An Update Of Goings On

Been a busy week, had my husbands cousins come to stay with their two young children so out seeking time was filled up with going to the local wildlife park and aquarium. It was a great weekend but Im glad its over and I can focus on getting the house cleaned again and getting back to my organized life.  Above is a picture of my second baby, Ive not named him but he/she is my pride and joy. Its a little Cheyenne pepper plant that I started from seed and its doing beautifully. Cant wait to use its fruit in future food projects.

I took this photo of these jellyfish while visiting the aquarium in Monaco which Im quite happy with. Im no photographer but I am in love with my camera and love learning to use different settings and new techniques. The other photo is of a part of quilt I have finished. Im planning on making it into a cushion cover for my mums birthday, perhaps sew a few hearts onto it but Im not sure yet.And finally this is my naughty little Evie, now walking and helping her mummy with the baking. I think she looks like a little crab :) 

Pink Glam Table Decoration

 This table decoration I did for a dinner in Monaco. Some fairly young female guests who were staying onboard were heading out for a night on the town so I wanted to create something glitz and glam for them to make them feel that extra big special before their big night out. 

Baby Amelie's Gifts

This is a project that I just finished off for a friend of mine who has just had a baby. Instead of going and buying things I thought a home made touch was a lot nicer.

I made Evie a baby blanket out of old scraps of material I had lying around. It took me six months to complete by hand and she loves it. I don't have the time or patience to do another by hand and my mother in law bought me a sewing machine so projects get completed a lot faster.

The longest part of this project was cutting out the fabric. I decided on a very simple design for the blanket as to be honest its been an experiment using the machine.

The bib is made with toweling and is perhaps a little bit too pretty to be used as a bib as they just get ruined but I think that every mother wants pretty things for their child and why not, they are so precious :)




Tutorial for the bib to come :)

Doodles and seedlings

Baby Evie

Been another busy week garden wise. Most of the seeds and sprouted and grown vigorously on my window sill. Sadly we have had a lot of wind so going out into the garden has been a bit of a nightmare and Ive been unable to plant anything out creating quite the back log.

I put out two of my baby melons to see if they could handle the temp but sadly the didn't like it and have wilted their beautiful new leaves. Thankfully all was not lost as they are still alive and back on the sill to be nursed back to health.

Im adding a few pics of sketches Ive been doing while stuck inside and also the start of one of my new quilts. The sketches are by no means great but as this is a blog about what I have been doing and little inspirational bits then I figured they should be included somewhere.

Ive been starting quite a few quilting projects actually now that the sewing machine is back up and running. I will post some pics in the next few days.

A Quick Table Decoration

A simple and elegant table decoration used for a dinner with acquaintances. At the bottom of the dish is glass crystal shavings bit I've used plastic wrapping before to much the same effect. Paint some dried twigs white and then rose petals. The town in the background is St tropez port where we were moored that evening. Ive spent a lot of my time as a stewardess in St Tropez, the playground of the rich and famous. 

At First I didn't see the fascination with the place, everything was over priced, there is only one road leading in which means during summer time it can take upto four hours to get to from Cannes when it should really only take one. But now Ive grown to love the place. There are many hidden gems there that the 'rich' will never get to experience like Pierre the fish man. He works in the little fish market in the port where all the chefs go to buy the seafood for their clients. Talk to him for half an hour one day and he will remember you for years to come and when you say its a fish for your own table your most likely to get it free. He and his family make a killing because in St Tropez, the higher the price the more people will want it. Crazy place.                              

Our New Family Members

We recently picked up these little critters to add to our brood. We have three remaining from our original eight that we got three years ago and although they do produce lots if eggs its not enough to keep both families in cakes and omelettes so we have decided to get these six.

I'm also looking to getting hens that lay blue eggs and mahogany eggs.

I love out hens, they bring so much hot to the garden and I'm a garden the size of ours it's nice to have a little company when your doing the weeding. I do not however enjoy the fact they scratch up most flower beds to the point I have had to put fences up everywhere.

The eggs are sublime though and once you've tasted a home produced egg it's hard to go back to shop bought

Monday Monday

My dads been over visiting this last weekend. He is a yacht captain and so came from Montenegro where he is based to visit the yacht show and us. The last few days have been spent cooking and dropping subtle hints about DIY projects around the house. Ive had shelves put up in Evies bedroom and the living room so far and we still have another day tomorrow :)

Been baking a lot also, trying to get rid of some of the mountain of chocolate that we still have left after easter. Cookies, cakes the lot.

Weather has been awful so no need to go out and water the garden although it has set me back a little with the planting out of all the seedlings I have taking space on every windowsill in the living room.

Also thought Id include a photo of the most amazing chocolate shop window we walked past the other day in Cannes. I would love to be able to make these, they look too good to eat

Did manage a lovely lunch on the beach. A friend of ours had a quaint beach wedding from which Ive included a couple of photos of :)

Antibes Yacht Show

At the start of every April means the Antibes yacht show. Its a three day event where crew and owners gather to look at new equipment for boats or to have a look through the yachts in port to see whether anyone might want to rent them.

