Two presents down!

The second cushion was completed last night.  I would have taken a photo but the camera is packed ready for the holiday!  So instead I’ve knocked something up in paint to give a rough idea of what I eventually went with.  Thank you Teresa for you suggestions – I was going to have a play with a few of them but I accidently cut the butterfly material leaving me with little option about how to proceed!

The final outcome has a square of the butterfly material with zigzag stitching round the edge and has butterfly material for the back.  Depending on how brave I’m feeling I might pick out some of the butterflies with embroidery between now and Christmas.

In the Laptop vs the Sewing Machine the former won…

Unfortunately cushion #1 wasn’t finished last night for reasons beyond my control… The sewing machine table is next to the desk on which stands the boy’s new external laptop screen.  And there is only one set of plugs meaning when he has the screen plugged in and the laptop charging there aren’t enough plugs for the sewing machine Why you ask, don’t we get an extension gang thing?  Well, we have, but two of the four plug sockets have broken…  I managed to get a seam done this morning before work which means I have ONE seam left to sew and it’s really infuriating me!  I love finishing things and I was so close   I guess I’ll be rushing home from work tonight so I can finish it before I start tea which will be…

Toad in the hole

1 egg
Salt
Pepper
Mixed Herbs
2 oz plain flour
¼ pint milk
5 sausages (veggie or regular)
Oil

• Fry the sausages for 5-10 minutes.

• Heat some oil in an oven proof dish at 180C.

• Mix the beaten egg, salt, pepper, flour and milk together until there aren’t too many lumps left.  Some people are really fussy about getting rid of all the lumps.  I’m not and it doesn’t seem to affect the end result…

• Lay the sausages in the oven proof dish and pour on your batter.  The key is to do it quickly and use hot oil.

• Cook for about half an hour.  Serve with new potatoes for the summer or roast potatoes for winter.

Edited to add:  There’s another Duck Rescue story out there in the blogosphere!  Meet Petit Filoux who rescued 9 ducks over the weekend!