Thrifts, makes and a spot of bovver :)

Well, Good afternoon lovely bloggy friends! 
How are you this fine, sunny but chilly Monday?  Hmm?  World treating you ok is it?

Most things are ok here at Little Tiny Towers!   Things are settling down after the stress of Christmas and the New Year.... Takes a while though doesn't it?
I've still been knitting away. Persevering as it were LOL

The only thing I've actually finished is a new knitted pouch that I keep in my handbag at all times with my eldest daughters emergency medication in and a syringe to administer it..

I have previously always had crocheted ones, as I prefer the yarny feel than fabric.

I must say though, I think I prefer my knitted one...

I think I have a kinda love/hate relationship with knitting (Goodness I keep on about it don't I? LOL)

I mean I love, love, love the fabric that stocking stitch produces. I love looking at the little tiny stitches (no pun intended) that the needles produce. But I find the 'getting there' bit tedious in the extreme!!

Honestly, it took me hours to produce that pouch above!

If I'd had a hook in my hand, it would have been about 20 minutes!

Still, as I say, I'm carrying on, and hoping I get faster ;0)

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Now, I thought you may like to hear this conversation I had with my darling husband..

It may ring a few bells with a few of you ;O)

Just picture this.....

There's me coming in the front door with my hands full of thrifty finds..

The Mr says to me "What on earth have you got there?"

Me "Oh just look at these two beautiful lamps I got in the charity shop! They were only £2.99".

The Mr " £2.99? What the pair?"

Me " No, each, aren't they just gorgeous?"

The Mr " What on earth did you buy that old crap for? You'll electricute yourself!"

Me "They're not crap, they're reproduction lamps, and they've even been safety checked!"

The Mr "Where? Let me have a look at them".

Me " Can't you just see why I had to get them? Little Miss will love them and one of them will be ideal for her bedroom!"

At this point he takes them off me, and puts them on the dining room table...

He then plugs 'em in and hey presto they work....

The Mr "Reproduction you say?"

Me "Yep, aren't they gorgous" (again)

"Look at the lines and the simple way the leaves are standing, and those lovely pink roses"

The Mr "Well, if you like that type of thing.."

Me "Oh I do! You know I do"

The Mr " Reproduction? Well, you'd think they would just reproduce the good bits. Why on earth have they reproduced that crappy coloured lead as well? !!"

Honestly folks, what could I say? He is kinda right, but how do I explain what I love about them?

Or do you all agree with him ? LOL

(Just so's you know, the little Miss loved them too :o))

***~~~***

Unfortunately we only have views of houses round here, but the sun rise the other morning was so beautiful I just had to show you. ..

***~~~***

OOoo, I forgot....I'm half way through knitting a tea cozy now... LOL :o)

I'll show you when I'm finished.. :o)

***~~~***

As you may remember, I've been planning a new Etsy shop.

Well, I actually got around to opening one yesterday. I've yet to stack the shelves though, as I haven't finished photographing them, but here's the first brooch I made....

It was my practice one...

I've made a few more now which should be in my new shop later in the week..

I've had a real problem starting my new blog though. I wanted to make a new blog to log all my makes, and new shop inventry etc., but for some reason I'm having a spot of bovver with blogger. He won't let me design the blog? It's just all going weird. I've done a practise post, so it'll let me post, but not let me decorate. Oh well, maybe I'll have to put some stuff on here for now.

We'll have to see....

Anyway, that's it for me this week lovely people. 

I hope you all have a fab week, and the sun shines for you all.

I'll be back in the week to tell you all when I've stacked my new shelves!!!

Have a great week, and take care all,

 Love Donna xx

P.s. Don't forget to do your snow dances this week! I am so missing our real cold weather and the snow!! 



Cooking and memories

Morning my fair blogging friends:o)  (Fair as in fair-weather, but as you're always here in bloglang, fair blogging...see? :o)

Hope this post finds you all fine and dandy :o)

There has been a fair bit of cooking going on in the little tiny household, so I thought I'd have a bit of a tell, and pop in down in my lil' ole' blog for memories sake.

The cooking hasn't all been being done by me, so it makes me extra proud to put the makes down for posterity :o)

First up is the most gorgeous Butternut Squash and pesto tart/quiche thingy.

