Shower Time on Folksy Friday

Whilst I was getting ready for my evening shower last night

I thought to myself, what a brilliant idea for my Folksy Friday post tomorrow...shower time! I posted on the forum to see what people have to offer in their shops at the moment and this is the lovely collection I am pleased to show you.

From Dabdash is a cool mood notebook. If you're happy you carry it sunny side out, if you're feeling a little blue carry it rainy cloud up

 

Next is a raindrop covered medium useful bag from Scottish Penguin. Perfect for makeup and other little bits and bobs you may have lying around.

As we are entering the chilly months I'm sure there will be lots of colds going round so this cheery Get Well Soon card from Ello Design will be perfect.

Silent Theatre has this amazing vintage A4 print which is enough to make anyone smile and day dream.

With another little bag/purse we have a cute business card holder from Green Grass, great for all the Christmas Craft Fairs you're attending this year to keep your cards neat and safe.

  

Lastly, Hattifer's Hand Sewn Gifts have this cute lavender scented umbrella hanger. Perfect to hang in your wardrobe but with the lovely sparkles I would want to hang it on my wardrobe door so I can get mesmerized by the sparkles

I hope you have enjoyed todays Folksy Friday and that I haven't tempted fate and caused it to rain near you!

Gooey Cheese centre

Last night was date night for my Sophie which meant my friend Farmer Jon came over for the evening. Farmer Jon is a lovely chap and gives me lots of cuddles...even if I don't want one, but fear not, I get my own back by having a nibble on his fingers until he gives up on the cuddle. He tells me off but I know he loves it so I don't pay his tellings off any attention.

My Sophie made her special cheese burgers for tea and I thought I would share with you how she makes them.

First of all, here are the ingrediants

Mince
Mozzarella cheese

Salsa

Crackers (or breadcrumbs)

Tomato Puree (or Tomato ketchup)

Any extra spices you might want to add

My Sophie used 500g of mince last night and it made 4 large burgers. She doesn't put them in burger buns which is why they are larger than the average burger. You can ofcourse use a smalled amount of mince or make smaller burgers to get more than 4.

Now, put about 6 crackers in a strong bag and roll with a rolling pin until they turn into fine crumbs. This is where you can replace the crackers with breadcrumbs.

   

Then you gotta put all the ingredients into a bowl (expect for the cheese, something special happens with the cheese) adding a couple of squirts of tomato puree or ketchup. If you want to spice things up abit you can add your spices now.

Mix, Mix, Mix until everything blends together and then chop the mozzarella cheese so you have a lump for each burger and some thinner strips of cheese.

Now you're ready to start putting your burgers together, get ready to squish and shape!

Split your mix up into however many burgers you are making and then split each burger pile into 2 halves.

Top Tip: To stop the mince sticking to your hands, rinse them in some water first but don't dry your hands.

With one half in your hand, squish the mince into a compact burger like shape and then make a cheese sixe dent in the middle. Pop one lump of cheese in, this makes the special gooey cheesey centre.

Then you put the other half of the mince on top and squish some more until the 2 halves have mooshed together and there is no gap for the cheese to ooze out of when cooking.

For extra cheesey delight you add the strips of cheese on the top of the burger and then cook for about 20min at 170.

Just going into the oven

 

An now ready to enjoy

I hope you enjoyed reading and seeing how My Sophie makes her burgers. Farmer Jon thinks they're yummy, I wouldn't know, my Sophie doesn't let me try any *sniff* *sniff*.

To Hexipuff or not to Hexipuff

That is the question my Sophie keeps asking me. I just sit there and look pretty hoping it will give her the answer to the ever important question.

Apparently, Hexipuffs are the "in" thing at the moment, everyone's doing them, but what are they I ask? From what I found out during my research today, Hexipuffs are little double sided knitted hexegons, knitted in the round and then stuffed with fluff to make the poofy.

They are then attached together to make a quilt called "The Beekeepers Quilt" (if you've done enough of the puffs).

I also saw someone use them to made a seat cushion

At the moment my Sophie doesn't know how to knit in the round on circular or DPNs so I need to continue my research to see if there is a crochet version. However, my Sophie is adament that she won't even think about a hexipuff until she has finished her Olympic Woolsack cushion. She is keen to learn how to knit in the round and make me some socks, I'm not convinced my paws need socks but my Sophie keeps telling me I'd look cute in them (I think I'm already as cute as a button).



