Anne Marie's Doughnut Muffins.

I loved watching 'The Great British Bake Off' and it seems to have inspired a bit of a home baking revival. Yesterday I made shortcrust pastry, I haven't made my own pastry for years. None of this is good when you're a WeightWatcher member.

Didn't stop me from trying out this recipe for these Doughnut Muffins, did it? My motivation to lose weight is low and I'm going to have to catch myself on. Well, I decided I'd make 6 instead of 12!

I only ate one....Promise!

Kirstie's Vintage Home... and a load of old tat.

fabric covered milk bottle tops

Kirstie's back on the tele tonight in 'Kirstie's Vintage Home' and I'll be watching.  This article in the Radio Times made me smile.

 'I love Kirstie but I only make tat.'
Sarah Millican - View from the Sofa | Radio Times

Well even us more experienced stitchers are guilty of that, and guess what?.... I'm busy doing 'Mary's Homemade Christmas' right now and everyone is getting tat!

Well, it's the thought that counts!

Damsons in a pickle.

A few weeks ago some of my damsons were in a jam.  Now it's time to get them in a pickle.
On your marks... get set.... GO.
Ingredients: damsons, sugar, white wine vinegar, spices, blackcurrant leaves.

frozen damsons

blackcurrant leaf

parcel of ginger, lemon rind, cinnamon stick, cloves,
  

remove spice parcel,  gently put damsons in jar

add damson syrup and seal.

Ready to eat in 4 weeks... that's too long to wait.

Recipe from:    The National Trust,  Jams, Preserves & Edible Gifts.

The Botanic Gardens, Belfast.

Ah, autumn colours..... lovely.
I was feeling snap happy today.

My little Canon 'point and shoot' camera takes some good shots but I'm finding it restrictive. When I looked back at this post, and my photos of Botanic, I feel like I've improved.  I think I'd like to be doing a bit more with my photography now.

Yarnbombing continued...

Pictured below are some of the knitted strips our craft group have been busy making for the yarnbombing project.
I missed meeting Michelle Stephens the first day she came to tell us what she wanted us all to do, but I've recently seen an exhibition of her artwork in our local library and it's intricate. Today she was machining strips of fabric together to decorate the bandstand in the park.

This is my knitting. I've cut my strips of fabric approximately 1cm wide and knotted them together to use as knitting yarn.

I 've finished my strip,  6"wide x 50".

Now I like it so much I don't want to part with it!

When the yarn bombing is over our knitting is being stitched together to make blankets for the dogs home.....  so that's not so bad, after all!

The Little Green: Food and Craft Market.

I'm impressed by The Little Green: Food  and Craft Market. This is the second time I've been here now and there's a lot of effort put in to make this a success.

There was a Halloween theme today... with skeletons buried in the allotments.

....and chickens dancing the birdie song.

I spied a witch....keeping an eye on things...

.....there were some weird looking cabbages..

...and a little girl transfixed by all the strange goings on down at The Little Green Allotments.

Yarnbombing.

Now I'm not sure about this yarnbombing thing. I'm in favour of graffiti as an art form but somehow decorating the outdoors with bits of knitting and crochet seems a bit odd to me.  However, staff at the Arts Centre, where our craft group meets, have invited us to take part in an arts project involving decorating parts of our local park at Halloween.
I guess it's a kind of textile graffiti so I'm willing to give it a try.

One of our members brought in these strips of fabric to knit with. I thought they looked too good to be wrapping round trees!

Everyone dived in.. and there's no shortage of willing volunteers.

The yarn looked lovely wound up in balls.

Some of the ladies prefer to knit or crochet with wool.

We have just 3 weeks to make our strips.    6" wide x 50" long.  Here goes....

Jam.

Been on a blogging break over the summer. Time to get back.

I like September. Blackberry picking - jam making. The blackberries don't seem so good this year, but over the fields I know where the damsons grow. I love their colour -  deep purple, almost black - and cloudy at the same time.

I simmered my damsons with water for 30 minutes and then I added the sugar.  I'm sure I could dye some fabric in this!

Removing the stones is the worst bit.

 You can take them out before you start cooking.

Or you can count the damsons in and count the stones out.

I scoop them out when the jam is boiling and hope for the best that I've removed them all.

I always forget to keep enough jars.

These jars are ready for selling at the Craft Fair.

I've done the taste test.   It's good!

Pot - pourri.

It's Rose Week coming up soon at Lady Dixon Park and there's plenty of things there for you to do, but I just like taking a walk and picking up the petals!

rose petals

time for tea

The gardens are looking lovely despite all the rain and I like the patterns left on this wall from previous growth.

cosmos

I put the petals in a bowl and turned them over every day.... and this is how they look now.

So how do I get them to smell nice?

dried rose petals

Owl.

There was a family fun day at Dobbies Garden Centre today.
Sharon, if you're looking in, I thought you'd like to see these photos! A baby owl, just 5 weeks old, was gorgeous, all fluffy and soft. I think this is a long - eared owl in the first photo.

long- eared owl