tinyinc knitted tea cosies

tinyinc’s tea cosies seem to be the things that tinyinc makes that sell the best and they are certainly some of the most popular gifts I give out.

there are about 20 of them in various places around the uk including ‘the original‘ which went to toby in dorset…

managing my full time  job and still finding time for my hobbies and my efforts towards earning a country living is proving difficult to manage and I have really struggled to find time lately.

my mum has stepped into the breach and has been busy.  it is thanks to her that I have 8 new tea cosies to sell.

she finds the short winter days a bit depressing but has been happy to fill her time with a bit of colourful knitting.

I am incredibly grateful for all her hard work.

Aren’t they lovely and in the true spirit of tinyinc, each one is different and won’t have been seen before.

some of these will go onto folksy, some will go to the ‘all the fun of the fair’ and some will go to pearl barley.

I am very excited about pearl barley. It is a new tea rooms organisation that is going to do afternoon teas in the style of ‘pop up’, ‘underground’  or ‘urban’ type dining.  Their next one is on the 13th & 14th of February 2010.

It will be amazing and I am sorry I won’t be able to be there to report in full.

Tinyinc tea cosies are invited to tea there though; some will be used and will become part of pearl barley’s stock of equipment and some will be for sale.

what a winter

a very full moon

There is snow again in rural wales and different parts of northern england. The city, on the other hand,  is wet and grey.

a frozen pond

At the weekend, the farm was crisp and cold and quite beautiful. All helped by a very full moon and a very clear sky. It was bitterly cold with a northerly wind to add to the chill.

frosted grass

The verges were frosted with solid lumps for mole hills.  The puddles and the pond were all frozen.

frozen puddle

Even the running water that drains off the land into some of the largest dykes across lincolnshire was gradually freezing and as the water levels dropped, a line of crusty frozen ice crystals formed along the edge.

a frozen waters edge

It must have formed slowly (I think that is how it works!) because the crystals were large.

ice crystals

And quite beautiful!

tools of the trade for a beginner

 

 

needle case

 

I have had a lot of very fun making things with my niece over the 11 years of her little life.  It usually involves sticking, cutting and lots of glitter and what she makes are always pretty and quite sophisticated for a small person.

pin cushion

 

she and I have tried a bit of crochetting and even a bit of knitting or pom pom making together when sticking just isn’t enough but a while ago, she expressed an interesting in learning how to sew.  We got set up with the sewing machine one day and she made herself a bag.

a bit of knitting

My favourite fingerless gloves, which I hate to admit to buying, are just about finished their useful life so I set about knitting myself wrist warmers as a replacement.

I always have balls of wool around the place, bought for something not yet started or left over for something already made or even just because I happened to like the colour and added it to my pile!

It wasn’t difficult to chose the colours that I wanted to combine; I love olive green albeit a bit dark, hot pink is just the most delicious of colours & I have always been drawn to tourquoise.

now the snow has gone

it’s been a chilly few weeks and a bit hard going at times.  I absolutely love the snow and so does ‘the furry one’ but I’m pleased it has gone for a while.

frozen pond

the snow may have gone, but there is still a lot of ice about and the pond remains frozen.  There is also sharp wind and a lot of rain so we haven’t quite left the cold spell just yet.

3 deer family

the deer families that cross the farm are quite elusive and don’t hang about if we do get to glimpse them.  the tracks in the snow made it incredibly easy to see where they had been.

by appointment

It is worth noting that whenever (And I mean this), no matter what time of day or night, you go to my darling friend V’s house you are greeted with the smell of some amazing thing that she has been cooking.  I have already mentioned a number of times that she can make a feast out of anything and is hugely generous with her efforts.

It’s slightly distracting, but very lovely, when you are talking about stuff (any stuff), to be faced with a huge plate of beautiful home made cheese straws or sweet mince pies or a huge plate of slow cooked lamb that melts in your mouth.

She does recipe testing & food shoots for publications among other intriguing foody things. She has written a bread book, an ice cream book, a vegetarian book, a book of healthy recipes and a bunch of others.

I’ve known V for quite a few years now and we became friends because 2 of our now mutual friends moved in next door to her.

You’d never know any of this if you didn’t happen upon it all by accident.

glass marbles and glass jars

When we are lucky enough to have sunshine in these winter months, it shouldn’t be wasted. And snowy sunshine seems to be abundant at the moment.

The snowy sunlight makes pretty things so much easier to see and I couldn’t resist our dish of marbles!

We’ve had some marbles in a dish in the bedroom for ages that used to be mine as a kid but late this summer, we went to one of the last car boot sales of the year and bought a few more.

another dancing mouse cushion (or two)

dancing girl mouse

to compliment the dancing boy mouse cushion I had already made last week, I also made a girl cushion.

girl mouse cushion

then I got carried away with the idea….

dancing girl mouse detail

and decided to make another one.

original dancing boy mouse cushion

tinyinc’s sloe gin

2 month old sloe gin

Since our first batch of sloe gin in november, we harvested a few more baskets of sloes and took Mr Naylor’s advice and added a vanilla pod to an odd new bottle.

We check on them and shake them regularly.  The most noticable change since we started is the colour and it is quite beautiful.

the consistency is becoming more gloopy even though it is quite evident in some of the jars that a lot of the sugar is yet to dissolve.

life’s a beach

an empty beach

Being early risers is an advantage if you want to enjoy an empty beach on a cold winter morning.

One of our favourite walks is Brancaster beach and although it is popular it is usually quiet. With the holidays and all the recent freezing, but bright weather though, it certainly seems to have brought out even the least hardy. By the time we were on the return leg of our walk, the beach had gone from relatively empty to ‘crowded’.

a crowded beach

What was particularly interesting about our visit today was the frozen sand.  At the high tide line, all the sand, and anything trapped in it, was frozen solid and hard as a rock.  I’ve never seen that before.

Only the bits that had benefitted from the early sun were less solid.  Strangely as the sand thawed and released the extra sea water it was holding, it was like quick sand!!

a frozen shell

Also, every time we go to the beach there is something that you tend to see more of than another.  Today it was dead star fish, unfortunately.  Some of them were even frozen at the high tide line and I wonder if there have been some rough seas over the holidays.