CPSH November

This month's Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt categories have been chosen by Emma at The Gift Shed.


Inspiration...

This print is on my kitchen wall and was made by my youngest uncle, a successful fashion designer, when he was at college. Sadly, he took his life a few years back, but having some of his art on my walls is a constant inspiration.


Something I made...

This recipe was too silly to deserve a post of its own but I quite loved it... 'burgers' made with bubble and squeak, fried eggs and mushrooms.


Stripes...

... appear where you might not expect them.

Comfort...

... is entirely subjective


Texture...

My bed curtains.

Go and see Emma to find out what other people have been photographing this month, and to see next month's categories.

Weekword: Content

This week's word is 'content' and hosted by Sally at Diario.


As I'm about to jet off this evening, my contribution this week is just going to be a list of things that mean contentment to me:

• taking my heels off at the end of a long day
• coming in to a warm house after a frosty walk
• waking up on a weekend morning with nothing important to do and nowhere to be
• realising I'm still only halfway through reading a book that I'm loving
• ticking off the last thing on my To Do list
• sitting on the bus with a coffee and my headphones in, not caring about the traffic

And looking through my pictures to find one from a point when I remember feeling contented, I think this one is the winner.

Seems very apt, as it's very similar to what I'll be doing for the next two weeks! See you in a fortnight.

Things to do in December

(if you're not going on holiday....)


Apologies that my posting hasn't been terribly regular just recently. And even more apologies that it's not going to get much better for a few weeks... 


I'm off on holiday tomorrow (hurrah!), have been entangled in trying to find tenants for my flat as I'm moving in January (again, hurrah!), and the actual day job is proving annoying time-consuming. Mostly good things, but it's meant doing all my Christmas planning now, along with putting things in bags and boxes and trying to understand tenancy law!


Safe to say,  none of that is blog-worthy. Or not this blog, anyway.


We're off to Thailand for a fortnight, which I'm very excited about. I've not been to anywhere near that part of the world before. And the sunshine!


However, there are a few things I'm going to be sad to miss:

The Got Craft event at the Tram in Tooting on Sunday, all the way from Canada! It looks amazing and I think is going to be very well supported - people keep telling me they're coming to Tooting and I can't believe I'm away the one weekend it's actually the place to be!

The Crafty Pint Handmade Christmas, again at the Tram, on December the 3rd.

And the second New Vintage in Brixton on the 10th December. (I've only just noticed Nick and I are in one of the pictures of the last one on their blog!)


Anyone who's going to any of these - let me know what they're like so I can be vicariously crafty?

Week Word: Sunshine

John at The Healing Seed hosted this week's word, which is 'sunshine'.

For me, the first thing I thought of was the last two lines of my favourite poem, and then some of the sunflower photos I took back in the summer.

However, in the interests of creativity and originality, this is what I ended up with when I started scribbling after thinking about the word.

It looks more like the moon than the sun, I know. And demonstrates that I've been reading a lot of post-apocalyptic books recently as what came into my head was the recurring sun imagery in Ballard's The Drowned World (again...) and the novella I read this morning where an elderly man sits on a beach as the sun goes down, and tells the story of the end of civilisation. (The Scarlet Plague, by Jack London)

Gosh, that's a pretty miserable result from such a cheerful word! Sorry, and here's hoping for a sunshiney weekend.

New Vintage, Brixton

Having explored Brixton market a little while ago I was very happy to head back there this weekend for The New Vintage, a market held in a bar featuring handmade things with a vintage twist. A wee word of warning though, if you're planning on having something to eat whilst in the area plan ahead! It gets very busy and we ended up doing increasing starving laps of fantastic looking cafes and restaurants whilst hunting for a table!


My favourite items from the fair...

This British Gastronomy print from Lucy Loves This. She also had local and London themed prints but had only ventured as far south as Balham so far. I suggested they should do a Tooting one...

And this pillbox hat from Little Miss B Designs. My love of hats is well-documented and I have a number of weddings to go to next year so am definitely bookmarking her Etsy shop.


There was also a very enthusiastic swing dance demonstration and, for the less energetic, offers on beer and cocktails. The next on is on the 10th December and I think would be well worth a visit.

Week Word: Tea

I happen to work just down the road from a place that's very famous for afternoon tea and I think it dominated my tea-related scribbling for this Week Word.

I doubt they serve party rings, Rich Tea biscuits or fondant fancies there, though.


Head over to The Gift Shed to see what other people have done with 'tea' and to see where to go for next week's word.

