Ann's Cross Stitch

Andy just loves painting and did so this afternoon for the fourth time today. When I saw Cindy afterwards though I had my suspicions that more than the paper got painted.



The things best friends would endure are endless.

I went through the house at Andy's level and wiped all the walls but the worst was at the front door and his room. We left him unattended one night for less than one minute with a crayon (he was busy drawing on paper by the coffee table before bedtime) and we had a scribbled orange mural at the front door. The one wall in is room where his art table is also had scribbling and I tried everything to get it off but the cleaning products was no good. I tried the really expensive type and also the not so expensive but the only thing that worked was the cheapest, purest form of soap (ironically). So here's the wall in his room before we started...



Here's the award winning soap...



Here's mommy's faithfull little helper...



And here's the wall restored to it's former state of cleanliness...

Andy's Jack Russel puppy, Cindy, is his best friend and they do everything together but really, this is taking it a bit far. I was busy on the laptop in the lounge while Andy was having his bubble bath. I, of coarse, always leave the door open and keep a sharp ear out. All of a sudden I heard him giggling his head off, the same giggle he does when Cindy licks the back of his neck and tickles him. I ran to see what it was and found this...



Cindy had desided to join him in the bath! It was so funny for a moment I could do nothing but laugh then I ran for the camera and then took them both out the bath. Never a dull moment with a toddler and a pup.

Over the last few months I've been taking part in a six person Round Robin. This is a group of cross stitchers living in different countries that stitch on rotating projects untill your own project returns home completed with six designs. I was really excited about framing my piece for our home when it got home but unfortunately it's not coming home (sniff, sniff). It got lost in the post inbetween Scotland and India and unfortunately had a priceless value to me that cannot be replaced. The RR leader was real nice about it and offered to somehow replace it but at the moment and for many years to come I want to forget that something like an RR ever existed and so will not take part in one again due to acute disappointment. Here's a photo of the almost finished piece before it got lost on the way to India...



I just love that material I bought (sniff, sniff)

Off to go bawl my eyes out now...

...the most delicious caramel corn I've ever had. I made it last night for the first time and Luke liked it so much he asked me to make another batch tonight. So I made it again and took some pics so I can put this picture instructions for the recipe on my blog. Here goes...

INGREDIENTS
8 cups popped popcorn
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine
3 tablespoons corn syrup (I couldn't find this in our local supermarket so I used maple flavoured syrup instead - which worked just as well)
1/4 teaspoon each salt & baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Arrange the popcorn in a well oiled large deep oven pan.



Get out a small sauce pan and combine the brown sugar, margarine, corn syrup and salt over low heat. After the margarine melts, cook without stirring for 3 minutes. It should be bubbling gently during the 3 minutes. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you do not stir it.



Stir in the baking soda and vanilla. Quickly pour this over the pan of popcorn. Mix gently to coat the popcorn evenly. It will not totally cover the popcorn at this stage so don't worry if it looks like there's not enough syrup.



Bake the pan at 160 degrees C (300 degrees F) for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and stir well. Lots of the syrup will lie at the bottom so you need to stir all that into the popcorn.



You can leave it in the pan to cool but must gently and often stir it and shift it around so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. I like to gently stir it all the time till it's cool (which doesn't take very long) as this prevents it from sticking as well as seperates it from each other so that it does not form large clusters. Here's a close-up of the coated popcorn.



This caramel corn is so good that it's highly unlikely you'll have leftovers, but if you do you can store it in a sealed container, or bag. It is good tucked into lunch boxes too.

Okay I've finalized my list and cut down on one or two projects that I've hardly started and has no purpose. I worked on Aiden's jersey today and aim to have it done by next week. I think the best is to concentrate on one project at a time and stick to it til it's done. So here's my current list:

Knitting:
Aiden's Jersey
Andy's Jersey

Crochet:
Red shawl
Pink tote bag

Cross stitching:
Masters of the air
Lion
Popcorn sampler

Sewing:
2 regency aprons

I was taking a snack to Luke this evening in the room so within 1 minute of being out of sight Andy was on the dinning room table trying to plug the ipod cable in the USB port. Like father like son. When it comes to technology Andy's right at home. He connects to the internet on the cell, switches on the computer and puts a cd in the cd rom.

I absolutely LOVE this book and would often drool over these pages instead of reading a novel or any other book (except Jane Austen of coarse)



This is the Masters of the Air project I'm busy with (posted a WIP pic a few days ago). I'm going to stitch the eagles and then the face and profile of Bro. Branham instead of the two owls cause I don't like owls very much and I thought I could then donate the final framed piece to our church.



This is another one of my favourite charts in this book. I decided to stitch and then frame the male lion as a present to a very special lady who knit a few things for Andy and who lives on the other side of the world. I thought an African animal with the words 'hand stitched in South Africa' stitched under it will make a nice authentic present.



So this afternoon I got the supplies out of my stash and have now officially added another project to my WIP list (sigh)

I'm very cross with myself as I've done what I was deturmined not to do. I started two new projects. A cross stitch and a crochet one. Instead of using my time wisely and doing my crafts when Andy is sleeping I browse the internet and get tempted by new, exciting projects. Like now for instantce. Andy is sleeping so why on earth am I on the internet busy blogging. I should be sitting on the couch right now working on the new project I started and actually getting somewhere with it before I start another one...

