Tuesday 25 September 2012

Ta-Dah Tuesday - lunch and dinner

I needed a coat and brolly to head to the polytunnel this morning. 
It has been raining for 48 hours non-stop and I really mean non-stop. Inside the polytunnel is beginning to feel decidedly Autumnal, which is not a good thing. Peppers, tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers like inside the polytunnel to be like a sauna and that is not going to happen again for about 8 months.

But i still had a trug load to bring in.  Ta-dah.!

Green and yellow courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and beetroot.

Lunch: Rocket, beetroot, goats cheese, and pine nut salad.
Dinner: Chicken, courgettes, peppers and cous cous with sweet chilli sauce.


Linking in with Lakota

Monday 24 September 2012

Thrift Haul - They were meant to be together.

My lovely elegant coffee pot sat alone in my kitchen this week.

 She was disappointed that in this new kitchen she had come home to, 
she had no company, no-one to talk to.

Who were these people who never owned a coffee pot before, could they really not possess even  a simple teapot! 

Well they didn't .... until now.


One full week after she arrived in this place, this stocky handsome fellow arrived.
 He was gorgeous. 
Strong and swarthy, the same pale skin as her,  with a crown of chocolate brown.
They had so much in common, flowers, leaves, browns and rusts. 

She wondered to herself , is there really such a thing as love at first sight?.....and then she faltered a little....


.......when she saw his taste in knitwear. 


The toaster and tablecloth appear to be a match made in heaven.


And the blue hues of another tablecloth and my first pyrex purchase seem to be getting along just fine too.

Anyone else's thrifty finds get hitched so quick this week?




Linking to Me and my shadow's Magpie Monday


Monday 17 September 2012

Thrift Haul - Coffee and crafting

Ever since creative blogger Hey Homewrecker posted about putting her sunflowers in the coffee pot that she found in a skip, I've been on the lookout for a coffee pot of my own, and this weekend I found it. 


Complete with lovely Autumn flowers and leaves. Its in perfect condition and was €2. Thanks Linda for the inspiration.


Wool bought on Saturday basket bought on Sunday €3 the lot.


Huge bundle of old knitting patterns, lots of hideous mohair from the 80's but a few goodies.
I love sorting through piles of old patterns - found a few gems.

I need to get knitting for Mr Thrift Bee....


a balaclava and fingerless gloves, and a football scarf with bobble hat.
Ooooh he's gonna love it!!!!


knits for all the family.


even for kids who have 


never been to the dentist.




Linking up with  Thrifty Love, Thanks for the feature! Magpie Monday and Thrift Share Monday


Monday 10 September 2012

Thrift Haul - Kitchenalia!

Another new Garden Fete with Bric-a -Brac netted me a few new lovelies this weekend. Although the first of my finds look very much like robots, they are in fact,


A marcato pasta maker, it weighs a lot so i could tell it was good quality. Unfortunately the removable handle  is missing. I have emailed the Italian company to see if i can get a replacement. A good pasta machine has been on my thrift list for an age!! Anyone else got this machine? Would you recommend it?



The next robot is actually another Italian piece, an aluminium juicer. Isn't she pretty!


OK, this is the piece i need help with. It was thrown in free with the other two. It appears to be missing a top  of some sort. It has a clear box to catch whatever is meant to be put through it. It also came with a plastic square scoop which may or may not belong with it. 


It has a handle on the other side which turns 5 metal hook shaped not sharp 'blades'. 
The only marking is a batch no. that brings up no result when googled.



                                                    Does anyone know what it is for?
I'd love to know before i get rid of it in case it's something i've always wanted. 



Cute little biscuit jar.


Two overnight/weekend bags. The brown one big enough for a weekend perhaps. The black one is leather and at first I thought it was a briefcase but inside........



it has a sexy red lining.

Linking with Magpie Monday

Saturday 8 September 2012

Betty, Bluebell, Ginger and............


Thank-you to everyone who came up with suggestions for naming the last remaining hen and our handsome rooster. Little Bee thoroughly enjoyed deliberating over every name, although would not commit until her Nana (my mum) asked her over dinner last night. 


Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Rosy and Russell (as in Crow) Thank-you so much to Connie and Curtise for their inspired choices. Do check out their wonderful blogs to discover many more talents than just excellent chicken naming.

Thursday 6 September 2012

Re-united and it feels so good...

Earlier in the year we very sadly lost all of our 7 hens and two adorable ducks to a fox. All our poultry had homemade sturdy housing and were locked up safely every night, but this fox prowled in broad daylight and over the space of a couple of days cleared us out completely. The last two hens had initially escaped but became poorly afterwards and finally died from the shock and horror of it all.

The only survivor of this rural massacre was our large and normally a bit aggressive 
and sexually charged cockerel.


but he was not happy after losing all of his girls.


In fact he was miserable.

Some neighbours of ours went on holiday in June and asked us to look after their hens and ducks. They didn't have a male head of house in their flock. So, with our neighbours permission, cockerel, went on a bit of an extended holiday and has been happily servicing a new harem of hens down the road.

