Doing nothing - well, almost nothing

I've been learning to do nothing. It's really good for you - I read so in the paper. Although apparently, unless you are dead, you are always doing something. However, doing nothing is supposed to help boost your creativity; your brain needs the 'downtime'; you're more likely to be able to regain your own attention (whatever that means); and being busy isn't always about doing the important things in life. At least I can agree with that final point.

Mind you, I'm still none the wiser as to what 'doing nothing' really entails. For example, does lying in a hammock and reading a book count as doing nothing or do I technically have to put the book down and contemplate the sky? And what about swimming? I mean, apart from keeping count of how many lengths I've done, surely that's downtime for my brain? Or perhaps not? Or perhaps I should just not count the lengths?

Oh let's face it, doing nothing really doesn't come naturally to me. Not if I have to ask so many questions about how to do it!

So, apart from 'indulging' in lots of un-busy swimming and reading, I've also turned my attention to making some presents. Of course, the alternative to making presents is buying them but even I know that shopping cannot possibly be counted as doing nothing, so I'm just hoping that blanket stitching whilst listening to a radio drama is.

Anyway, as a result of my doing nothing, or at least as close to doing nothing as I have so far managed, I have made another of my appliquéd blankets. I'd bought the fabric about six months ago but with a birthday rapidly approaching, it finally made it to the top of the list of projects.

Having not made a blanket for ages I'd forgotten how satisfying and relaxing I find the whole process. And perhaps it's as close as I'll get to doing nothing - after reading and swimming of course!

A crocheted menagerie

My summer of crocheting is going very well indeed, which is just as well since the weather has generally been pretty miserable to date. However, I have found it very easy to while away a cloudy Sunday afternoon catching up on Radio 4 dramas whilst crocheting toy animals.

When I completed my second animal from the Edward's Menagerie collection, I was only planning to make one more. This would have seen all three 2016 babies catered for. Or at least, so I thought. That was until the glamorous grannies in the office caught wind of my new project and a couple more requests came winging my way.

As a result, I've now made three more animal toys, with the last due to meet its new owner tomorrow.

The first bunny proved so popular that it was swiftly followed by a second.

The much awaited elephant then made an appearance.

Followed this week by Winston the Aardvark.

I have one more planned before I will probably be hanging up my crochet hook for a while. Well, that is unless someone else I know happens to announce that they're pregnant! But for now, the weather is improving and it would be wasteful not to dig out the hammock and enjoy the sunshine for a few hours...

Strawberry Pot Secret

Have you ever been challenged by a strawberry pot? I mean the garden plant pot that has holes around the sides so that you can grow plants out of them as well as out of the top.

They always look lovely planted up with cascading plants but I then find them impossible to water. Watering from above invariably results in the water running out the uppermost holes in the side, never reaching the bottom; and the pot is generally too tall for it to be able to be effectively watered from standing it in a saucer of water.

Well, I am happy to now be able to share an ingenious secret watering device for just this sort of pot. It comes in the shape of a disused bit of plastic waste pipe - the sort that runs from the plughole of any domestic sink to the drain. I had salvaged one from my old kitchen before the skip was collected and it was just a few centimetres shorter than my strawberry pot.

First things first, you need to drill a series of small holes into the waste pipe so that it is entirely perforated.

Next, take your empty strawberry pot and line the bottom with gravel to aid drainage and give your pipe something to stand up in. Nestle your now very leaky waste pipe in the centre and fill that with more gravel. It should now be able to stand upright in the centre of your pot.

Now begin to plant up your pot, being careful not to get any soil into the pipe as this will just silt up the gaps between the gravel.

Once fully planted you can water the pot by pouring the water into the pipe. It then gradually seeps out of the holes you drilled into the surrounding soil. Well, that's the theory anyway. Fingers crossed it works!

I've planted my pot up with six different varieties of thyme - Broad Leaved, Orange Scented, Lemon Variegated, Foxley, Silver Posie, and Creeping Red - with some less-hardy parsley and tarragon in the top, which should be easy to replace since it's unlikely to survive the winter.

A badger for a bag

There is a club whose mascot is a badger wearing a yellow scarf. It transpires that, for a number of very practical reasons, the female members of this club all have very similar handbags and, as a result, I was asked by one of the members to create something that she could attach to her bag to make it a little more distinct. After all, it's no good arriving home, sticking your hand into your bag to retrieve your door keys, to find that you've accidentally picked up someone else's. Chances are you would also be missing your mobile phone, probably all your phone numbers, and any means to pay for a locksmith.

A badger seemed like the obvious adornment and, indeed, what had been requested. And so it was that I sat down for this month's craft club with a very particular mission.

It has been a while since I needle-felted anything three-dimensional. My first attempts had been rather tiny key rings but knowing how hard detail is to create in miniature I decided to go a bit bigger this time.

Earlier key rings for a couple of newly-weds...

...and for my rhino-collecting friend

For a whisky-loving Dad

And perhaps my most ambitious project to date - yes, it's tiny!

Fortunately I had a good source of inspiration from a book of British mammals. I've had it for years but had only unearthed the other weekend when I was having a clear out. Not only did it have a family of badgers on the cover but four pages inside with lots of different and very beautiful illustrations of this elusive creature (sadly, I've never seen one in the flesh - and alive - just on television or squished by the side of the road).

