A bit of everything.

Saturday was a busy day as I had several errands to run and we'd promised Missy a long walk. Lucy and I took Missy to the common which was one of Scamp's favourite walks. We stopped and enjoyed a coffee and a cake sat by the lake. Missy enjoyed sniffing around the area and keeping an eye on the ducks. In the evening Lucy and I went swimming. Last week the pool restarted ladies only hour and we went along. Before covid closed the swimming pool we used to go every week unless we were away. It was nice to get back to swimming and it was also good to find that several ladies we had meet back in 2019 had also decided to start swimming again. The water in this pool is always quite cool but we really enjoyed it since the weather outside was very warm.

Yesterday, Sunday I sat down to do some slow stitching. I completed one of the little bird houses. I'd hoped to get another finished but I decided to do some reading and got completely engrossed. Here's the one I finished.

I couldn't find where I'd put the instructions for the colouring but I remembered that Barbara from Cat Patches had put together a collage of all her completed inches. I coloured the next two birdhouses ready to stitch. Later in the day I remembered where I'd put the instructions. 

Today I had some baking to do, first I made some bread. This is a 50/50 split with white and wholemeal flour. I haven't tried it yet but my son assures me it is delicious.

I also needed to make a cake. Richard's birthday was back in June but for some reason he didn't have a cake. He asked if I'd make a chocolate cake with butter cream in the middle and melted chocolate on top. I was happy to oblige. 

This is a malted chocolate cake. I've had the recipe for years and I'm not sure where I got it from but it is delicious.

Ingredients

175g (6oz) molasses sugar

2 eggs

120ml (4fl oz) corn oil

120ml (4fl oz) milk

2 tablespoons malt extract

175g (6oz) wholemeal flour

25g (1oz) cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

Method

1. Place the sugar, eggs, oil, milk and malt extract in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

2. Add the flour, sift in the cocoa and baking powder and beat until smooth

3. Divide the mixture between two lined and greased 18cm (7inch) sandwich tins and smooth with a palette knife.

4. Bake in a preheated moderate oven 160C (325F) Gas Mark 3 for 25 to 30 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly pressed. Turn onto a wire rack to cool.

You could use curd cheese, fresh cream or jam to sandwich the two cakes together. My family like melted chocolate on the top.

Having made the cake I was free to get my machine out and do some quilting. I finished stitching in the ditch around the individual blocks and then added some stitching to the blocks. The first one didn't go too well. I added a cloud that went wobbly some rain drops and the word moo!

The second one worked much better. I added a sun, some birds flying and gave the bird on the roof of the ark an olive branch.  

I also added Aubrey's name above the cute snails. I added grass to the lion and elephant blocks and some hearts here and there. I then started quilting the sashing. The stitching doesn't show up very well on the photo since the thread matches the fabric. In person it looks quite good.

I now have a lot of thread ends to sew in. That will keep me busy tomorrow morning. Lucy is going over to visit Katy and Aubrey tomorrow and I want to do some sorting. Having been quite busy recently, nothing seems to be in the right place and that means it takes extra time to find things. Cleaning, sorting and restoring order is required. I will try and fit in some sewing.

For those of you with cats, today is international cat day. Unfortunately Picasso died back in February aged 20 and we still miss him. We don't have any plans at the moment to get another cat but we probably will in the future. Anyway to celebrate international cat day here is our little cat 'helping' me sort out some patterns, whilst doing his favourite occupation of sleeping.

Take Care

Lyndsey