...OFFLINE (to crochet)

I sewed this two weeks ago for Andy. We went to my mom for tea on Saturday the 10th as it was her birthday as well as mine and we always celebrate it together so I wore my new velvet regency dress that I sewed and I sewed this cordroy outfit for Andy. I bought the material at a shop that sells Woolworths material and was planning to make it out of tracksuit material but apparently cordroy is the 'in' thing this winter in Woolies so I got this and navy as well which I made two pants out of for him. It feels nice and soft and comfy not only to the touch but to my heart when I see my darling son wearing something I sewed for him. (sniff, sniff)





Sorry for the poor quality of the pics but my sister had to take it with her cellphone cause I forgot my camera at home.

I baked these peanut butter biscuits for the first time last night needless to say it disappeared within 24 hours. Andy absolutely loved it. This morning when he woke up he went to stand in the middle of the kitchen pointing to the cookie tin and saying 'Aaaaa, Aaaaa' over and over with his mouth wide open. I thought they were great too and Luke said they were delicious so here's the sucessfull recipe for anyone else who want to try...

PEANUT BUTTER BISCUITS
For added crunchiness, stir in 1/2 cup peants, coarsely chopped, with the peanut butter.

1 1/4 cups plain flour
2.5ml bicarbonate of soda
2.5ml salt
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
5ml vanilla essence
1 1/4 cups cruchy peanut butter

Sift together the flour, bicarb and salt and set aside. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

In a third bowl, mix the egg and vanilla, then gradually beat into the butter mixture. Stir in the peanut butter and the chopped peanuts, if using, and blend thoroughly. Stir in the dry ingredients. Chill for 30 minutes, or until firm.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/ 350 degrees F. Grease two baking sheets. Spoon out rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough and roll into balls.

Place the balls on the baking sheets and press flat with a fork into circles making a criss-cross pattern. Bake in the oven until lightly coloured, about 12-15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.




I looked for a apple fritter recipe and just couldn't find one that sounded nice so I felt adventurous and made my own this evening. Here's what I did:

Lightly beat 1 egg
Add 3-4 grated apples (peeled) (I used small ones)
Add 1 pinch salt and 2 tsp sugar
Mix well
Add 1 cup self raising flour
Mix well
Add 1/4 - 1/2 cup milk
Mix till thick batter consistancy
Drop tablespoons full in a lightly greased pan and fry till golden brown and done.

Hope those instructions made sense. I served it with suryp on top. Luke is not fond of fruit at all (he has his fruit in the form of juice made with our Kenwood juicer) so he said he'd only have one but after he tasted it he asked for a few more so I guess that's proof enough that it came out nice. I thought it came out great so my search is over as I'll use my own recipe in future.

Every afternoon before Andy has his nap he goes to lie on the bed and waits for me to bring him his bottle. I just had to run and fetch the camera when I came into the room and saw Andy and his best friend Cindy (his 5 month old Jack Russle puppy) lying on their backs waiting for me. I don't know if Cindy was also expecting a botty but at least she could join in the fun with playing with Andy before he had to have his nap.

I sewed these and am sewing more on an ongoing basis as I intend of having a cupboard full of regency era dresses and wearing only that. So here's the first two to my collection:

Blue Check Day Dress:
It has short puff sleeves, buttons down the back, cord round the empire waist that ties at the back, a gather at the top of the back skirt and a slight train at the bottom of the back skirt:



I did the buttonholes by hand and felt very Jane Austenish sitting in the lounge sewing on my regency dress



Brown Velvet Dress:
This one has long sleeves, buttons down the front, a gather at the top of the back skirt and a slight train same as the Blue check day dress. The skirt is made of velvet and the inside of the colar and the outside of the arm hole openings have a thin velvet trim.



Here's the gather at the top of the back skirt:

Luke's been working really hard as always and have recently recovered from quite a bad flu so I thought it'll be nice for him to receive a present from his little son when he comes home from work so Andy and I made a decopage holder and I bought some droewors from Boesmanland Biltong and put it in a paperbag in the holder. It came out really cute so here's some photo instructions of how we made it incase anyone wants to try it with their little ones...

We cut the top third of a plastic 2 litre coke bottle off and took a painting and a drawing that Andy did and tore it into strips, then decopaged the strips onto the bottom two thirds of the bottle (you can use pretty serviettes too or what ever you want). We used podge (the glue you use to decopage with) and put a layer of it on the clear bottle then smoothed the paper on and put another layer of podge ontop of the paper. We used our hands but you can use a sponge too if you don't like getting messy:



Wait for the podge to dry completely then cut four strips down half of the bottle. This makes four flaps. I folded the front flap down to demonstrate what I mean:



Fill the container with goodies, fold all four flaps down overlapping one another and tie a ribbon round:



Luke really enjoyed the gift and Andy was really proud to give it to him (obviously also claiming the first piece of droewors).

I hope these instructions made sense and will come in handy.

This is my Masters of the Air cross stitch project. I've done the bottom half of the large middle eagle head. Around it are smaller eagles still to be stitched.



This is a Popcorn birth sampler I'm doing for a suprise gift. (Just holding thumbs the baby is a boy as I've made it blue).



Here's a close-up of one of the bears:



This is the hooded jersey I'm knitting for Andy...



... and this is the same pattern I'm knitting for one of Andy's friends, Aiden, who is 9 months old so I'm knitting it a size smaller.



I took a pic two days ago of the red shawl I'm crocheting but I've been working on it ever since then so I'm almost half way with it now. Hopefully you'll be getting a finished pic of it soon instead of a WIP.