Moving!

I'm moving blogs over to mon petit poi. It's a more personal blog, rather than being etsy/craft focused, but it does still include etsy and craft posts.


Oh, and I update it more often too!

:)

That's just typical! Five minutes before the most important party of my life and the house is destroyed by a giant sandwich.

Finally! A new item in the shop. Find it here, on our UK Etsy Shop. Mum has been making these gorgeous notice boards, I managed to convince her to make some for Etsy too :) Next to the notice board is the cotton reel holder I knocked up one night, out of the remains of a broken laundry basket would you believe. I never got round to finishing it though, and then I was given a gorgeous sewing box my great grandfather made. I'll have to take some photos of that for next time.
I haven't had much of a chance to make anything to sell recently (surprise, surprise) but I have been creating when I get the chance. For example, here's my friend modeling one of the cushions I made her:



I do have a few more items to list, unfortunately I have a deadline for Friday and I'm running behind. Hopefully the week after you will be seeing a hand knitted silk & merino baby wrap, an embroidered reusable shopping bag and a set of crocheted coasters. Updates will be on Twitter when they're listed :)

In other news.. It's my twenty third birthday in exactly seven days! The past year has sped by, it's kind of scary.

[the title is from The Young Ones for those of you wondering.]

Here we have the rather shy 'update'..

Wow, I've really neglected this blog.

If you're here from Etsy then I made a Twitter for short updates of new items and crafting exploits. It'll be more regular than posts here, but not so often that you'd get spammed with tweets.
Feel free to follow us! http://twitter.com/daisytilt
I do have a personal twitter too but I fail at that almost as much as I fail at blogging. I guess I'm just a bit awkward with putting myself out there. If you're curious about me though feel free to follow that also; http://twitter.com/8ofspades

I'll try to update here more often with photos etc.



I promised I'd update with news of my mum's Etsy shop. Well it's now up and running! Go take a look; http://daisytilt.etsy.com.
She's been crafting hard so there'll be new items added soon.
You may notice it's a collaboration - I haven't had much chance to craft items to sell this year, so we figured it would be in both our interests to operate from the same shop.
Hopefully I'll have a chance over summer to make some new books & get sewing, I've just been snowed under with work recently.
I'm disappointed with the quality of the photos. I had a hard time with the quilts trying to find somewhere I could lay them out nicely which also had good lighting.

In all my years of geekery the one thing I've always struggled with is how to make a good photo collage. I don't know why, I'm always told by those who can that it is easy.
Well now it is! I discovered the amazing, free, photo editting tool that is Photoscape.
It's so simple to use and it comes packed with features - frames (including rounded corners & polaroid frames), photo collages, vignetting filters, animation..

Give it a try :)

nice surprises.

Having Raynauds kind of sucks..

Today it wasn't as bad though, for my mother surprised me with a pair of fingerless gloves she knitted for me!



Maybe fingerless seems to defeat the point a little, but they keep my hands warm which does alleviate the problem, whilst allowing me to get on with normal activity.

She got the pattern from a zine I had left in her knitting bag, you can find it on OhMyStars Craft.

new wallet.

I love this tutorial!

I did get a little confused, well, ok, very confused about which parts I was supposed to be interfacing but once you've got that figured out it's a really good project.

I used some Laura Ashley floral cotton which I picked up on ebay and some black cotton I had left over from a previous project. Mainly I chose black & only used two colours because I'm terrible at finding contrasting colours (I will forever envy quilters) but also because the only zips I had wouldn't go at all well.






The best part is I can put my mini moleskines in one of the large pockets and my notes in the other. I'm thinking about adding a pen loop at the centre. We'll see.
If you do the project & use just cotton like me I recommend interfacing the snap, too. I'm probably going to redo the snap with some heavily interfaced cotton at some point.

P.S.

I'd like to say a big thank you to the lovely filthypawsandsilkydrawers for awarding me the Kreativ Blogger award! I'm sorry I don't update more, I will try to do better in future! If you've stumbled here go and check out her blog for the most stunning photos of food, her gorgeous pup, fashion & much more.



Here are 7 other blogs I read (I would give them all awards but they've probably received it 100 times before anyway!):

#1 angry chicken

#2 desire to inspire

#3 poppytalk

#4 My Paper Crane

#5 design is mine : isn't it lovely?

#6 decor8

#7 bread and honey : a food blog


All are centred around my favourite things: crafting, homewares, food and inspiring photographs. I highly recommend them all :) Of course there are lots more blogs which deserve a mention, I'm sure one day I will sit down & write them all out.

