Nayu's Craft Time #145 Craft mania!!!

1 pair of squares sewn, trial piece of 4 squares sewn, and pile of squares with a few pinned & ready to sew!

Full post coming soon, but thought you'd like a peek at what I've been up to! It's a quilt project which I'll explain hopefully tomorrow - been super tired this weekend as I get over the initial side effects of my mega meds. Chat soon!

Kind of here, kind of not

Hope to post soon, but had my lovely mega strong pain meds yesterday so am coping with the initial side effects which have me almost climbing the walls at times, and feeling equally rubbish too. I'm reading, gaming, & watching anime which cheers me up! My thoughts are all over the place, so being coherent isn't on the cards just yet. (This is a near duplicate post from Nayu's Reading Corner)

Nayu's Craft Time #144 Speedy post!

I totally feel like this super fluffy cat! My previous cat was the same colour, less fluffy, loved broccoli and drooled so much when he was happy! RIP Tolly.

I'm typing this as fast as I can today, since I haven't been 100%, hence the silence yesterday. My body is being it's usual self, so nothing new other than my energy levels being in the zero category. I've managed a bit of gaming, less than 50 crochet stitches (I'm guessing, it wasn't much before I had to give up), less than 50 sentences reading, but thankfully watching anime was an activity I could handle yesterday. Clocked up 4 discs of the 1980s anime Georgie, French version. I mention this because it's initially set in the Australian countryside on a farm, with a super cute and cheerful blonde girl growing up in her family of brunettes with a mysterious bracelet always on her arm (apart from when she accidentally loses it and it gets stolen on purpose. The point I'm making is that at that time period there was lots of work to do, and the mother knits clothes! I don't have the time to search for the exact picture, but here's what the anime looks like...

Georgie with her beloved adopted koala pet, who isn't good at climbing & frequently gets into trouble. To stop Georgie finding out she's adopted her mother, who is good, plonks Kiin (I'm not sure of the spelling for the koala's name) on the table, so of course Georgie is distracted and tells him off for climbing up there - his perplexed expression is priceless!

...so cute! Georgie does grow up throughout the anime, and finds her family...who are exiles (slaves? brain not working enough for exact translation from the French words. I know what they mean, but finding the words is tricky...) which brings a whole load of problems and joy. I'm eager to watch more tonight! 

Today's highlights include posting stuff at the post office and visiting my village recycling centre - I know how to live it up! The rest of the time has been resting. No craft today, too worn out. But, I've ordered a fun craft book - DK books are always amazing, so I'm stalking my post box until it arrives. I hope you all have something fun arrive in the post soon! (Aside from bills, although if you're paperless these may just show up in your email address). 

I adore USA post boxes (mail box) - this one is very English in nature!!

Nayu's Craft Time #143 Necessary Tasks Take Time!

I love this nifty paperwork storage idea from Pinterest!

I'm writing this post as I sort some paperwork, which includes scanning it into my laptop and printing several copies. If you've done anything using 3 aspects you know just how time consuming it is. I'm convinced it always takes way longer than you expect, especially when you forget to add in topping up the printer with paper, rescanning an item because you accidentally delete it before saving it etc. That's why I saved this task for another day, today, as I knew it would take time and I was already tired from filling in said paperwork. 

Tick tock! Time passing would be cuter if I had this adorable rose clock!

When I've got dull/pointless but necessary tasks like this I do try and do them in the morning, as that's when I usually have vaguely more energy and motivation too. Somehow knowing that once I reach lunch time I can then relax makes me feel so much better about putting the effort in, even if I'm sluggish. I'd like to head to the post office today, but that depends what time I finish this. If I don't make it in time then it'll be a trip for Monday. Oh and I've manage to schedule a few book reviews for Nayu's Reading Corner inbetween button clicks and paper changes - go me!

Due to the time and energy this takes I won't be doing any sewing today - I may however do some crochet later, as I've got several audiobooks to review! It depends how I feel after relaxing with anime. So craft is still happening! I hope I can do a bit of editing my novel later too. 

Whatever the weather, and whatever you're up to today I hope you smile lots and have some fun! 

Some of you may be soaking up the sun with a picnic in the park!

Nayu's Craft Time #143 Healthy Vegan Lentil, Grains & Spinach Dahl, Crown Fishing & Secret Baking Project!

I had this for lunch!

Afternoon everyone! I hope your week has gone well/as well as it can depending how life is treating you at the moment. I've been quite flakey the last few days, so been resting a lot. I've done a bit of crochet - although not enough to show you, but some progress is better than none. I managed to make this super easy & fairly quick (minus the whole boiling) lentil & mixed grain/bean dahl. 

I used a so-called soup mix which was full of various lentils & grains/beans/peas (no liquid or flavourings in it, so not sure why it's a soup mix as all my soups exclude beans & grains), plus added some red lentils (I unearthed the packets from the pantry and want to use them before the sell-by-date). Once those were cooked according to the instructions which for the soup mix included overnight soaking, I threw in some spinach leaves and fresh basil, let it wilt a little (using a sophisticated cooking term!) and put it in a bowl. 

