Nayu's Thought of the Day #1

My positive today of travelling to London for my hospital appointment is the yummy chocolate cooler from Costa which I get before taking the train home ^o^ 

Nayu's Project Progress #14 Alphabet complete!

Busy working on this baby sampler!

Afternoon all! I hope you're having a good week. I'm relaxing lots because of the adverse effects cold weather has on my misbehaving body, and as you can see below I have finally completed the alphabet for this sampler! 

I'm now working on the animals, starting at the top and working my way down colour by colour. Here's a close up on the work I've done for the bear on the A!

You can see the outline of her crouching down!

I love sewing, minus when I have a clumsy session and keep pricking myself. It's a good job I'm not Sleeping Beauty! 

She sees the spindle, pricks her finger, and falls asleep for a long time.

Since I've got my routine annual specialist appointment in London tomorrow, there will be a picture or quote up rather than a full post both tomorrow and Friday. Hopefully I'll be recovered enough on Saturday to share the latest project progress with you. Until then...

Nayu's Craft Time #99 Truffle Time!

Guess what I've done today!

Those of you who are regular readers will know what this picture means. I'm making truffles! I truly wish someone would invent teleportation as I'd love to share how they taste with you. Not that I know yet, as the ones I've made today are still setting. 

Today I'm trialing a new type of truffles - yes, I know you'd like to taste them, but until that teleporter arrives on my doorstep you'll just have to try them out yourself. Recipe is here, thanks to Lindt. I'm using my normal method, making the truffle core (the previous recipe), then once cool cutting the core into pieces, dipping them into the same kind of chocolate and adding a decoration which look like this: 

My cute butterfly chocolate truffles!

My new version, well, it's something I thought of in December but due to being ill and busy then I couldn't try it until now. I've put a layer of melted chocolate at the bottom of the square containers which I use to set the truffle mix. I put it in the fridge for around 30 minutes, until it was set a bit. I took it out, made the truffle core and put it on top of the melted chocolate, then immediately after (no setting) I added another layer of melted chocolate. 

Yum yum!

I'm hoping that all 3 layers will stick together to create a truffle that won't melt over fingers as soon as it's picked up. Obviously no one goes around holding a truffle in their hand for minutes on end - it's usually a few seconds in the fingers before being eaten! However, if this works, and if I can cut them into small pieces easily I may be able to mass produce truffles! This would be perfect for a family event in March. 

Dipping truffles takes an awful lot of both time and energy for me. I'd love to make enough by March, but with writing and blogging, as well as allowing for a lot of rest time with the colder weather (see previous post for why it makes me ill), I don't have enough time to guarantee enough truffles. This new method is much quicker which is why if it works I'll be making a lot of people eat these sweet treats. 

I plan on making chocolate fudge for the event, as that's so easy for me to do. You'll have to find out tomorrow (or Tuesday if I don't have a good day) whether my experiment worked! Best bit about truffle making is there's always a bit of cream and chocolate left over to make a sumptious hot chocolate (that'll be after I've helped with the dishes tonight) 

This is my favourite kind of drink!

Yesterday I was super tired all day after a few hours of being awake. While I got in 2 hours of writing, I kind of didn't get heaps of craft done. I detangled some yarn, and made a pair of dishcloths, which I know is something but not as much as I can do. Still, it is better than nothing, as is this post! Have a great rest of the weekend! 

Nayu's Craft Time #98 Flower Power, Hibernation Dreams, & a Mystery Leak

My body thinks I live here!

Afternoon everyone! Sorry for not posting yesterday, I had an impromptu day of not doing much (reading for 6 hours and then anime) because it was below 5C which my body doesn't cope well with. I now appreciate how mild a winter we've been having here in the south of England - please come back! My body knows the temperature and makes me feel all without a germ in sight, even though I obviously wrap up warm. Oh well! Taking it easy helps, so I'm doing everything a bit slower at the moment. 

I thought youd like to see the pretty crochet flowers I'm working on for a project. I need about 13 more - as you can see from the pile I've made about 20 already. 

Well, you probably can't see there's twenty there. It's not a nice looking pile because I couldn't be bothered to layer each flower neatly for a photo shoot, which would have taken several minutes and slightly more patience than I have for asthetics (aka making things look pretty). 

I am not a cute hibernating doormouse

This morning I sorted out a few bits and took a whole load of card to be recyled. That was quite an effort and totally against my current and almost constant desire to hibernate until spring.

This water issue isn't rain

We currently have a mystery boiler leak - I discovered my treat jar, which is currently full, had water all over it. Family think it might just be due to the horrendous rain, but we'll get it checked out by our trusty boiler guy soon, and in the meantime pray it's nothing serious. 

Time for me to get back to flower making! I'm hoping that the wind which previously stopped me finishing Holby City on BBC iPlayer will now behave and let me finish the show so I can text a friend with my opinion on it. I was most annoyed when it refused to work before lunch! 

