Diamond's are a girl's best friend or are they?

Hello from a wet and windy South East coast, this weekend has been rather wet and un-summer like and I am not going to be best pleased if the weatherman doesn't bring us good news before our camping trip next week :0(




Pretties from some rose plants I bought for £1.99 each in Aldi in April 2011


Did you have a great weekend? I had a busy but happy one with one thing and another occuring in this neck of the woods. I did have the sheer indulgence of watching Gandhi on DVD start to finish on friday night (3 hour epic movie)as Alice was having a sleepover at a friend's house and I loved it just as much as I did when I saw it for the first time about 15 years ago. I have a heart for any social injustice and felt so very inspired by this very beautiful man. If you like long and true story movies this is one to watch. I have Doctor Zhivago next on my 3 hour epic DVD list (I like to watch this movie every 5 years or so). Are you are movie lover? Before we had Alice I used to go to our local arts cinema weekly and get my dose of the weird, wonderful, dark and sometime comical arts cinema projections, these days it's more like snuggle up on the sofa and hire a DVD in the comfort of my ow home.

How on earth did I get on the movie tangent... right, back to the topic at hand!

So, it's all about the subject of diamonds, not of the sparkly kind mind you, rather of the woollen kind {sorry to dissapoint if you were hoping for the former kind}. I don't own a diamond, in fact I have only the tiniest amount of gold on my wedding ring which is mostly a hammered silver band with tiny gold and silver daisies on it with the odd opal stone centre, I'll show you one day if you like? It was designed by an Israeli jeweller and we found it in the Bohemian lanes in Brighton. I didn't want an engagement ring and hence no diamond {I also worry about blood diamonds}.

What I can show you is my latest woollen diamond conquest though, 

Did you spot them? Did I tell you that I had to frogg rows and rows and then re-frogg rows upon further rows of 210 stitches to create such sparkly wonders of my woolly universe! I was like a dog with a bone and was determined to perfect these babies and by the time I did I most defnitely was wondering who suggested diamonds are a girl's best friend!! (I know Marilyn certainly suggested this in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 1953)

So the blood

sweat and tears

have hopefully paid off and now I can relax before the next row of diamonds are due!

I am in the process of knitting the Tappan Zee pattern found on the oh most fabulous knitty website which is chokka blokka with beautiful designs and patterns to choose from and guess what they are FREE like all the best things in life. This web site was mentioned in Jane Brocket's Gentle Art of Knitting book which I purchased back in June and knew I was on to a winner when I first visited it. Have a browse and see what you think, my next dream cardigan I would love to knit is the King of Confidence .... oh scrummy autumnal colours.

I was in my LYS the other day and someone was saying that you should knit for winter in summer despite the heat and of course that makes perfect logical sense but sometimes I just prefer to knit / crochet with cool cottons in the heat.

While I was cursing cherishing conquering my diamond knit yesterday, little miss Alice and her a friend were baking peanutbutter biscuits and shaping them into buttons by making button holes with straw ends from a recipe which I'll share with you. I discovered this recipe when I was about Alice's age (10ish) and have baked them ever since.

Note the 1980's 'olden day' fonts on my mum's type writer

ps. Please note that if you fancy giving these a go there are a few big typo's ie. the millilitres (ml) are meant to be grams (g)and if you take these out the oven after 8-10 minutes they will probably end up nice and chewy if you prefer them that way, trust me I've made these more times than I care to remember. They are delicious and perfect 'dunkers' for cups of tea. 

Of course we had to put a modern twist on them...

A bit of Galaxy chocolate never goes a miss in this household xox

Thanks for popping in and see you all soon xox