If I were you...

I'd head over to visit Emma at The Gift Shed. 

Emma's one of those people who seems to manage to squeeze more out of her days than the rest of us, and her blog's making that very apparent at the moment.

First, she's guest hosting this month's Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt and everyone's welcome to join in.

Second, she's picked this week's Week Word and chosen 'tea'. 

And she's also going to be at The New Vintage in Brixton this weekend which I'm really looking forward to.

Anyone else planning on popping along?

Remember, remember...

Pleased to report that the 17th century supper was a success. It was very definitely historically inspired rather than accurate though, as Tooting Sainsbury's is not well known for stocking usefully obscure products. 


(They do sell jellied eels though. Just FYI.)


All my recipe inspiration ended up coming from the same website, the marvellously named Seat of Mars, except for the dessert which I made up a bit. Links below to the original recipes along with anything I changed.

Spicy Pork Ball Soup

This should have been mutton, but I wanted to do lamb for the next course so went with pork instead. The flavour was amazing... we all thought it reminded us of something but couldn't figure out what. Still haven't.

Oyster Lamb Casserole 

Spinach and Date Fritters

Red Coleslaw

You can get tinned oysters. Did you know? Very useful here. And artichokes in jars, too. The recipe for the spinach fritters misses off the amount of spinach and eggs, but a full bag of spinach and two eggs seemed about right. Oh, and use dried breadcrumbs, not fresh.

The red coleslaw I made up as I thought we needed something a little bit fresher and lighter. I figured 17th century people probably would have had red cabbage, purple carrots and beetroot. If not mayonnaise...

Cider Syllabub

I felt that cider was more authentic than sherry, so went with that. It was supposed to have been served with gingerbread  but that... was not a success. So I grated some ginger Green and Blacks on top instead. Cocoa had just about made it to Europe, right? 

Cider Syllabub

300ml double cream
rind and juice from half a lemon
50g caster sugar
125ml cider
15ml sherry


Mix everything except the cream together in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved. In a separate bowl, whisk the cream until it forms stiff peaks then slowly fold in the liquid. Divide into four bowls and refrigerate until ready (a couple of hours, at least).

I think the most revelatory thing about this meal was that everything tasted amazing! I'm not usually a fan (at all) of fruit in savoury dishes, and would never have dreamed of cooking with oysters, but everything got eaten and enjoyed. It was a really good experience in stepping outside my comfort zone, both in terms of ingredients and style of cooking.

Playing Trivial Pursuit later, however, taught us a different lesson:

No-Bonfire Night

Saturday is bonfire night. I like bonfires and fireworks and the excuse to wear wellies and mittens. Despite the fact that I only ever go to London fireworks these days, and it's generally warm enough to have spent the day wandering about without a coat, I still find it impossible to go to a firework display without putting on wellies, about fifteen layers and, if at all possible, mittens on a string through my coat sleeves. Anyone else do that? A mother's influence lasts a long time...

Anyway, the Powers That Be have decided that due to the Economic Situation the good people of London aren't allowed free firework displays anywhere useful (read: near my house) this year. So we're not going to one. 

(I'm sure there's something insightful to say about the wisdom of upsetting the general populace by not allowing them to celebrate people failing to blow up the establishment, but it's Friday afternoon and I can't quite find it...)

Instead people are coming for supper. And I decided I wanted to cook something suitably themed, so have spent today coming up with a 17th century menu in honour of Guy Fawkes. 

Bangers and mash and a pudding with sparklers in just seemed too obvious.

Come back on Monday to discover whether it was a success! I shall tantalise you with the information that people in the 1600s seemed to really like meat. And prunes. 

When not thinking about meat and prunes (that sounds like an innuendo, it wasn't meant to) I've been working on my keys design:

I'm thinking greys and/or browns for the colours. But that could change.

Have a good weekend, bonfires or not.

New Quilt!

Finally finished prepping all my squares for the new quilt and can start putting it together. It's always a bit disheartening at the beginning, as it feels like there's so far to go. This one's got larger pieces than the last one though, so should come together a little quicker.


Obviously, I forgot what size I was planning on making it in between cutting out the right number of pieces and starting. So I'm fully suspecting I'll end up with one too few or one too many squares. After spending a good hour lying on the floor trying to make the maths work I gave up and started anyway, deciding that if I end up with a gap I'll just add a red piece and it can be charmingly idiosyncratic.

And thankfully I've got the last quilt to sit under whilst I'm sewing this one, for inspiration.