Autumn Broth

As the weather turns, I get a hankering for soup. I love making soup, the delicate warmth and simplicity of an autumn broth makes my heart sing. A splendid way to warm the cockles on a blustery day.

My favourite is chicken broth, I prepare my chicken stock over two days, simmering the carcass of a leftover roast chicken and chicken thighs, with nothing more than a whole bulb of garlic, celeriac and an onion. The longer you simmer it, the deeper the colour and the richer the taste.

I then strain it all in a collander, return the stock to the heat, chop some celery and onion, add more garlic (we love garlic) and continue to heat gently, whilst I pick all the chicken from the collander, it falls off the bones, and melts into the broth.

A sprinkling of chopped parsley, a splash of cream, and some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and I am all aglow with the wonder of it all. The children, thankfully, are as enamoured with broth as I am, sometimes we add pearl barley, or lentils, or yellow split peas. However it is made, it is always served with hunks of wholewheat bread, fresh from the oven, and made by my very own Amber's hands (for she is the chief maker of bread in this house).

There is lots of knitting and stitching going on over here, I will be posting more of that soon, in the meantime, I am supping on my Autumn Broth, picking apples, planting Bluebell bulbs, making jam, and enjoying the low autumn sun, whilst it lasts.

A Skirt for Boo

I have been wildly intimidated by the very idea of making clothes, despite becoming reasonably proficient with madame sewing machine.

Alas, 4 children results in copious amounts of outgrown clothing and hand-me-downs, but huge age gaps do not make for particularly handy hand-me-downs... waiting several years before they fit is less than ideal, storing several years worth of outgrown clothing is even less appealing (4 kids take up enough space as it is), so I needed to get smart on the upcycling front, and decided to invest in a wee book to help me along with making little clothes out of bigger clothes, and other handy dandy wee fabric things.

After reading oodles of reviews, I plumped for Reinvention by Maya Donenefeld.
Lots of sweet patterns in this book, far from intimidating, I got to work straight away and set about making the Gatherer Skirt for Miss Boo.

It is called the gatherer skirt on account of there being a detachable apron pocket, with which your wee one can stash gathered goodness. It was this feature that appealed to me, and yet I actually did not complete said apron pocket, because I was woefully distracted by some other more serious mothering duties, such as tackling bastard washing pile and other mundane activities. I shall, however, return to make apron pocket at earliest convenience.

I also attacked my stash, instead of using an old t-shirt. Mainly because I had no t-shirts to recycle and because I have very recently "tried" to have a fabric clear out by creating a "use it or lose it" pile, so actually no recycling took place exactly, but I do have a pile of ready to recycle clothing which will likely sit in said pile a while longer, until I muster the time, energy and enthusiasm to actually recycle them.

I let Miss Boo choose the fabrics, and she also completed the final styling. Needless to say she has a penchant for bright colour and leggings with everything. She also likes sharing her footwear with the Bear....



I am rather pleased with myself, and am now hoping to embark on much more complex and mind boggling clothing projects which may, or may not, make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, but I will try....right after I finish that apron pocket thingy.

Blueberry & Blackberry on Cloth

Blueberries


On cloth, fresh out of the Blackberry juice dye bath, mordanted with alum


Squished


Back into the blackberry juice


2 days later




This one was in Blueberry juice




A few shades of blue and eau de nil

Natural dying is SO exciting!

Weaving a little magic

I have been away a while again, the reason being I am sick sick sick. It has been a major struggle to keep up with general daily chores, let alone the bazillion other commitments I have made, and my blog, swaps and Flickr 365 project have been woefully neglected. It is such a horrible feeling to be so behind with everything :(

I have a pile of washing that is threatening to challenge Mount Everest in height, and the ironing pile, bah, let's not even go there...

Anyways, so much to tell you, and so little time, I will be back soon with all the news as soon as I can drag my sorry ass out of bed long enough to take photos and write it all up, but in the meantime, I wanted to share a little project the children and I did a couple of weeks ago when I wasn't feeling so yuk.

A couple of years ago, we went to the Fairy Fair in Norfolk, England, where we learned to make the cutest fairy wands, and we have been addicted to these ever since.

We normally make them using everything au naturel, sticks from the garden, feathers and what not, but the children received a lovely craft package from their grabdmother, containing an assortment of vibrant pom pom's and bright pipe cleaners, so we had a little fun with these instead....



Instead of sticks, we collected some branches which had fallen from our Willow tree, they were a lovely yellow colour and super pliable, so we braided them into a long wand. Wrapped the lower end in pipe cleaners, which were glued into place to secure them, then threaded pom pom's and pretty foam shapes on to string to dangle from the end.

The point was decorated with a red felt heart for Amber and a felt flower for Hazel, secured in place with more glue and pipe cleaners.



Both the sproglets then decided what kind of magic their pretty new wands would be blessed with (water and moon magic) before skipping off to enjoy some magical mischief.

Needless to say, they played happily all day with their new wands. I tried to follow them around with the camera to get some more shots, but was politely told to "Get lost" as I was interfering with the flow of magic :)