Soon he had is mojo back,and he started, as cockerels are prone to do, crowing at first light. Even though we are well past midsummer it is still a pretty early start for my poor neighbour who is pregnant and probably not getting enough sleep as it is.

So last week-end we went shopping for some new hens. As we are approaching winter, it was decided that we would just get 3 hybrids, just coming into lay, that should continue to lay all through the winter.

We used to have some pure breeds and we will again next Spring perhaps. Pure breeds lay less eggs than hybrids, for now I just wanted hens that would keep us in eggs for the next couple of months. 
Of course when we got there, the plan changed and Little Bee was allowed to spend some of her birthday money on her own choice of hen.

Hens are notoriously difficult to photograph well. They are rarely just lounging around in the sun waiting to be snapped like a cat or a dog would.  So here they are on the move as usual.


Our new flock.


Little Bee's birthday hen is called Betty she's on the left and is a Light Sussex, the lovely grey one is a Bluebell and as such will probably be called er...Bluebell.


Egg layer 1 and egg layer 2 (although one has a more ginger neck than the other so she'll be called Ginger).

They are Rhode Island Red hybrids, they are half the same breed as cockerel. We let all the ladies  settle into their new home for a few days. Cockerel was brought home and got to stay in the duck house for a couple of nights so they all could get used to each other through the fence. The red hens are a bit bullish with the other two, but letting Mr. Cockerel in should sort them all out. 

Hopefully in a few weeks we should be enjoying our own eggs again. 

I've missed having hens about, and cockerel is just delighted to be back in charge on his own patch again.


This is all of them this morning after their first night together!
How can I tell that he's a happy camper?


So......name that hen.
 Three of our four new hens have been named, Betty, Bluebell and Ginger.
Please leave a comment with your suggestion for the fourth hen (she's the top one in the picture of the two Rhode Island hybrid red hens) 

Actually, by rights Cockerel is no longer an accurate name for himself, as a cockerel is under a year old. 
So if anyone wants to suggest a name for him........(this could be good)








Wednesday 5 September 2012

Ta-dah Tuesday - Hello Autumn my old friend.

I bought this cashmere scarf at a car boot sale a while ago for .50c. 
Any 100% cashmere can be boil washed and becomes felted. It can be cut and used without fraying for any felt project. So regardless of style, i will always pick up cashmere. I pretty much knew what i was going to do with this scarf.


 I've always been a bit prone to a mood board, mainly when decorating a room. When I was working I had access to piles of fashion and decor magazines. Ripping out any picture that appealed to me. Sorting through my tear sheets, my personal trends would emerge. 


I don't have access to the same quantity of material as i did then. I only ever buy a Sunday newspaper now and a magazine is a rare treat. Thank goodness for Pinterest. But you can't beat hard copy.
 Many of the images on my pin board at the moment are from a Toast catalogue  from a couple of seasons ago. Including the one that inspired my latest crafting endeavour.


So a bit of freehand scissors work and a touch of blanket stitching later, and.......


Ta-dah! 100% cashmere hottle bottle cover. Roll on winter!!!!


Linking to Lakota's Ta-Dah Tuesday

Monday 3 September 2012

Thrift Share Monday


It has taken until the second day of Autumn for the Summer to arrive here in Wicklow. So my haul this week was photographed outside, in the sunshine, after i had planted out my winter swedes in the vegetable garden.

Last week the thrift Gods were on a bit of a go slow for me, but sure enough this week....wham, bam and thank-you thrifty m'am!!! A rare enough jumble sale and a couple of car boots later and I've ended up with a sizable haul that i'm pleased with.


Mirror mirror on the wall.......I'll use this to display jewelry on for a while, until someone offers the right price. It has a lovely little cherub on top.



Wooden towel rail, I already have one of these in the bathroom but I bought this one on Saturday to display my crochet and linen pieces for sale on Sunday. They looked nice, certainly easier to browse.



Three table cloths, all came up beautifully after they were laundered. The crochet one is huge, for an oval dining table, it had a big stain in the middle and a dry cleaning ticket attached with a safety pin, suggesting it had been cleaned and the stain remained. I threw a bit of bleach over the stain and everywhere the bleach touched went bright purple.Aaaghhh! So into the washing machine it went and thankfully when it came out it was snow white. 


The second tablecloth is cream linen with beige cut out embroidery. The third one, I'm pretty sure is hand embroidered. 


Three becomes a bit of a theme this week 


These shallow baskets could be used for display for the Christmas craft fair, or if not, they will make nice hamper baskets. 

Finally, my creme de la creme, three lovely blankets, two picnic baskets and a partridge in a .....oh no, sorry.


The orange and green check blanket, and the yellow with the stripe are both 100% wool. The two wool blankets along with the granny square one set me back the princely sum of €7

And, once again, you wait and wait to get a picnic basket and then two come along at once.

Linking to the penny worthy project