Awwww! Would love to go shorter, but spring has just sunk back to 5 degrees. Brrrr! I can't wait 

One re-used basket. Nothing was bought for this project, but it still has a charm to it, I think. Take that doubters, take that ;) 

This beautiful bear Rose was rescued from the YMCA charity shop in Truro and will be on her way to foreign lands as part of a craftster "Little Visitor" swap. She'll be having advetures somewhere else, while our family gets a little visitor all of our own, who we can take out on dog walks, to the beach, to weddings, bbqs etc.. When our little visitors return they go home with a scrapbook of everything they did, which sounded just awesome to me. 

However, getting Rose's biography ready for her trip has been put on the back burner.. Whisky got very muddy and had to have a bath. He hated every minute of it, but look how fluffy he is now!

A bit too fluffy actually, he's going to need a hair cut very soon, the weather is heating up and I can see him panting a touch on walks, and seeking out the shade. Bless! If only he wasn't such a scaredy cat dog!

When did that happen? March has sprung up on me and we're heading towards a beautiful summer, Whisky is turning out to be a mischevious little poodle. He has chewed post, slippers and rolls of tape. He has finally started to eat out his bowl, but never the first time round, and then looks around like he's starving after he's finally got to the bottom of the bowl. I'm upping his exercise from 45min-1hr a day to 1 1/2 hrs minimum, this doesn't include the multiple times he's out chasing his ball, or pouncing on burnt chips. I start lunch time shifts at a local pub next week, I've told them 4 hrs max, but I will have to be up super early to give him enough exercise to get him relaxed when I go. I'm thinking 2 hrs of walk if I'm off to work, or I need to buy a bike pronto and get him running alongside me. Who'd have thought such a small 6 yr old dog could have limitless energy. 

In the world of craft, my sky blanket is coming along nicely. I decided to use March as my chance to learn how to follow a knitting pattern, but still stick to just knit and purl. I found the perfect one here and even though I had to frog around 10 times, I'm finally getting the hang of following a pattern, and it's progressing nicely now. Yay!

(Pics to follow)


I've been asked how I made up my starter, and the truth is I just read about 10 different recipes and had a go at a sort of meshing of the lot of them. What I've found is that it's not an exact science. If you get it wrong, just add either flour or water and see what happens! It's an experiment, with bread at the end!


Day 1) 75g water 75g strong white flour into a kilner jar (mine is pretty big.. 1 litre or 2 litres.. bigger the better). Mix very well, like with a fork or a whisk. No clumps of flour allowed!
 Stick a piece of masking tape or draw a line where your mix comes up to.. this is so you can monitor progress and give you hope!

Day 2) stir it

Day 3 or 4 (when you remember) go ahead and add another 75g water 75g strong white flour. Mix mix! move up the masking tape.

Day 5,6,7) Stir everyday, and watch for bubbles. You might miss the actual rising because it could happen overnight, but you'll be able to see some residue of the mix on the sides, higher than your masking tape. That means it's working! I was adding in more flour and water every other day, and all of a sudden I got home and my starter had grown to bigger than the jar, and seeped out the sides and run all down my table. I was ELATED! hehe

I found a good trick after you've seen it's started to rise is to add in a bit of only flour or only water, whatever you need to get it to the consistency of muffin batter (quite stodgy).. because it can hold it's bubbles better that way, and I think the yeast that's growing in there likes to breath (but that might just be me). 

As for holidays - I keep mine in the fridge, I think hooch (an alcohol liquid layer on the top) is fine, you can either mix it back in, pour it away or drink it (I haven't tried the latter). Also, dormancy is fine, no bubbles, no problem, just feed it a little flour and water, I go for 50g of each every 3 or 4 days after it's first week establishing. The only thing to be worried about is mould growing on the top. Then you have to start again, but as long as there is no yoghurt in your fridge during your holiday and the starter's lid is on tight, I'm sure you'd be fine for at least a week. 

So February didn't turn out quite as beige as I thought it would. We even had a solid 6 days of brilliant blue sky - albeit it was FREEZING the whole time! 

5 rainy mornings, but that's ok. My garden is missing the rain, it's March and my garden is bone dry!

8 peeks of blue and 9 overcast days, 

Oh, and here's Whisky's impression of a rabbit

I've been distracted away from the internet...

Except to look up anything vaguely poodle, dog training, dog separation anxiety, and rescue dog advice related. Ain't he cute?! He's called Whisky and he's all ours :D Don't you love his monkey eyes? His paw pads are soooo soft, and his hair smells beautiful. 

I did find some time to have another go at making a sourdough loaf, and it went great! I'm SO HAPPY with the holes in this one, it's held it's shape really well, and the crust is incredibly crusty! I've been reading up and it turns out sourdough starters are incredibly temperamental, so I just gave it it's own time. The first rise happened overnight, and we had bread for lunch.

One last thing, make sure you check out my new ATC page on the website. It's got loads of pics of little Artist Trading Cards I've made and received from crafters around the world. 

Just a quick post featuring some of my favourite recent photos - enjoy

Having been inspired by this tutorial I decided to give weaving paper another go. I loved the end effect and I'm definitely going to be trying more! The trick is to fold your strips a couple of times to get a really strong (but thinner) strip. Don't be tempted to miss this essential step. 

I'm seeing endless possibilities in the weave, and getting paper-craft on has helped me decide I'm going to revisit book making, from the simple envelope book up to the hard back. 

Then my third time I also tried putting some blueberries in one roll - but they all seem to have found their way into the middle! Next time I will put all the dough into the one loaf.