Heritage Tour

Our jolly this week was a conducted tour of the Winter Gardens to view the 30s decoration.

Marquetry pictures

Deco mirrors

Decorative plasterwork

Decorative tiles

Magnificent ballroom

Sculptural elements

Hidden theatre

Still in flip flops

Thoughtful detailing

Elegant cafe

The Galleon Bar decoration

Deco lighting

The Baronial Hall - quite majestic

Deco tiling

The decoration in the Galleon Bar is plaster, not wood.

Did you notice the beautiful silk curtain in the cafe? It's plaster again!

xx

Corrections

I shall now do my corrections from yesterday. I said that singing The Grand Old Duke of York through twice roughly takes 1 minute - wrong. How do I know this? Simple - because singing it through 6 times is the equivalent of 2 minutes. Therefor I would have to sing it through 3 times not twice to last the 1 minute.

Aha, I hear, 'How do you know this?' (Hi, Jill.)

Back in the schoolroom days of teaching the topic of Teeth and Eating the class was taught to clean their teeth for 2 minutes and the easiest way of remembering was to have everyone bring in their brushes and toothpaste and clean their teeth. Not everyone has a clock in their bathroom so we sang (with actions) The Grand Old Duke of York until 2 minutes was up. We sang it 6 times through while brushing our teeth! It was a strange sight to behold!

Now that I've done my corrections I'll show you some of the teacher comments for today.

Untidy

Spot the plastic bag

Could do better

It IS a working table.

Tries hard

Never looks the same twice - an ever changing view

Good

Who needs matching mugs?

Very creative

Dust collectors

Getting there

Cheers

Excellent

Put up job

It's clear that you have thought this design through. The kitchen ware is both useful and beautiful. Well done. (Why is there a toilet roll in there?)

I am now safely locked tucked away in my loft room. :)

xx

'Folding a plastic bag into a rectangle' or 'I live a sad life!'

I forgot to take my bags to the supermarket so we ended up with a pile of plastic bags. I use plastic bags to put my bread in then as bin liners so they are recycled at least twice. My drawer was looking pretty untidy with all these extra bags so ...

... I remembered that you could fold them to make them very small.

Then I had a play about and folded them a different way to end up as a rectangle.

1. Fold the bag in half as in the first picture, then roll up the bag from the bottom leaving a little bit of handle showing.

2. Turn the bag over and fold one bottom edge to just past the middle.

3. Fold the other bottom edge on top. (thirds)

4. Roll the handle around the package and tuck in. Voila!

5. Both ways took about a minute a bag. (Sing the Grand Old Duke of York twice.)

Now I can fit all these extra bags in the drawer.

xx

PS A very warm welcome to my new follower.

What's for tea?

Leek soup made from leeks from the garden, a stock cube, water, onion and potato all cooked then whizzed up with a little bit of milk at the end,

served with cheese and tomato toasties made with the stale end of a French stick and home grown tomatoes.

For afters - Dorset Apple Cake - 8 oz flour, butter, and brown sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and some of the given windfall apples. I added a little bit of cinnamon too. It was baked for about 45 minutes at 160 degrees C in a fan oven.

This was served with custard and received favourable comments from DH.

xx

Replete

Buy fish and chips and curry and chips.

Eat and watch the sea for a while.

Walk to put the rubbish in the bin and stroll to the water's edge. Hello sea!

Marvel at the tide being in at Granny's Bay. (It's usually out most of the time.)

We are replete!

xx

Finally finished

It's been a long haul from 2012. This blanket was supposed to be mine when it started out but the beginning squares ended up as a blanket for DS and DIL and a blanket for DD. So now 552 squares later (100 + 100 + 352) I finally have my blanket. It measures 16 squares by 22 squares and each square is 4 rounds of Stylecraft DK (plus some other DK that found its way into my basket).

The dimensions are 6' 2'' by 8' 2''.

It drapes down to the ground on our double bed and fits snuggly from the top headboard to the bottom headboard.

The grannies are edged with a ripple edging as I didn't want anything too lacy.

I did 5 rounds of treble shells then 4 rounds of UK dc hooking into the back of the stitches, followed by a round of half trebles, ch 1. From there I did a 'Lucy' ripple but any gentle ripple row would do. There was no base row for the ripple as I wanted a gently wave to the bottom of the blanket. Each ripple row went into the back stitches of the previous row. The final round was a reverse dc round which gives a ridged edge.

Wave, wave.

The original idea was on According to Matt's blog, (whose original idea came from Attic 24 Lucy's blog) and the edging I made up as I went along with ideas I'd read about elsewhere.

So now what?

xx

Moments in time

2/11/13 13.29

So far I've

* cuddled brown Pusscat - he's sleeping it off after having his top set of teeth out 2 days ago. Ahh!!!

* made breakfast

* started off the bread

* tidied the bedroom

* tidied the kitchen

* made some pastry

* made some crumble topping

* cuddled the cat

* made lunch

* listened to the radio

* ironed

* cleaned the skirting boards in the front room

* dusted in the front room - a rare occurence

* polished the brass

* stroked the cat (Pusscat 1 is looking after him)

I am now going to 

* sit for a bit on the computer - hello world

* crochet more of the edging of the 2012 blanket - it's a long way round!

Later I will

* peel some windfall apples (given by a friend) for some apple crumble

* assemble some meat and potato pies and a vegetarian pie with onion, carrots, peppers, cheese, stock cube and anything else that's veggie in the fridge

* knock back the bread and prove

* bake the pies and crumbles

* have tea

* have a bath

* get ready to go out with DD on a night out!!!

:)

xx

14.04

* I'm on the last round of the edge! Whoopee!

14.26

The cats have settled themselves down underneath the blanket. Looks like I'll not be moving for a while yet.

17.30

* Two pies eaten and part of one apple crumble

22.15

* Going home from the night out. It was a cold, blustery night so the blanket came in handy.

3/11/13 13.38

I have just finished the final round of my blanket - yeah! Can't show you any pics yet as the cats are on the blanket.

PS A very warm welcome to my new follower.
xx