Bethan Funning: Young songwriters competition finalist!

Regular viewers of my blog may recognise that name. She and I recorded the song Tip of the Tongue which we wrote together and recorded in video format to go on my blog. What has she been up to since then you wonder?! Well Bethan has reached the finals of a big competition where money raised from voting goes to Banardos. I know that she needs all the votes she can get and would so appreciate it if you could maybe vote for her to win.

Here's the link to the website where you can view the songs: http://www.young-songwriters.co.uk/

Her song is number 17 on the list entitled Spaceships and Moonbeams. I'm sure you'll agree when you've listened to the song that she's very talented! As I said, the money from the votes you cast goes to Banardos so it's all good. Think of it as your good deed for the day! You need to be fairly quick if you want to vote though as voting closes on the 6th November which funnily enough is Jenna's 1st birthday!

Good luck Bethan!!!

Look what Jenna picked up on our walk!

Some rather funny pictures to show you here!

Yes you are right in thinking; that is a dummy in Jenna's mouth!

We were just on our ordinary dog walk when I suddenly see a flash of green in Jenna's mouth.

"What has she got now?" I ask to my Dad.

I pull her head torwards me only to be greeted by this silly sight!

I tell no lies. This was how we found the dummy! She must have been walking like this for a few minutes too just holding it like this in her jaws. Can you imagine what that must have looked like to a passerby?!

We quickly snapped up these pictures before she eventually started chewing it up.

So funny! I don't think we could have made her do that if we tried.

Adipose twins!

Here then are my latest woolly creations.

For Doctor Who fans out there you may recognise them as adipose but the pattern I worked off calls them fat babies for the purpose of dodging around the copyright!

I made these adipose as presents for two young girls so I'm not breaking the law or anything as these were'nt made for the intent of making money out of them.

These little blobs of fat are crocheted for a change. I've been doing a lot of knitting recently so it was good to swap needles for a hook!

I gave them to the girls today actually. They loved them! I was a bit worried that they wouldn't know what they were as they don't look hugely like the adipose on tv. But them being avid Dr Who fans, they knew straight away. That was a relief. When I showed them to someone else, they thought they were Tic Tac men!

I made little labels to go on them too as a way of gift wrapping and so they would know which one was who's. One of the girls is totally crazy on pink so of course the pink label just had to go to her!!

I hope that they enjoy them!

Sign language

In the last couple of weeks, I've started going to a sign language course.

The course runs for ten weeks and covers the basics you need for progressing onto level 1 BSL. I'd love to go on to do the levels if I could as I'm really keen to learn the language as much as I can.

I've been fascinated with sign language ever since I was little. I can remember learning the alphabet but never had the opportunity to learn anything more until now.

I'm doing the course with my friends and my twin sister which is great because it means we can practise together. It was actually my friend who pointed out the course a few months ago.

The course so far is good fun and the people there are lovely. It's a small group; just 12 of us all wanting to learn for various reasons.

We've covered a lot already actually. So far we've covered the alphabet, (this was actually really good for me as I was able to learn the proper way for signing it left handed as I do. I'm the only left handed signer there! Always was unique!!) we've learnt questions i.e who, what, where and so on, days of the week, months, holidays and numbers.

It's all very cool!

Brand new title

Hey guys! You may have noticed that I have a new title for my blog. Hoping you like this. I've actually been wanting to change the title for a while now. I just felt that the old one was a bit obscure and didn't really help to depict what my blog was about. This one I think does a better job. It is me surrounded by the things I love to do with my trusty companion Jenna right by me. In actual fact, she is sleeping in that exact position right now by my feet! As always, it would be nice to hear what you think.

My new fingerless gloves!

Here are my new pair of gloves which I just finished knitting yesterday.

I knitted with the excess wool that I had from my doctor who scarf so now I've got a whole winter set safe for the hat which is my next knitting project!

As you can see, it's all done in fair isle which was simple to do. The middle part was a bit difficult though as I was using three strands of yarn at once so it was hard to keep the tension loose.

Sorting out the finger holes were a bit tricky too. The pattern I was using wasn't the clearest so I had to spend a lot of time just deciphering it! Speaking of deciphering, my sisters and I have just been doing exactly that working out how you spell the blinking word!

I couldn't have made the gloves at a better time actually. I've been feeling really cold recently what with the transitions of the season starting.

So what do you think of the modeling then??

Battenburg cake!!

If any of you just happened to be wondering what I've been up to today then here it is! I made a battenburg cake.

Of course, it didn't take me all day. I've been up to other stuff too like guitar lessons and cycling.

Thank you very much to my aunt who gave me the recipe for this. It came out really well as you can see.

I did have a few hiccups though and one rather blonde moment! For some reason the cake just wouldn't cook so I ended up having to whack up the heat. The cake was in for a total of 40 minutes as oppose to the suggested 25-30 mins. Don't know what happened there but eventually it cooked.

I wanted to make my own marzipan too but the ingredients were so expensive for that. I worked out that I would need to buy £5 worth of almonds! 5 quid for a few bags of nuts???!!!! I love almonds but still! For that reason, I opted for the ready made stuff!

My blonde moment in the baking process came at the end when I had to heat up the jam. Ok then, I thought. So on went a saucepan on the hob and I plopped a spoonful of jam in. BIG mistake! The noise and smoke that came from this pan was insane. I'm really surprised it didn't set of the smoke alarm.

I quickly got the jam out and slowly started to pour water in as it was spitting out little bits of boiling sugar everywhere.

Not clever!

If saucepans were to convey emotions, this one would be very angry indeed!

But it all worked out and I've got a big thumbs up from people who have got their chops around a bit.

Isla the snake!

I'd like to introduce you to my most recent creation.

This is isla the fair isle snake. Isla with a silent s which is quite ironic for a snake!

I made her on double pointed needles which I've never done before.

I'm actually quite proud of this knitted make actually as I've successfully managed to do a range of knitting techniques.

For some reason, everyone I've shown has really really loved her. I think it's her colourful body and characterful eyes. Hey! She's like Kaa from the jungle book hypnotising everyone with enchanted eyes!

What effect does she have on you?

My baking extravaganza!

I've been doing lots of baking recently. Allow me to show you around some of my edible creations.

This here is a mosaic chocolate button cheesecake. I made it with my little sister Megan the other week. It was her last day of the summer holidays so I thought that we would have a nice time baking together. She adores giant buttons so I came up with the idea of putting a mosaic design of them on top.

Last week, I got given a bag of apples that were picked from my friends garden so I've spent the week cooking them up into varies recipes.

I made this apple and ginger cake with a hazelnut crumble topping...

And then on your right an apple and raisen crumble.

Gotta make a crumble if you have apples don't you?!!

Then last night we made a coco pops strawberry custard cream flan. We had some coco pop mix left over so I made some sandcastles out of them!

So there we are. Everythinng that I've cooked in the last couple of weeks. Have I made you drool on your computer keyboard yet??

Thou shalt have a knitted fishy!

Here's the knitted fish I made a couple of weeks ago now.

I wanted to knit this little guppy because it involved using a range of knitting techniques. The middle of the body consisted of doing fair isle; something I've never done before. I was a bit apprehensive about trying it but turns out it was pretty easy!

I ended up giving the fish away to my friend who needed a bit of cheering up at the time. With it's funky colours I think it definitely did the trick!

She's named it Willie. A good solid name for a fish I think!