It's the nicest quiche/tart thingy that  I've ever made up -if I do say so myself :o)

Wholemeal pastry with a handful of chopped nuts baked blind. A layer of pesto on the bottom, then baked, mashed butternut squash, then the eggy, veggie, herb mixture on top.

MMmmm..

Then next up are wholemeal sponge cakes..

They taste gorgeous with pure cane dark brown sugar in the mix..

A bit of dodgy icing..

A pretty shop bought wafer flower, and yummy :o)

And last but not least, the one I'm  proud of..

A gorgeous Lemon Tart made by my eldest daughter..

Under the grill for ten minutes to melt the icing sugar...

And devour with a dollop of (very expensive!) clotted cream!

Oh, it was divine :o)

An extra gorgeous treat for us!

IMPORTANT NOTE:  None of the above are any good whatsoever for your waistline, although highly recommended for your taste buds :o)

If any of you would like the recipes, just say, but I didn't want to just post them for fear of boring you more :o)

Crochet wise, I'm still plodding on with my monochromatic green afghan.

But I've also started these..

Pink and black striped hand warmers for my youngest daughter.

They whip up in about an hour, so are easy and fun to make :o)  (Unless you're doing a different stitch than trebles or doubles)

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And here's one for you memory.

Remember 'The Darling Buds of May' ?

A very young Catherine Zeta-Jones..?

But saying that, she really doesn't look much older now a days does she?..

And one I had to take the other day was when I switched tv on in the early hours, and a re-run of the 'Liver Birds' was on!

Don't tell me I'm the only one who remembers them!

And not only were thay crocheting, but one of them was wearing the most funky crochet top :o)