Wind is good for windmills, not so much my TV catch up!

Nayu's Craft Time #97 Shopping Overload, Freezer Organising, & Amusing Cat Moment

Not my bag, but I do use my own totes. I do like the brown bags they have in the US though!

Happy Monday! It's been a busy few days for me, which has meant less craft but I intend to do some tonight. I'm all shopped out. Yesterday was grocery shopping, managing to pick up a few bargains and a few presents. I only physically shop for groceries at a supermarket, rather than in town, as it's too tiring for me, so any bargains are a bonus. 

The other type of shopping happened too!

That's why I spent a good 4 hours this morning doing an annual clothes and bed linen shop. Its tiring in its own way! It was annoying when I went to pay for one website, only to discover since I'd spent too long on the other website without activity on the first, the few items in my basket had disappeared. Grrr! Thankfully I was able to find what I wanted fairly easily. 

Got these cute bunny socks! (If you want them M&S sells them)

I had to reign in my passion for socks a little bit, others I'd have ended up with way too many! They were so cute, so I ditched nearly all the single pair socks which were a similar price to the multipacks, as they aren't cost effective. 

I know they're upside down like the bunnies but aren't these hedgehog socks cute!!!! I wear odd socks, so can wear & admire them twice a week ^o^

There wasn't an ice issue anywhere, as the freezers involved are relatively new. I have 3 drawers in the two upright family freezers that are in the garage. I'd love more for all the treats I make, but for now simply make do with that I have.

This afternoon I put on on thick clothes because I sorted my 3 freezer drawers! I've wanted to sort them for a while now but simply haven't had time or energy to fit it in my schedule. After buying a few packs of bagels and speciality rolls, I needed to sort them out as I had no room for them. 

 

I took everything out, cleaned the drawers, then sorted the food into sections. I threw out anything I knew was over 1 year old, or looked suspicious. I finally put all my truffles, fudge and scrap bits of chocolate & truffles in one place with my favourite frozen mixed berries and plain blueberries (and the incredible new to me Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cookie Core icecream which is supremely peanutty & was bought yesterday!) 

I adore the core range!!!

One drawer has veg in, as I have a lot of veg which has been separated and frozen for ease of use into handy portions. I really must not buy veg for the next few weeks! For lack of more space I shoved in cheese (I discovered some blue cheese I'd unearthed) in the veg section too. 

I got some granery multi-seed bagels, as well as my favourite, plain white sesame bagels! They are one food which I can make but prefer shop bought (save me the energy of making them, which involves more effort than simple rolls do)

The 3rd drawer has meals already portioned out, most are already cooked too, as well as the bagels. I'm well stocked up if we have snow soon! Which I hope for, but we haven't had it for a few years so who knows. 

The mouse is similar to this one.

Last bit of info for the day is what happened when my family bought my cat a present today. It's a motorised mouse which can move when touched, as well as move on it's own for a bit too. My cat was curious as it went round the kitchen, got close, and then ran away! Tried to convince her it's not going to hurt her. Maybe she just needs time to get used to it - it does make a buzzing noise when its moving. Was hilarious and I nearly spat out my drink! 

Nayu's Project Progress #13 Alphabet fun and playing with cats

Tea time! Mine's herbal, usually pepperment and nettle, chamomile and spearmint, or a fruit tea if I want something sweet.

I can't show you details, but yesterday's secret crochet work gave this blanket the pizazz (made up word) it needed to make it shine. It's going to be a while yet as it's fiddly, but I you'll love how cute it looks! 

What I can show you is the alphabet baby sampler I'm working on. First here's an earlier progress pic: 

I'd thought I'd need to wait sew a few creatures before finishing some of the letters, but as you can see in the next pic I'm close to finishing them all without a creature in sight! (yet)

I've done M and started R since this pic got taken, and hope to have done the entire alphabet for when I update you on this project.

I've also been creative in the relaxation department - here's a super cute cat jigsaw puzzle a friend gave me. 

Part way through the puzzle - it's on a shawl to reduce the noise of the jigsaw pieces as I sorted and fitted them together - family were watching TV while I worked on it.

All complete!

It's hand crafted, and as you can see has what are called 'whimsey' pieces which are the usual shape, but specific ones. 

So cute!

In this case I have 2 cats, a snowflake, and an xmas tree! I hope to be able to get more of these types of jigsaws in the future as they are fun. 

I hope whatever hobbies you enjoy that you've fitted them in over the festive season! Relaxation is important for our wellbeing ^o^

Nayu's Craft Time #96 Happy 2016!

Cheating a little and using the cute happy new year picture I used on my reading and anime blog: the message is the same though - happy new year! 

I hope 2016 is a wonderful for all of us. I'm aiming for a lot of crochet projects, lots of writing, and of course to balance it out heaps of fun resting! 

Thank you for your continued support of Nayu's Crochet Dreams! Nayu ^o^