I then lightly fried 2 small onions in olive oil, added a bit of fresh ginger, plus 1 vegetarian stock cube, before mixing it with the already cooked grains/lentils. I'm not doing a full on recipe because I simply followed the packet instructions and used my common sense (I don't have a lot of that...). It's super tasty, low fat, got lots of veggies in (oh yes there's some yellow pepper in there too), as far as I can tell is both vegetarian & vegan, although don't think it's gluten free. I'm not vegan, but I have vegan friends so I am having fun investigating what kind of food they eat. It's super tasty, filling, and you can adjust the quantities of everything/add entirely new ingredients to suit your tastes.

I've been reading, and currently busy gaming as I have less than 2 hours to get about 300,000 bells on Animal Crossing New Leaf to get the queen crown! It's gorgeous!!! 

The deadline is because my shops close at 7, I think, as I'm an early bird town (shops open early). Or maybe they do stay open later...I don't want to risk it so am doing as much fishing on the island as I can. Now it's after 5pm in theory more sharks should be out and more expensive bugs will be out too. Apologies if this makes no sense, it's an awesome game! 

I've been doing some reading too, and have just been asked to join in a super special book review activity which will involve baking! The review will be on Nayu's REading Corner sometime in August - I'm finalising details with the publicist. I will do a joint post here because what I'm making I've never made before, and it looks super fun! 

Insert your favourite hobby to personalise this statement!

That's as much of a clue that I can give you now - my lips are sealed! Or should that be my fingers are tied? Either way I'm saying nothing!!! 

This weekend I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing yet. Might be seeing a friend on Sunday, might not (it's dependent on whether she's busy or not and she won't know just yet). Got a few tasks that must be done, but apart from that I'm sure there will be the usual gaming, reading, and hopefully I'll be up for some more craft too! 

(Almost!)

Nayu's Craft Time #142 Blissfully hot!

This looks just like where I live, even though it's not.

If you're in England, you may have noticed the weather is GORGEOUS!!!! I know a lot of people struggle in the heat, especially if you aren't in a naturally cool building/have fans/air conditioning, if you are sick, and for other reasons, but I love heat. 

Keep rising!!!

I'm usually under blankets (some heated), hot water bottles, and more layers of clothing than most in both winter and summer. The temperature getting above 25C helps me feel warm for once without all of those things. Thus it makes me happy! Long may it continue. 

Still a bit tired from my crafting day with a friend yesterday, but thought you'd like to see the blanket I've been working on. It's a simple 2 colour treble granny square crochet blanket which involves next to no thinking from me, a bonus these days. I may do a bit more tonight, although a mermaid bed has come up on a family's Animal Crossing New Leaf island, and since I'm a fangirl of said mermaid collection I want more than one, and I'm not sure how many medals I currently have. The plus side is that I usually get what my family has on their island a few days later, so can save up medals another day. 

Not my photo (I want a pink wetsuit!) but it is the mermaid bed that's adorable!!!

I'm not sure what I was doing tonight, as I watched anime this morning, have read a lot, and vaguely too tired for craft (gaming involves less hand movement than crochet, and I can do it almost on auto-pilot when uber tired), so maybe gaming is what I'm meant to be doing. Will be listening to audiobooks that's for sure! Almost finished this one,

Murder & secrets abound at this 1930s girls' boarding school (4th book in the series)

and definitely will be continuing with the 2nd in a brilliant Amish series

The Amish still eat a lot of pie in this relisten!

I'd love to hear what you're up to today, whether you have an audiobook on the go, are reading a good book, doing something crafty or gaming!

Nayu's Craft Time #141 My Cat Likes Scrambled Egg

I'd love a sewing machine like this! Must decorate mine with stickers...

Morning/afternoon/evening! I think that covers all the time of day you may be reading this. It's been a busy week, mostly me not being 100% and able to come online. I did do some paperwork, which took a few hours...and then several more hours as I had printer issues. I've revived my printer, got new toners, then nearly broke it when a toner accidentally slipped inside the printer and I had to put my hand in to find it. Thankfully it worked after that ^o^ I did get a lot of ink on me, but it's all washed off now. 

I definitely want a Hello Kitty printer!!!! This is adorable!!!! Guess I've found something else to put stickers on to make it cute...

Annoyingly I haven't really done any more machine sewing. I'd really hoped to do some today but aside from blogging I'm taking it easy as my body doesn't like how the weather is at the moment. I can't push myself as I'm out all day tomorrow crocheting with a friend, which is always fun :) Yes I am back on the crochet! Slowly easing back into doing it, it's very therapeutic and great for when I can't think straight as it's the same stitch which I know off by heart. As for my cat...

How I discovered my cat likes scrambled egg. 

Here's Belle looking super cute!

