIS recipe and hopefully I'll have a nice picture of a finished cake to add to the end of this post. It smells good at the moment so I'm feeling optimistic.

 

I'm sorry it's been a while since the last time I was here. My evenings have been rather taken up with the Autumn inspired blanket I've started. It's the first blanket project I've made this year and I'm feeling optimistic about this too. 

The title of this post was inspired by a comment from Suzie ( at ambling along Suzie) over on Instagram. I think it perfectly describes the weather November has brought us over the past couple of weeks. 

It's way too mild for this time of year really, but so wonderful to enjoy the fabulous shades of autumn without a lot of cold, wet, gloom and wind.

 

Here I was out with mum on Monday afternoon. We often set off with no real plan and see where we end up :0)

When we come across a view mum fancies painting we stop and she sits in the car and gets to work whilst I go for a walk.

 I can see why she was inspired by this honey coloured squat little church.

And thankfully there were plenty of footpaths for me to explore.

And if I come back before mum is finished I get sent away to explore a bit more. This time I found mushrooms 😊

I love mum's watercolour painting of the autumnal scene. 

We also stopped off at a couple of pretty villages on the way home. Everywhere was looking so nice.

 

I couldn't resist a low angle shot of these lovely fallen leaves here.

Autumn has been so inspiring to me this year. Here is the start of my blanket, made using the colours I'm seeing everywhere at the moment.

 It's just three round granny squares made in solid colours and I'm joining as I go.

I'm balancing time spent sitting with my hook with time spent outside locally. The days are short but consequently the sky is often dramatic by mid afternoon.

and especially at sunset. I could see the autumn shades in this sky too.

so here's where I'm currently up to with my blanket, especially for you my lovely blog readers :0)

Looking down on it you can see it's a bit of a homage to my love of patchwork! Middle son's girlfriend introduced me to a website called Stitch Fiddle which allows you to plan out this sort of project.

 I've worked through lots of variations of designs. I've plumped for a sort of Irish Chain (I think). 

I'm sure the quilters amongst you will know a better description. For whilst I love patchwork and quilting it's not something I have much experience of doing.

So far I'm feeling hopeful that this crochet version will turn out well and I'm really enjoying working to a plan as it stops all that procrastination I suffer with when working with random shades.

Oh, almost forgot....here's the Farmhouse apple and fruit cake ( I used mixed fruit instead of sultanas) fresh out of the oven. Mine only took and hour to cook, so something to bare in mind if you decide to give this a go.

 

Hopefully I'll be back with a review of how it tastes very soon :0)

I hope you are all keeping well and enjoying Saturday. Thank you so much for all the kind comments on my recent posts.

Jacquie x

Around Here

 Hello again lovely people,

firstly I need to say a heartfelt thank you to  all of you for the super warm welcome back. Your comments really made me smile and reminded me what a great place blogland is.

 

Speaking of welcomes, what do you think of this sign I made at the start of summer, for the garden? Well, I say made. It was a blank sign I found in the charity shop. I just drew on the wording and simple flowers. I used a permanent pen and it's holding up great so far.

A much more impressive make is the pergola eldest made for me in the spring. He is turning into a really good woodworker and I love the fact that this project used mostly reclaimed wood.

Look! I'm even having further success with a clematis ....maybe I'm not the clematis murderer that I once was.

At the top of the garden we now have a completed workshop ( I shared the beginnings of this project HERE almost 2 years ago ). It may have taken an age to finish and I did find the process quiet stressful....and expensive! but It's turned out great so I am glad we committed to this project now.

It does make the garden smaller, but not by that much, and I'm happy with the flower beds hubby and eldest built me to help it blend in a bit.

And the rustic steps.

I filled the bed with home grown Zinnias and Dahlias.

I think it's all looking at it's best right now.

In the kitchen I'm still making efforts to reduce plastic waste. Though I can't afford all of our milk in glass.

And I'm trying to eat locally and seasonally. This was cheese and potato pie and roasted veg using up potatoes and tomatoes from a friends allotment.



There's free food in the hedgerows right now too.

I'm still doing ( and enjoying ) lots of simple walks from home.

These pictures are from a favourite circuit of about 3 miles. It takes me just over an hour and I find that the perfect length for a daily walk.

There aren't any steep hills, but there are some steps.

Mostly I just enjoy the views and write amazingly insightful and inspiring blog posts in my head....it's a shame they vanish upon my return home :0)

Here we are at the little churchyard again. It's looking especially lovely in  the afternoon sun.

I liked the shadows here.

I'm still doing my walk 1000 mile challenge (this is the 4th consecutive year I think...or maybe it's the 5th) at the moment it's going well and I'm a few miles ahead of where I need to be at this point in the year.

There's a hint of Autumn out there and that's fine by me.

September is hubby's birthday month, do you like my eco friendly gift wrap? Ha, a lot of effort went into that :0)

 

I'll finish here with an progress shot of my temperature blanket, which I was kindly asked about in the comments on my previous post. This is up to the end of July, so I have a bit of catching up to do. I'm still really enjoying this project though. It's so much fun watching it unfold while not having to choose the colour combinations myself. I explained the concept of this blanket HERE.

I do hope you have enjoyed this simple catch up post.
Chat again soon.
Jacquie x