The Itch to Stitch.

Wednesday morning, once you get to tea time the week is a downhill slide to the weekend. When I worked a full night shift I loved the fact that I went to work on Wednesday, came home on Thursday and could almost touch the weekend.
Now that I no longer do any paid work I strive to keep the weekend a little special.

I try not to have any housework linger from Friday, laundry does't count as the machine does that. If the iron goes on I am sewing and if the vacuum cleaner comes out it to remove lint and threads from the sewing room. It stops them from walking all over the house.

I got my sewing all done, and the room tidied, and am now itching to get stitching. Nothing in particular, just anything. Sooooo I will be pulling out my last piece of wadding and, fingers crossed, if it is large enough I will be layering another quilt later. If not then I will work on some strip blocks that need another few pieces each.

I did do some knitting on the Advent socks last night. Then this morning I tinked it all back, Never Ever Knit When Tired, it is a simple 4 row pattern. In a zombie like state I knit row 1 on the front, row 2 on the back and so on. Luckily I had only done a pattern repeat and on 1 sock. It still niggled though. To make me feel better I knit 3 full repeats this morning while drinking tea and catching up with Nordic Stitches Vlogmas. Lovely.

Here is this years Christmas fabric, I have made jogging bottoms (called slobbers in this house, as those who wear them just slob around on the sofa.) for the SO and Francesca. I prefer to wear a skirt or dress, I used the Hollyburn pattern which is my favourite skirt pattern by far.

A close up of part of the print.

No, there are no English words on it but it is so bright and happy,

AND

it was £2.20 a metre from The Fabric Guild, I wish that I  had bought more as it is great to sew with and I would have made a dress as well.

I have taken that thought on board and will keep it in mind when I look at buying next years fabric.

I nearly forgot to tell you that I strained and bottled the sloe gin and sloe brandy. 

I have more sloes in the freezer and will be starting next years as soon as possible. I am considering using some of my blackberries to make blackberry gin for next year as well. 

After straining I tipped the sloes into the slow cooker (is that a pun I see before me?) and added the water that I rinsed the soaking bottles out with .Many hours later I pushed the sloes through a fine sieve, discarding all the detritus, and left it to cool overnight. This morning I measured my booty, a pint and a bit, into a pan. Poured in 1 lb of granulated sugar and boiled it up, it reached setting point fast and I have 2 jars and a tester of something that is not quite a puree but thicker than jelly.

It is both sweet and tart at the same time and still has a little of the 

"draw your bum up to your elbows" quality about it (Granny again).

I am hoping that it will perform like a souped up redcurrant jelly in various recipes, ie Cumberland sauce to go with my baked gammon.

Time will tell.

And on that cheek clenching note I am off to get the dogs out, the lazy pair are snuggled up on the sofa SNORING.

                           TTFN                               Pam