Sewing Update

 I have been sewing on, slowly and persistently and also knitting.

I am currently sewing a brown 70s style corduroy skirt. I have been increasingly drawn to 70s stuff lately. It was to have been trousers but the cord was too thick.

Projects completed: a festive stretch red velvet dress in the cheapest fabric ever, about £2 a metre. It looks surprisingly ok. 

I am also planning to knit some legwarmers in this colour to try out different cabling techniques 🧶 

And I am doing a skirt and a pair of fingerless gloves for Leen.

For some reason I have hardly any winter bottoms, one skirt and three pairs of trousers one of which is too small. I see more corduroy in my future. 

Pop Autumn

 

I love Autumn leaves and combined with inspiration from an online course on Pop Art here we are. Stencil leaf, acrylic paint, sellotape.

Blairs College Linocut

 

Another doomy linocut of the old Menzies House across the road from my work carpark. Notice impressive old oil tank on left.

Cooking Flavour Experiments

 This weeks cooking experiments include:

Cake of the week: Gingerbread. I love ginger and saw this on Mary Berry. I try and make a cake every fortnight. The last one was coconut celeriac and fruit muffins. I ran out of the specified carrot and apple. Basically most things are ok with enough cinnamon in. 

Breakfasts of the week: avocado toast and eggs benedict

Vegetable of the week: boiling beetroot. I have been scared off by the excessive redness, leafyness and rootyness of the beetroots before but giving it a go as I really love beetroot and the tinned stuff is not very flavoursome.

I like to work each food experiment around a flavour or ingredient that I fancy. Also getting into more Autumnal foods.

Castle Print

 

Then I did a version of my Braemar Castle picture as a mono lino cut. Which do you prefer? 

Breakfast Experiment

 I love a good hearty breakfast. Unfortunately I am also the most useless and grumpy person in the morning. Not a good combo. So to celebrate a week off I am making a week of good breakfasts. All served with juice and coffee.

French toast with bacon

Blueberry pancakes

Banana pancakes with more banana bits and nutella

Hash browns (potato cakes) with sausages

So far pancakes are winning out as you can make them in advance and even freeze them. Requiring less morning effort. And no, I can never face a full fry up although I would consider it minus eggs and baked beans. The best breakfasts I ever had were in Canada, home of very large pancakes. 

Castle Round the Back

 

A bigger building for my round the back series. Braemar Castle; proving that even wonderful old castles need somewhere to put the plumbing, the sheds, the telly aerial and even a cheese press! Just out of sight: a horrible old garage on the right, full of mowers, wood and bits of old furniture.