Autumn Day's

 

Everything is changing so fast as Autumn takes a hold, the air has a damp chill in the mornings & I have been getting the cottage ready for the cold dark days ahead. The wind has a howl to it & makes a beautiful sound coming down the chimney.  I do love these days in front of the fire & just enjoying home.

How the garden has changed in the last couple of weeks.
The beautiful morning sun rising up over the cottage.

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George playing in my rug hooking basket.

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Cold Tea Cake.

I have never made this before & as we all love tea bread I thought I would try it.

I found the recipe in a 1980's Cook book called Farmhouse Cookery.

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It turned out wonderfully & I will make it again & again.

It was so soft & the fruit with being boiled was very juicy.

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I finished my jumper this week , it was my first time at knitting a vintage pattern & am very pleased with how it turned out.

I started knitting a couple of years ago & have so much to learn.

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I used three 1940's navy buttons that I found in an antiques centre.

There is a simple double crochet around the neck.

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The girls chose some pretty fabric for me to make them new dresses. They really enjoy going to the fabric shop & seeing all the prints.

I have used this pattern a few times now, it is simple which is wonderful with having to make two.

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Saturday was a family fun day run by our little group of churches, the theme was harvest & planting.

We all had a lovely morning filled with bread making, seed pictures, planting cress & making a large scarecrow.

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Daisy helping Kitty to make a small scarecrow.

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Concentrating on their seed pictures.

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Stuffing the large scarecrow.

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It was lovely to gather with dear friends & celebrate all things harvest.

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Thank you kind friends for all your beautiful comments, I enjoy reading them so much.

Fondly Michelle

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Celebrating Tasha Tudor Day

                                 Tasha Tudor Day 2014

Photo from my Richard brown book's.

                                 Today Tasha Tudor would have been 99 years old.

             The day is drawing to a close here in England & what a wonderful day we have had remembering Tasha Tudor.
                                                     

The twins & I celebrated by watching the Take Peace dvd, reading many of her books, painting, a dolls tea party & enjoying a lovely cup of English tea with a piece of fruit cake.

 

I do love boiled fruit cake. This is the cake I will be making for Christmas but with marzipan & royal icing on.

 

 

These are a selection of the twins books, the Christmas one's we only read in December.

 

 

Painting in Tasha Tudor style.

Such concentration from Mary.

 

They are always together.

Kitty loves to paint, she says she is going to be an artist when she is a big girl.

I wish she wouldn't become a big girl, this age is so perfect.

 

Here are their finished paintings.

 

How many hours have I spent going through these books again & again!

 

 

Dolls tea party.

It was so wet today so they had to play indoors.

 

 

I do enjoy knitting, back done & am on the front now.

 

 

So such inspiration, Tasha taught me to be happy in the way we live & be comfortable in who you are.

 

Photo taken from my Richard Brown books.

 

Tasha Tudor ~ Rookery Ramblings Blog

 We are not the only one's celebrating, so please pop over to Rookery Ramblings for their blog link up.

 

Hope you all enjoy this post, we had a wonderful day.

Fondly Michelle

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being at Home

Just a few things I have been up to in the past couple of days.

My husband & two of my boys have been out blackberry picking, so many bags have gone in to the freezer & I made blackberry & apple jam. My son bought me some Cath Kidston jam labels, so the jars are sitting pretty now on the pantry shelves. This is a recipe I use every year, it has such a strong flavour & everyone loves it.


Empty Kilner jars waiting for the beetroot to ready for pickling.

A new jumper for me from a 1940's pattern.

 

I started a new 1940's jumper, I found the pattern thanks to Forties Knitter, who purchased the pattern from etsy. It is called bows bows bows & I have chosen a nice camel colour with a navy bow. I found some vintage navy buttons from an antique shop in our local town Horncastle.

Here is what I am reading at the moment, I read the first book & I couldn't put it down. I am halfway through Nella Lasts Peace & really enjoying it, I have Nella Last in the 1950's sitting there waiting. I love Housewife 49 & am finding the books so enjoyable & full of idea's too.

 A little bit of baking.

I bake almost everyday, we have five hungry children here & three that have grown & flown the nest. So as you can imagine the baking doesn't last long. Brownies are a favourite & I bake bread at least five times a week. We try to not buy processed food & cook from scratch as much as we can.









This is the basic white bread I do, I also do a half wholemeal & half white one too. I love old vintage kitchenalia & use it all the time, it cooks bread & cakes wonderfully.

Vegetable Garden & Hens.

We have been in this cottage since Spring last year & with work inside & out we only managed a small vegetable patch this year. We have so many plans for next Spring & hope to make the vegetable patch twice the size.
I took a photo of our eight hens this morning as I noticed the sheep were out in the back field.
The twins planted the sunflowers & beetroot, I can't wait to pickle that.

Sweetcorn, Beetroot, Currant bushes, Rhubarb, Gooseberry bushes, Raspberries & Sunflowers.

Cleft gates we bought at Beamish Georgian Fair, they are handmade out of ash.