One evening this week I made scrambled egg for dinner. I was looking forward to eating it on fresh white break with cress (my latest food addiction), salt, pepper, and butter. I make it in the microwave, and was tipping it out of the pan onto the plate, when it decided to bounce off and land on the floor. It was a classic moment that made me and my family laugh, as the round scrambled egg lay staring up at me! 

Scrambled egg mostly looks like this (online pic)

I obviously wasn't going to eat it, so picked it up, then my family wondered if our cat would like it. I gave her the part which didn't touch the floor, and she really liked it! The catch is she only likes it warm...I gave her a bit more later when it was cold and she didn't touch it. So now whenever I  make it I'll give her a little :) 

Nayu's Craft Time #140 Quiet week so far

Needed this a lot over the last few days - sadly this adorable umbrella isn't mine! Very girly ^o^ Picture source

I don't have any craft updates for you - the weather hasn't been great, so my body has responded appropriately and made me feel less than great so I've done 0 sewing. I hope to do crochet tomorrow, maybe. I've done a lot of gaming, and some reading. My life is very quiet when I'm ill! Although there are some crazy life events going on. The one I can possibly tell you about (not quite yet) in a few weeks to a month is HUGE and looks set to make unable to sew for a few days, but I'll give more details when I'm able to. It's a mostly nice event, which is all I can say for now. That's me for today - back to resting! 

Nayu's Product Review #3 Non-dairy milk

Happy Sunday! I hope that whatever your week was like today is a good day for you. When saving the file that I wrote this post in I put the month as April...no idea why! It's definitely July with vaguely warm weather.

 

Since I've been feeling bleh the last few days I haven't done any craft, but I have been thinking about my current patchwork projects. Maybe that's why my audiobook relisten is an Amish tale, which involves quilting! 

It's first in a series I highly recommend if you like family focused tales, good morals with lots of mistakes made, clean romance and of course typical Amish life, which always seems to be full of pie.

What else goes with pie? Milk!

I love the old fashioned bottles ^o^

Milk goes with everything, ornso I thought. Since the tummy bug/possibly out of date food induced illness the other week I couldn't tolerate my favourite drink, the white stuff. I've had that happen a few times in the past, and the length of time I was unable to tolerate dairy varied from a few days to a few months. Thankfully there is a broad range of non-dairy milk so I gave them a go! Here's my current top 5 non-dairy drinks! Generally I avoid the unsweetened ones as they aren't nice tasting in my view.

#5 Koko

This is pretty much just water and a tiny amount of coconut. It's drinkable, but isn't very exciting and not one I will go back to

#4 Waitrose original soya drink (not

unsweetened)

Sorry about picture quality, this was the best I could get.

This surprised me in being fairly tasty for plain soya milk, so happily goes on my rebuy list.

#3 Alpro Almond/Hazelnut milk

Tasty! Not my picture though.

 I've had both of these in the past and rate them highly as milk alternatives

#2 Breeze Almond Milk

Again not my pic

This one surprised me as I expected it to be ok, and it's rather delicious! I'm definitely keeping an eye out for it.

#1 Alpro Vanilla flavoured soya milk

This tastes like...

I'm not kidding when I say this is drinkable custard: it's smooth, fairly creamy, and is even a little bit yellow! I absolutely adore this flavour from Alpro, and will be drinking it on a regular basis, especially as I can't really eat custard every day!

I also recommend Alpro soya yogurts, the blueberry and cherry flavours which taste like ordinary milk based yogurts.

I can now drink milk again, but I've enjoyed the non-dairy alternatives so much that I will have cows' milk 1 x a week and non-dairy the rest! I'd love to hear if you've tried any of these, and if you have a favourite non-dairy milk drink!

Happy Eid!

I am about just been busy with life. More regular posts coming in a few days. Happy Eid to all who celebrate the end of Ramadan!

Nayu's Project Progress #25 Mini patchwork quilts!

A set of fabric for a new project!

I'm back! Properly back, still easing into blogging but overall am almost fully better. I missed blogging, especially when I was on the mend but not up to doing anything strenuous. For those of you who follow me on Twitter (@Nayuleska) you'll know that I've managed some simple cutting out of fabric this week. Here are the pictures in case you missed them!

Fabric for the current project, involving lots of cake!

I've got a couple of projects involving patchwork in my head which I'm slowly trying out. I'm at the stage of cutting fabric into squares - I'll be using a few 9 patch blocks: 

Which will look like these (which aren't mine), only I'm using plain fabric for the set of 5 squares, with patterned squares as the other 4.

They will look like that with my chosen fabric, using white as the plain colour square. Measuring out the squares and cutting them out is simple, but takes way longer than I'd expected. I don't mind because the process is so much fun! It involves less mental work than using the sewing machine so is a perfect activity for now. 

Looks good enough to eat!

The above picture shows the size of the fabric piece, which is almost a square. With much measuring I'm able to get out 4x 5 inch squares from each piece of fabric, which will be enough for the project I have in mind.  I'm not doing any today because once I've finished blog work I'm going to get groceries, and will need to rest afterwards as it's so tiring.

Have a good one!