A flawed plan

Yesterday morning my Sophie was abit cheeky and thought she would have a lie, ha! not on my watch. I promptly reminded her by a scratch at her door at 6.30am that she needs to get up and open the back door for me. There was a slight flaw in my plan though, one which I was not expecting...
I came home about 9am and went to sleep for a couple of hours whilst my Sophie got ready to go to her spinning group. What I was not expecting was at 11.45am my Sophie came and scooped me up and put me outside, then went to see her friends, the cheeky thing!
My Sophie took her little joy spinning wheel and some gorgeous fawn alpaca which she brought at fibre fest this year. When she came back she told me about her afternoon filled with cups of tea, lots of conversation and most shockingly a dog sitting on her lap!
She's getting on ok with the alpaca but I think she'll go back to sheep fibre when she's done enough for her project. I've had a look in her stash and there's some lovely green and yellow merino which I think will be perfect for a lacey scarf.

Folksy Friday

My Sophie was telling me about Folksy Friday the other day. Apparently all the lovely people on Folksy with blogs help promote each other by having a themed blog on a Friday and feature things they find on Folksy. Sounds easy enough I thought I would give it a go.
I decided to go back to the summer months when I used to sun bath in the garden. Do you remember when we could sit outside like this and just doze the day away?

Flowers are my inspiration for todays blog, I hope you like the selection I have chosen.

Sweet Pea are my Sophies favourite flower, the smell is gorgeous and I found the Oakwood Soaperie selling a couple of Sweet Pea fragranced items...yummy

  



Next up I've picked some beautiful Roses from Imogen's Imagination

  

For those who read my post the other day about felt, you would know that I would not be able to resist showing you these gorgeous flowers by Made by Lolly.

 

And lastly I could not reisist this handsome fella by Jessicas Jotters. He looks like my kinda fun loving fella

Hope you like my first Folksy Friday and that I've featured enough items to be able to call it a Folksy Friday blog. I think my Sophie will give me a yummy treat for picking such lovely items.

At It again

Uh oh, my Sophie has been crafting again. She's working on some new Christmas decorations, fabric is all over the place! I don't know how she manages to turn a pile of fabric into something pretty but she does. It's all too tempting for me to mess with so I stayed out of the way tonight and found a quiet spot upstairs...maybe I'll have a play tomorrow when she's at work hee hee.
So far my Sophie has made two decorations for her next craft fair, she needs to get a move on if she wants enough for the stall. I also heard her mention some felt decorations so that'll be another trip to the fabric shop in the near future...felt might be nice to curl up on, I'll let you know if I get to test some out.

Garden adventures

One of my favourite things to do is go exploring in the gardens. As you may have gathered from my previous post I like things done in the right way, so first and foremost I have to check everything is in order in my own garden. It was lucky I did that this morning as my Sophies little greenhouse had been battered by the wind last nite and was leaning rather drastically to one side.
My Sophie promptly came out to straighten it up but it does seem some of her gerbera plants have been wounded as the shelf broke. I do hope they'll be ok.
Once the drama of the damage had been resolved I went to check the garden further from a better vantage point.

From here I can see all the neighbourhood gardens and decide where to go next. Then, away the fence I go for a few hours.
Back in the house after some lunch I decided to take a cat nap.

My Sophie came to check up on me. I was not impressed with being woken up.

I think my paw slap and glare put my point across nicely and my Sophie left me alone for a while so I could carry on snoozing.

Things need to be done right

If like me you have reached a certain age and have moved into the next tick box on forms you know that we like things done in certains ways. Ways that have worked since time first began and ways that should not be messed with. You may be thinking what on earth am I raving on about or that I'm just being a grumpy old dear but things need to be done as they always have been.
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. How hard is that? But recently we have gone spring, summer, autumn summer, autumn...woo there missy, now why did summer come back? I've just started to grow my winter coat and last weeks heat wave came. I was not happy, not happy at all. It made me feel really ill to be honest. So ill that my Sophie was fretting with worry about me and after being checked out by my friend farmer Jon I had to go to the V.E.T. Still not sure what those letters stand for but I know when farmer Jon and my Sophie say them, it's in the box I must go...but not without a fight.
I got poked and prodded and jabbed but it was worth it cos the nice man said I should be ok and a week later I feel back to my old self.
It's still autumn so all has gone back to the way it should be and I can look forward to curling up on a cosy rug when we get to winter.