Anyway, I began by making a simple cylinder for the body and a ball for the head, always leaving loose fibres at one end so that they could be felted together.  Then came four small, relatively flat cylinders for the legs, again with loose fibres at one end to aid attachment. These were all in black. I then took a blend of cream and light grey to make a tail, in a similar fashion to the legs, but much smaller; and then two tiny black ears, each backed with an even smaller bit of white.  All these were felted together and worked with the barbed needle to get the right overall shape before adding elements of white and light grey to give the animal its distinctive markings. Initially my fellow crafters seemed surprised to see me adding grey as people often think of badgers as being black and white but my trusty field guide assured me otherwise.

I was quite pleased with the final result, the yellow scarf enabling me to securely fix in place a keyring so that it could be attached to the handbag and, hopefully, make it easily recognisable.

International inspiration

Whilst on holiday in Amsterdam last summer, I stumbled into a shop selling all things Egyptian, including some beautiful metal lamps and lampshades. I fell in love instantly!

Not quite knowing where I could put such an item, I practiced extreme restraint and merely took down details and enquired about shipping costs to the UK. However, that has not stopped me from thinking about them ever since and, as I planned my new kitchen in the autumn and turned the plan into a reality this spring, they were very much in my mind. In fact, one iteration of the kitchen design went through a very North African phase before being reigned back into something a little more monochrome, but hopefully far more adaptable over the years to come.

And so it was this weekend that I finally made the curtains for the patio doors.  Requiring just over 10 metres of fabric, it took three trips to the fabric shop before they had enough in stock. Naturally, the fabric was chosen with the lampshade in mind. Still in simple black and white but with a dot display that hints at the lampshade pattern.

In the spirit of restraint and recycling, I reused the linings and heading tape from the old curtains, which made the construction of the new curtains a little swifter, and so the job was completed in a day. And what a difference it makes to the room to have the curtains up!  I am delighted with the finished results.

Well, I say 'finished' but really the finishing touch will be the lampshade. I just either need to track one down in the UK (John Lewis, very expensive) or send off an enquiry to Amsterdam (perhaps those shipping costs were quite reasonable after all?)

Sounds like a job for next weekend...

Emma the bunny

In between snagging the kitchen and fitting in a much-needed holiday, the crochet hook has been out once again. Let's say I've now officially got the Edward's Menagerie bug...

After struggling (and failing) to make the elephant for my friend's baby at Christmas, my crochet hook and the pattern book were banished for a good few months. However, the impending birth of my cousin's baby made me have another go and, you may recall, the camaraderie of Craft Club in March ensured that my second attempt at crocheting a toy animal was much more successful. Not that I think my fellow crafters think much of my new favourite pastime since I'm completely incapable of talking and crocheting at the same time.  I find myself having to constantly count the stitches as I work my way around each of the pattern pieces. Even, heaven forbid, perform my times tables as I go so I know when to increase or decrease. However, I promise I can listen and crochet, even nod my head when offered a cup of tea!

Anyway, the animal I chose to make this time around was Emma the bunny and I'd made all but an ear and her tail prior to yesterday's crafty gathering so I could join in much of the chatter as she was stuffed and assembled.

I'm afraid I didn't get to take any photos of the creative process but we (Emma and I) have just completed a photo shoot and are happy to give you a sneak preview. Mind you, I'm not sure how photogenic she is (shh, don't tell her I said that) as I think she looks far cuter in real life.

I'm now feeling confident enough to reattempt the elephant so watch this space for how I get on. With two babies due this summer I should be well prepared with gifts, even if the kitchen does go another month or two without any curtains!

Energy Balls

The past few weeks have been completely dominated by preparing for and then having a new kitchen fitted. First there was the task of emptying all the kitchen cupboards, lugging all the loose furniture upstairs to the spare room and taking everything off the walls - curtains, pictures, the clock and the calendar, the latter two meaning I've been a bit lost; then there was setting up a makeshift cooking station in the laundry room; and that was before the contractors arrived to create more dust that I could really cope with. I'm sure you can picture the scene: you glance down at your leg in the middle of an important work meeting and notice that there is an unmissable smudge of white dust all the way down your right leg!

All this has required boundless energy so I've been keeping a good stock of 'energy balls' in the fridge to keep me and everyone else going. Fortunately they don't require any cooking and can be rustled up in a fairly small space. When I say, don't need any cooking, I guess I should qualify this. The recipe does ask for 2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil, but fear not. Coconut oil has a very low melting point so placing your oil on a radiator, boiler top, sunny windowsill, even in the hands of a very warm-blooded person should do the trick, particularly for such a small quantity.

The original recipe is from the Sainsbury's Magazine and made with dates and cashews but I've also been experimenting with other combinations and shapes.

The first of these was to substitute the dates with dried apricots and the cashews and cashew butter with almonds and almond butter.  The results were just as delicious.

Apricot and Almond Energy Balls

I've now just made up 1.5 times original recipe and pressed it all into a rectangular tin, rather than shape the mixture into balls. It's a lot less messy than making the balls but a top tip, should you choose to make the balls, is to ensure you have wet hands.

Once set, I cut the slab into cubes, which I'm hoping will be easier to pack into a lunchbox (less prone to rolling around!)

Cashew and Date Cubes

Once this batch has been consumed I've already decided on the next flavour - hazelnut and dark chocolate, inspired by a visit to friends the other weekend. I'll stick with the dates but use hazelnut butter and chopped and toasted hazelnuts rather than the suggested cashews but will also sprinkle in some dark chocolate chips. I'm also considering something with lemon zest in but will mull that idea over a bit more.

Right, time for a cup of tea and a cube of energy I think!