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You can expect to see ramblings including but not limited to the following: knitting, sewing, crochet, housework, DIY, interior decorating, gardening, family, music, comedy, history and local events. There may also be rantings, which are likely to be mainly about rudeness and bad grammar, but you will be warned in advance when a rant is about to happen so you can look away.

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Saturday 18 June 2011

Various stuff

Hello multitudinous followers,

I really must look into ways of (slowly!) increasing the number of people reading my blog, particularly given that 50% of my followers are my one sister, who gets to hear probably more than enough about my coming and going on the phone anyway!.  Blogging is quite satisfying for its own sake, it’s good to have a record of the stuff I’ve been up to, but I can’t help feeling envious when I see all the comments which other bloggers have from all their followers.

I’ve been to Knit Club this morning; it was such fun, a perfect way to spend a rainy Saturday morning.  I spent quite a lot of time in the kitchen laughing at some of the ridiculous designs in the new Rowan magazine.  It was almost worth buying it for the comedy.  You just cannot believe that anyone would ever even consider making these things.  There was also some slightly childish giggling at the use of the word “gusset” (again) – it’s that naughty Suzie, she starts me off.  

 It was lovely to see Cuckoo again too, she was crocheting a very cute goauuuurrrrt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQd5Ieprung) for her husband for Father’s Day and had it nearly finished by the end of the session. 

 I was unable to resist buying some yarn for my next pair of socks.  I’d picked out some rather faffy pastel colours, but I was the others staged an intervention to save me from myself and made me buy these instead.  Scary.  The bottom one is actually a dark purple.

 When I got home the weather had dried up so I went and checked the garden.  One of the things which caught my eye was this flower:

Lovely, isn’t it?  Looks quite exotic, you’d think it was from some special ornamental plant… Wrong!  I’m growing potatoes in bags and the flower is on one of those plants.  Who’d have thought that something so ordinary would have such a glamorous flower!

This is my patio rose.  When my lovely sister got married she bought one of these for herself, Mum and me.  The name of the rose is Patricia, which was our Nan’s name; she died when we were small and didn’t have a headstone so this is a nice way to remember her.  As you can see the flowers always droop over so you can’t see them, but they are so beautiful.  A bit like people really, sometimes the most beautiful aren’t the most obvious.





This courgette is nearly ready to be picked… mmmm, I love courgettes, looking forward to eating the home-grown ones.



Very kind of my neighbour to grow the yellow thing which looks so pretty with my blue and pink things!

 Lupin progress:



My mum came up this week and we did some sewing.  We made some pink and blue gingham curtains for my niece and nephew’s room.   




I haven’t used my sewing machine for ages and ages and I really enjoyed it. I’ve left it out on the table and if I can drag myself away from blogging and knitting I might try and make something tomorrow.




The other big news this week is the inaugural committee meeting of the Women of Weston WI.  Well it's big news for me, maybe not in the grand scheme of things. I am involved in setting up a WI for Weston with some of the girls from Knit Club.  It is going to be brilliant – we want it to be a modern, fun group and we’re all bursting with ideas for events.  Apparently there is a group in Worle which sings Jerusalem, God Save the Queen and Land of Hope and Glory!  I don’t think we’ll be doing that.  

Recently I have been working my way through the BBC Good Food magazine website’s Top 20 recipes (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/favourites/all-time-top-20/).  I made the biryani and it was gorgeous; in fact I am making it again tonight.  Last time I did it on a Sunday night and followed their suggestion of stirring mayonnaise through it to make coronation chicken salad for the following day’s lunch.  I also did the almond raspberry cake which was equally good and would be a great dessert, served with some whipped cream or ice-cream.  These photos are from when I was making the courgette lasagne.  You have to grate 6 courgettes so I used the grater attachment on my food processor.  I just thought the colours and patterns looked really cool.  The meal was pretty good too!  Even better the next day actually.




I have got really into the American tv programme Big Love recently.  It’s a drama based around the lives of a polygamous Mormon family.  I don’t think I’d like to be in a plural marriage and I certainly couldn’t be doing with the religious aspect, but I can’t help thinking at least one of those “sister wives” would be kinda handy to do the housework and leave me free to get on with my crafting!!

On that slightly ridiculous note I am going to sign off and deal with the glass of red wine which is calling to me…..



2 comments:

  1. What a lovely newsy post! Your garden looks lovely. How mad a spud can have such delightful flowers.

    I have been giving A LOT of thought to the increasing followers thing. Most of my followers have kind of happened by chance, but I have noticed how they arrived. My 3 of my best buds have started to blog this year so we have been discussing the phenomenon of gaining readers/followers/bloddies/stalkers!!

    These are the things I have noticed happening that help build up things a bit:

    Blog frequently, even if it's a tiny post. Some people list in their sidebar everyone they follow and the most recent update is shown at the top.

    Always have a pretty photo as your first one as some people list the blog title with a photo. I had so many hits when I posted the pic of my bath. How mad!

    Some people set up their list alphabetically so we are fairly far down with that one so we cocked up there!

    Follow lots of people, they often start following you back.

    If you get an award be calculated when passing them on. Choose a blog that has similar content to yours as their readers will enjoys yours too. Choose a blog with plenty of followers to pass an award to. Get our exposure up a bit. I didn't realise this to begin with. And now i just pass them on to whoever I fancy as I'm happy with my followers. In fact I get a bit overwhelmed with trying to keep up with everyone and answer all the comments. I like to thank everyone but I'm so behind!!

    I've noticed giveaways bloggers do often say to enter you need to be a follower. Also enter all the giveaways you stumble across. Madeleif lists them in her side bar (see my side bar). If you win then you get a mention.

    Join in with those linky parties. See paisley jade and iCrochet. There must be a similar thing to iCrochet for knitting too.

    I think pinterest is a good one too.

    I wish I'd been more savvy earlier on with my blog, it was so slow to get going. My Mum was my only reader!!! It's nice to not have to think about it now. But it has taken a year and really only got going in February because Dottie Angel linked to my bobble stitch tutorial.

    But like you say, blogging for blogging's sake is a lovely thing to do. I would miss it so much if I stopped. Even though I am so peeved by my bloody banner issues. All I wanted to do was make it shorter and it's all messed up now. A blogger gremlin me thinks.

    Lovely to see you yesterday. I'm still laughing over the chew and spit/i'd eat your muffin comment!!!! Suzie is mad!

    Lovely yarn for socks, looking forward to seeing those.

    xxx

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  2. Loved reading your blog! Your potatoes are so much better than mine, the slugs ate the plants and so I only managed to harvest a few (they were earlies luckily!). Please let me know when the first WI meeting is.
    Your blog will soon pick up followers and Cuckoo has excellent advice.
    Jo x

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