It made me smile, 'specially with that collar!

~~~***~~~

I'd also just like to say that I'm still having trouble commenting on peoples blogs.

I'm reading them, but when I go to comment and have written it, blogger just swallows the comment and leaves the comment box blank :o(

I still haven't worked out how to fix this, so until then please know that I'm still with you, I just can't show you I am :o)

A few off the top of my head are:

Little Blue Mouse

Crafty cats corner

Vintage Vicki

Hesta Nesta

Jumbles and pompoms

Ribbons undone

Scarlett loves Elvis

Vintage Hearth

And several more, but the names escape me at the moment.

So Hi to all of you :o)

Have a great weekend if I don't speak to you before, and take care,

Love Donna xx

" Bring me sunshine....." 'Morecombe and Wise' -remember?

Hello lovely bloggy people :o)

I do hope you're all fine and dandy this extremely-hot-nearly-the-end-of-September-(what-on-earths-going-on)-day!

My little cars thermometre read 32 degrees today!!!

I'm not that happy about it I can tell you (miserable woman I know :o))

Well for one, me and Mr LTS both have the lurking end bit of the lurgy. So being a hot day has just made our temperatures soar.

Two, where was the blooming sun when we needed/wanted it in the school holidays? Hmm?

And last but not least, our big car that fits all of us in is at the garage for the next few days, so we can't go jolly-ing about in the sunshine for any fossil hunting :o(

(I hasten to add that it is only in the garage after losing the blooming key and thinking we would have to fork out £200!! (yes, extortionate I know) to get a replacement key/card from Renault in France!

I found said car key yesterday sitting neatly on a bike seat in the garage. -this was after searching the whole house and garage for days and NOT finding said car key!)

So now the car is in the throes of being re-paired from his other problems later than he was due to, hence he's not here to drive!

Anyway, enough of that.

I would just like to mention that me and Blogger are in the middle of a falling out too.

I keep leaving comments on blogs, and as soon as I press the 'post comment' button, they keep just disappearing off the screen into blogosphere!

So to all the lovely people whom I usually visit, I have been visiting you, and commenting, but I don't think you've been getting my comments unless they are invisible to me and not to you!

I will have words with Mr Blogger at the end of this post, and see what is going on :o)

OOOooo, I just thought, if he's got the right sulks, I won't even be able to post either will I?

Oh well, if you're not reading this, I can't do any posts either :o)

Now, I was going to post this post on Monday, under the title 'Monday Makes'. Original huh?

But alas I didn't get round to it, and I couldn't think of a 'making' type of title begining with T, so I thought I'd just mention the sunshine :o) Well, I mean I could have called it 'Monday Makes on a Thursday', but that wouldn't have really sat right would it?

Well, this is what I made anyway..

I made this Alsation/German Shepherd quilted stitchery. (I love the word Stitchery. Jennie mentioned it on her blog the other day, and i just fell in love with it. I mean I've heard it before, but it just kinda sounded good to me, right there and then :o)

D'you like it? (The stitchery I mean, not Jennies word)

I'm still a bit unsure about it. I mean, I'm no expert sewist, but I just SO LOVE scraps of fabric. And I always just want them to be sewn together.

 I have a few quilt panels sitting around doing nothing, so I thought I'd just stitch 'em up and see.

But i would like some un-biased thoughts on the subject if you wouldn't mind.

I've put this up for sale in my Etsy store just to see if there's any interest, as I would like to make some more.

So let me know what you think now ok?

Be honest ya hear?

Otherwise I can see me and my loved ones drowning in a pile of my little stitcherys :o)

Goodness, I could be yacking for England tonight couldn't I?  LOL.

I think it must be cos' of that dodgy Mr Lurgy doing his lurking business and stopping me from yacking to everyone around me.

So now I've got all this business off my chest, I'm going to get an early night with my current crochet project/love so's I get up all happy and beaming tomorrow to get up the school, and fight a battle for my eldest :o)  (tell you next time ;o)

Take care now, enjoy the sun (don't forget your lotion and sun brolley) if you live in England, and I hope you get some sun if you live elsewhere :o)

Have a great weekend,

Love Donna xx 

Embroidery and thrifting...

 Evening lovely people :0)

Hope you're all having a fabby weekend.
I can't believe over a weeks gone by since my last blog post! Where does the time go?

I've been busy though. 
This morning, I was lucky enough to get a little thrifting in :0)

So all during this afternoon, I've been having a tussle with blogger, and putting one photo on at a time so that I could get this post written this evening, to show you a couple of my little finds.

First I found this gorgeous hand embroidered table cloth. It's absolutely beautiful..

The amount of hours this must have taken to embroider!

The whole cloth measures approx. 3ft by 3ft.

It has a couple of very tiny stains on it, but otherwise, it's in fabulous condition, and the pastel colours are so vibrant.

I haven't found a piece of embroidery that I like so much in ages...

But saying that, i may still pop it in my shop, I'm undecided as of yet.

Next up I found a banana stand (I think lol )

It was only 50p.

It's got that lovely crackle glaze all over it, which I really like on some things.

I got these 4 sets of cup/saucer/sideplate.

They're Royal Doulton 'Reflections'.

They only cost 40p for the WHOLE four sets!

We need a new address book. This one was only £1.00.

It's got beautiful floral prints running all the way through it.

It's so pretty.

Four miniture bottles for £1.

And travel Scrabble for when my daughter goes into hospital.

I've been busy crocheting this week too.

I've had to running hats to make..

These I crochet in plain trebles, with 'go faster' stripes round the bottom :0)

Then i've been crocheting bunting.

This is it 'blocking' on my ironing board lol.

(This is a good excuse for not doing the ironing, as obviously I can't remove the crochet till it's done :0)

Notice the extra amount of photos?

Well, thankyou all for your advice about blogger. I've been putting them on one at a time, then going away and doing something else, coming back, signing in, and doing it all again !

I'm a bit stressed at the moment. My eldest goes into hospital on 8th February.

This is so they can add an extra drug to her current drug for Epilepsy. This 'll be her 14th drug!

She's having a very bad time with her seizures at the moment.

Hopefully this may make some difference. We have to do it in hospital, as if you don't get the new drug mixed with the old drug properly, she may get toxic poisoning.

So we've got a 2 night stay in hospital.

So if I don't post between now and next Tuesday, you know why and where I am.

Wish us luck if I don't speak to you before  :0)

Take care everyone.

And all you lovely bloggers here and in the USA with all that snow, wrap up warm!

Take it easy.

Love Donna x

BLOGGER!! UURRGGGHHH...

Hello lovely people.

No pictures tonight as I said there would be yesterday :(

I started another post to finish off yesterday's one, and again blogger would only post one photo.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I'll just have to keep trying at different times :)

Or maybe..

Blogger is trying to tell me not to make such long winded posts, and just keep them short and sweet with one picture!  :0]

Who knows..LOL

Anyway, hope you're all fine and dandy this evening.

Don't forget to pop back tomorrow if you've entered the giveaway ;)

Take care.

Love Donna x