Things have been so busy recently I haven't been keeping on top of everything. My own Etsy shop has become somewhat of a graveyard, but don't fear, for I've been helping my mother set up her own! She has been doing the hard work: brainstorming, quilting & sewing; I have just been setting up the shop, making logos & being a nuisance with my camera. It will be open very soon, announcement to follow.






The weather has been good here recently and I have been making the most of every nice day in the garden. I haven't quite finished digging my vegetable plot yet, but hopefully it will be ready in time for the seedlings to go out. The rest of the garden finally exploded into bloom, making me very happy.



We visited a family friend for lunch the other day. She has a wonderful little cottage & garden. Every time I go there I'm inspired to do 100 different things when I am home.





This weekend is set to be busy, first we are going to a Festival of Quilting, then for some lunch, onto an Arts & Crafts Event and then finishing with a jumble sale (I am addicted to jumble sales, bazaars and charity shops at the moment!). I will remember to come and post about it next week :)

i can read.

Out of all the images and inspirational quotes I saw on i can read last night I wanted to post this one the most. I often feel sad about the lack of mystery in the modern world. Sometimes it really does feel like nothing is sacred.

These were the runners up:

The perfect loaf.

I love baking bread. The only problem is (or should I say was) that I am absolutely terrible at doing it. I only used whole grain flours. I think if I had given in and used a combination with white flour I would've gotten a better result but I just couldn't.

It wasn't until I gave up wheat a few weeks ago and started baking spelt bread that I finally got it right.
I chose this recipe out of all them because it was sugar-free (yes, I've given up sugar too).

The only thing I don't like about this recipe is I don't get to knead anything.





Original recipe here, only slightly modified below.


Three Minute Spelt Bread


Ingredients
750g Spelt Flour
15g Fast Action Yeast
75g Sunflower Seeds
75g Pumpkin Seeds
3/4tsp Sea Salt
750ml Warm Water
A couple of handfuls of oats, plus some for topping


Method
* Preheat oven to 200c, Gas Mark 6 (180c if using a fan oven).


1) Combine the dry ingredients in a very large mixing bowl. Add the water, mixing as you do so. You will be left with a very sticky, wet dough. It's best not to handle it by hand - use a wooden spoon or a spatula.





2) Mix well and turn into a greased loaf tin. Sprinkle oats over the top.





3) Bake for around 50 minutes. Please note this will probably depend on your oven so please keep an eye on it & check it towards the end of cooking time (though try to avoid opening the oven until you need to remove the loaf). The first time I made the bread I baked it for an hour as listed on the original recipe. It was far too long and I ended up with a very very crisp crust. 45 minutes seems to be perfect for my oven.





4) Remove from oven, cool, slice & enjoy!





The original recipe also mentioned that it is better left overnight in a cool place to rise before baking. I tried this the first time but I found that it rose and then collapsed again. I haven't tried it again since.
I only own one loaf tin so I increased the measurements by half to suit.

It tastes absolutely amazing with cheese! I can't get enough of it :)

Etsy Wishlist #1: Moxie & Oliver.

Moxie & Oliver have been on my favourites list pretty much since I joined Etsy. If I had the money I would indulge in their gorgeous bags, belts, guitar straps and more. For now I am saving up to have a custom watch made. I haven't had a watch in years. I think my friends & family would appreciate it if I owned one.
(I'd also quite like the trunk they photograph their items on !)

They offer a wide range of traditionally made leather goods adorned with either brightly coloured flowers, skulls and hearts or more subtle carved patterns. There's a design to suit every taste, if not they're always coming up with new designs it seems (as my wish list grows ever longer..) or you can request a custom order.

I love a well made leather belt. Seeing these makes me wish my current leather belt wasn't quite as well made, so I could replace it without any guilt.

2009.

I want to crochet more this year. I want to finish the wheel square blanket I started last year, and worked on for 3 months before getting bored, even though now there are about 5 different crochet square blankets I'd rather be making (including the rose square blanket which is shown on Stranger Than Fiction). You can never have too many crochet blankets though, surely?


I'm afraid to say Etsy has taken to the back burner for a while. I'm still making things to sell there, but have not listed them yet. I'd rather build up a stock and put them all on at once. Christmas seems to have drained the existing stock so I reduced the prices on virtually all.


It has been so long since I last wrote here! I doubt anyone missed me, but if you did you can always check my public posts on LiveJournal.
Christmas was absolutely lovely. I stayed with my mum, it was the most relaxed I've felt in years. I got lots of lovely things;





This is my favourite sale buy for January:



(because everybody needs to take Oregano on safari.)


One of my new years resolution was to give up smoking. It is going well, however my appetite has become somewhat ridiculous.
I cannot get enough food.



creamy scrambled eggs w/peppered mushrooms & parsley



muffin topped winter beef stew


A very belated 'Happy New Year' to everyone!