Its a very boring weekend and thats where I have been hence the lack of blog activity. Going on with the boating theme I thought I would show you another of the table decorations that I created.

Book Review Belle - Lesley Pearse

Its raining today and short of doing all the housework and getting back to my quilts Ive not got a great deal to blog about so I thought Id share this little gem with you

Im not usually the type of reader who enjoys a girly read so when I ordered this book online after reading another review i was very disappointed with the cover. i thought that I had wasted money on something I would get two chapters into and put down. I was wrong, I found it really hard to put this one down.

Fifteen year-old Belle has lived in a brothel in Seven Dials all her life, with no understanding of what happens in the rooms upstairs. But her innocence is shattered when she witnesses the murder of one of the girls and, subsequently snatched from the streets by the killer, she is sold into prostitution in Paris.



This was on the edge of your seat reading, its a fairly violent book with a lot of moments where you find it a little hard to read on but the way Lesley Pearse has written it is in a way to ensure the reader that the subject of all this horror can not be broken and stays very positive throughout. Its actually very inspiring. 

A little check

I've just added the blogger app on my iPhone and this is just a little check to see if it's working and so I can have a little play around.

The photo is one a friend sent to me of his toast that is covered with the marmalade that I made and gave him :)

Todays been a mad rush really. The weather has been great recently and its made me realize how late I am getting the garden ready for the fruit and veg. Ive been running around like a mad hatter finding all the pots and washing them out, filling with earth and planting the seeds.
This year Im not going to try anything too fancy. Last year I was left heartbroken because I had to go away for work for a few weeks and nothing was watered properly. I managed to save a few things but for most it was too late.

I have just pulled up the last of my baby leeks which we BBQ'd in butter, they were delicious! And we have lots of lemons which Ive been very grateful for because I came back from England with flu and have been running on hot lemon and honey drinks for the past two weeks now.

The garden is starting to become colorful again, there are forest violets everywhere and I must find something to do with them :)

Little touches

Im not one for buying flowers from shops. Firstly i find them far too expensive and secondly for what they cost they just don't seem to last long enough to make it seem worth it.

Depending on the season I like to embellish my own house whether its in holly and dried oranges for christmas time or cherry blossoms and daffodils when the weather gets warmer.

I recently posted about the mimosa festival that we have here in southern france. The forest surrounding my house is full of yellow bloom and looks beautiful in my living room :)

Crayfishing

 Recently I visited England to catch up with my family and some friends. Ive not been back much in the eight years that I have been living in France but now that my parents have moved back there I will be visiting a lot more often.

The weather was amazing while I was there, I got a good couple of afternoons lounging in a pub garden with a glass of wine in the sunshine which for me, England is all about.

On one of these days I was seeing a friend of mine and we had seen some people dangling some bacon on a piece of string into the local river. On closer inspection we found out that they were catching crayfish... needless to say, the next day, there we were with a glass in hand dangling our own string over the side of the bank :)

Easter photos

Its been a really busy few weeks here so this years easter wasn't as big a deal as it should have been. we opted to go to my in-laws for lunch.

We started off with an easter egg hunt which Evie really enjoyed even though I don't think she really understood it. Later in the day she kept revisiting the areas where she found some in search of more, hehe. 

Traditionally on the french side of our family we start lunch with salad Pascal and follow that with roasted lamb. 

White Rose Table Decoration

Part of my job working on the super yachts is to create an atmosphere of complete luxury for the guests onboard. Each breakfast, lunch and dinner I would create a different decoration depending on what the flowers are in season and what the guests are eating.

Quite often these tables can cost a fair amount of money. Orchids and roses don't come cheap especially if you are ordering them from afar. Once used they usually get thrown straight out as it isn't the 'done thing' to re use them. Such a shame really but thats part of the job. I usually take the used flowers to my own room so its not such a waste.

This is one of my evening tables created with white pebbles and roses. The tableware is Versace and the bay is St Jean Cap Farrat

A little Easter Cheer

Thought I would just quickly share this with you... I wanted to make a plain white baby grow a little more interesting so decided to sew this little nest. Inspiration came from our little chicks who we will be picking up any day now :)

Preserved Lemons

We have plenty of citrus trees here on the property, most of the time we have more oranges than we know what to do with. One nice thing about living here is that when we invite people for dinner, they come with gifts. A friend came over last week with a whole basket of lemons from his garden!! I use a lot of lemons in cooking and drink a lot with tea but a whole basket... I think using them all is out of the question.
So I searched out some preserving recipes.

Preserved Lemons

Sterilized jars
Sea salt
Cloves
Peppercorns
Boiled water that has cooled
Lemons

Cut the lemons top to bottom but not going all the way through, then again into quarts. Stuff lots of the salt into the opening you have created and then place into your jar. Try to fit as many as you can into the jar, add the peppercorns and cloves and then fill to the top with the cooled boiled water and seal.

You will need to wait a month before using them. Try in Moroccan dishes, they use lots of preserved lemons in their cooking and they add a really refreshing twang to any meal :)