Happy New Year

Hello again.  I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas break?  We certainly did, with much rest, family and far far too much food and drink!

I was a lucky girl and got lots of beautful gifts and we had some lovely time away at my parents house in Cumbria, which meant I got to spend a day in the Lake District whilst it was beautiful and snowy.

Crafting though, took a bit of a back seat.  I think after the rush to get the Christmas knits finished I was a bit worn out with it, so the only thing I really did was start to crochet some granny squares for a blanket.  They're fabulously easy to hook whilst watching tv!

All that indulgence has rather taken it's toll though, I've gained about a stone in weight so it's time to "take myself in hand" as my mother says and get back to the exercise I so love! (That's not sarcasm, I really do enjoy working out!)

So I hope to see you again shortly.... until then... a very happy new year :-)

{ Merry Christmas }

Well, i was cutting it fine but I got my festive project finished just in time :-)

One Christmas stocking!

My intention was to make two, but given that I only started at the back end of November I would have been kidding myself.  Anyhow, I've got the yarn there so I can make a different one next year.

I love that this project is going to be kept as a family keepsake for years to come and I've made it in our first married year, hopefully hanging the knitted stockings will be a Fazackerley family tradition for many years to come.

So all that is left to say is to wish you a very Merry Christmas, I hope you and yours have a wonderful time, and remember to take lots of pictures to scrap!

Best wishes, Jenny x

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Well the snow eventually caught up with the North West and we were greeted with quite a covering yesterday morning!

I decided to set out to work late to beat the rush hour traffic so I popped out with my camera to get some snowy shots before it all melted away, as generally, snow rarely settles here so I wasn't expecting it to last long.

Wellies and suit trousers - fetching!!

So I headed back inside and made a cup of tea and eventually called the office to see what was going on.  Hardly anyone had made it in, advice was not to take any risks and work from home! Yahoo, so a day indoors with my laptop, no problem except my client had cancelled our appointment, so I had no work to do... a bonus as I get a day at home, but boo as I don't get paid - but I figured that I'd take a day unpaid over smashing my car up on the ice!

James made it to work, much to my disappointment, I'd much rather we went to play in the snow...

So I took the opportunity to catch up on a few tasks, beginning with decorating my Christmas Cake.

The cake is a really important tradition for me, it's something my Mum always made and I was always involved in so it's something I've taken forward as a tradition for us.

Love my toppers!

It didn't take too long to sort out (I had a spare pack of roll on icing, I'm normally a stickler for using royal icing but I took the easy option this year!) so inspired by the kitchen activity I made a batch of gingerbread for James, as it's by far his favourite baked treat!

And then some mince pies...

Made using an all butter pastry and some stars cut from the left over cake icing.  Cannot wait to try one!

Mince pies are another tradition for me, I've made them every year for as long as I can remember and I always leave one for Father Christmas. It would be rude not to.

Finally I made a quick batch of Cranberry and Almond florentines which I made using a recipe from the Attic24 blog, although I don't have any picutres of those for you as they were setting whilst I had the camera out.

So I'm writing this today again from the comfort of my living room.  I was very very suprised to find that it had snowed again last night, on top of a good layer of ice from yesterdays slush = no way am I going near my car!

Thanks for popping by, I hope you are enjoying your wintry weather and it's not too disruptive for you.

Jenny x

Cailyn :: Revealed!

I started knitting this in February.  Yes, that's almost a year ago!

In all honesty, it hasn't taken me so long to knit because of the size or complexity of the garment, in fact it's very very straight forward, my trouble you see, is that I'm way too easily distracted!

But now it's done, I can breathe a sigh of relief (and start something else, mwa ha!)

The neck band was almost soul destroying, it was enormous and took ages of double rib (k2p2) to do.... but it's done and dusted now (sigh).

So here I am, all snuggled up in front of our electric fire (they don't allow gas in flats around here) and sat on my favourite damask cushions which I made myself back in March.

It's a touch on the big side but for a first garment I'm really happy.  It is super snuggly and I can see many nights cosied up on the sofa in this whilst clicking away at my next projects.

I hope you like it!

Thanks for popping by, I hope you're enjoying the lovely festive snow :)

Jenny x

Lady Luck

In January of this year I made three really big resolutions, and I'm very pleased to report that as of 5pm last night all 3 were fulfilled!

Number 1 - "I want to marry the man of my dreams"

At 11am on 20th June 2009 I got my wish...

Number 2 - "Qualify as a Chartered Accountant"

Well you may remember back in November I was studying like a maniac for an exam?  Well I passed it!  I really couldn't believe I'd done it, three years of hard work are now over and today I feel like I've got a new lease of life and can finally start moving forward without the burden of studies.

I got my results at 5pm last night and I was a nervous wreck before they were published, and an emotional one afterwards!

Number 3 - "???"

Aha!  You're going to have to wait for that one... It's definately done though, I'll just wait until the paperwork is in place before I share ;-)

So today I am feeling very very blessed, and the icing on the cake came as an unexpected gift from my Mum & Dad.  They gave me two discs, with all 300 official wedding pictures and a disc from a photoshoot which took place before hand...

Let me tell you there's some stunners in there - and trust me I usually hate pictures of myself so that's really saying something!

I'm sure you can imagine, as a scrapper it's almost heart stoppingly exciting, I've been waiting to get my hands on these images to really crack on with my wedding album and now I've got both official and unofficial shots all at my finger tips I can really get going *excitement*

Well I do hope I haven't bored you too much... We're off to a Christmas party this evening here...

The world famous Tower Ballroom.  It will be fab, in fact I'd better go and start getting myself glammed up!  I think it's time to celebrate and I'm sure you'll agree :-)

Next time I will be back with craftiness!  I haven't forgotten about that completed project either... I just need some daylight to get some lovely pictures.

Ta ta for now, have a wonderful weekend

Jenny x