The adventure of Lucky the Sock Cat

Last Sunday I finished my first sock cat, based loosely on my previous pattern for the sock dog, Lucky the sock cat was created.


She is a lovely smiley creature covered in colourful hearts, with a big round purple nose.
She is made using a pair of children's socks bought from H&M.

Here, although her expression does not portray it she is most upset I neglected to make afternoon tea last Sunday...  I think she is serious about her cakes and pastries!

Finally here's the little noodle demonstrating her pounce of the coffee table in my living room. She was terribly excited as I had got round to sewing on her tail, a tail is most essential for a cat's balance don't you know!

An Afternoon of Foraging

About this time last year I started my first attempt at making wine, I started with something I had available from my garden, the elderberry. I had originally wanted to make elderflower sparkling wine but you only get about a two week window and I missed it both last year and this year!! I blame the English weather hehe.

This year I have decided to do a blackberry and elderberry blend, but was concerned I wouldn’t be able to get enough wild blackberries. The original idea you see sprung from the desire to make something drinkable out of stuff I could get for free.

Well I have been foraging this afternoon (admittedly some of this was done in my parent garden) and have been very successful! I found loads of berries and I also found some sloes to make some sloe gin in time for Christmas.

 

In other ‘produce’ related news I am very surprised to tell you the peppers are starting to change from green to red… we planted the seeds so late in the season I was never expecting them too! The leaves look a little sorry for themselves as we had a greenfly 'incident'.

And I have also had a bumper crop (for me anyhow) of tomatoes, here is a lovely picture of the ripest ones. The big ones are from F1 bush tomato plants and the little tiddler is from a tumbling tom.

Have you been out foraging and found something special? Or have you been growing something yummy at home? 

Don't forget to checking with me on Facebook TheVioletPincushion and the shop on Etsy.com TheVioletPincushion Shop

Operation: Secret Sock Dog

Earlier this month it was my Dad's birthday, now I don't know about anyone else but I have nearly always struggled to find him an exciting present. He is however one of my few family members remaining not to own something animal or creature wise made out of socks, and so operation secret sock dog began!

I found a pattern online, Sock dog, it looked cute (although slightly over the top design), I set about following the tutorial. This turned out to be quite tricky, and I do not recommend this pattern to anyone with out a fair bit of crafting experience, especially as in the end I stopped following it and just used my own experience to finish the dog off! 

 Here is all the pieces after spending over an hour stuffing... it is an art to get the stuffing just right. 

 

And here is the finish sock dog, he has lovely pearly button eyes and for the nose I used a random sock toe from my box of sock bits I seem to have accumulated very rapidly over the last year.

 Isn't he just the cutest thing! I am now on the hunt for some new socks now to make a smaller version (he used an awful lot of stuffing up) to sell on the etsy site.

A couple of new listings up since I last blogged, check them out at The Violet Pincushion!

Ginger beer Experimental Results

It was just over two months ago that I reported on my ginger beer experiment, and I am sure now I can call it a complete success! I have perfected my method completed over ten different batches, at least to make a beer that I like drinking anyhow and have given ginger beer plants to three different people who hopefully have passed the plant on too. I now make a batch every two weeks or so, so there is always something to drink in the house, very handy when you can’t afford to buy anything! It also made a tasty British treat, lashings of ginger beer for the Jubilee last weekend... I do love a rainy picnic!

Alcohol wise I have another two projects in mind for the next couple of weeks, I currently have 4lb of Rhubarb in the freezer waiting to be defrosted to make a white wine, and this will be my first attempt at making a white. Secondly the Elderflowers are starting to bloom, I missed them last year, and they are only really about for a couple of weeks, so I need to get picking to make some champagne!

Finally I can announce I have started stocking my Etsy shop, just search for The Violet Pincushion in shop section or click here http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheVioletPincushion

  

I currently have 8 sock monkeys listed for sale to “test the water” but have several more I can post and other handmade items. This is very much a learning curve for me, especially as I don’t have a lot of spare time, but I hope over the next few months I can make improvements to the shops appearance (any feedback is appreciated) and make an effort to update here and on facebook more often.  

Blood, Water and Ginger Beer

So my ginger beer experiment has continued, with quite positive results so far! Many friends have been surprised at how tasty each batch has turned out, the very first was way too sweet however so I had have half the amount of sugar. The taste is much more balanced with the fire of the ginger now. I currently have 4 gallons of the stuff on my kitchen table that will have brewed for a week as of tomorrow evening... but I only have enough plastic bottles to decant half of it! I will have to plead to my friends and family tomorrow to raid their plastic recycling!

My swimming routine that has been keeping my crafting experiments at bay has continued. Swimming has seriously reduced the time I have to commit to more creative things outside work, however my energy levels have increased so I'm hoping to get my creative routine back in order too. Baby steps.

Finally I gave blood last Thursday for the 10th time, this means I have achieved a bronze award, its only a little certificate and a badge but it’s an important thing to do and I feel most proud to be making the effort. Also happy as I delivered a pint in less than 5 minutes, my previous donation last November was underweight as the vein collapsed so was most determine to deliver this time (not that one is in control of their veins!).

I am going to spend some time this evening designing and maybe stitching some felt Easter egg decorations, similar to the Xmas ones I attempted previously. Might even try and convince my mum to pop over with some ricrac with a bribe of a cuppa. Anyone else making anything nice/edible ready for Easter?

Ginger Beer Experiment

Goodness I have not meant to leave it so long since my last post... I have terribly busy doing nothing very much crafty or experimental! In fact I have mostly been going swimming a lot, and it doesn't seem to leave much time for anything else after work.


I did manage to get round to bottling up some elderberry wine from last year mind. A total of six and a half bottles. Not all are visible as they have been drunken haha!










Two weeks ago I bought something very exciting from eBay, I waited patiently for it to arrive... it was a small packet of dry ginger beer plant! I had been doing a little internet searching for a ginger beer recipe last month and was coming up short, but I was determine to make some as nothing much is in season and I have 8 empty demi-johns. I mentioned it to my dad and he said they use to use a ginger beer plant when he was a kid.... now before I checked good old wikipedia I was extremely confused as to what this actually was! Its simply a yeast culture found naturally on ginger and since getting my hands on some I have fed it sugar all week and then made it up with water, lemon juice and more sugar into one demi-jonh.

 So there it is a gallon of lashings of ginger beer!

Well in  another 5 days that is... next weekend I shall be making two gallons (as you split the culture into two and feed it more), will be experimenting with making a dry version me thinks.

This weekend is going to be dedicated to some crafting, projects to finish include my sock Cheshire cat and two half made monkeys. Projects to start are too numerous to list but hopefully posting on here will get my act together a little!

See you next week (hope the ginger beer hasn't exploded by then!).