My second quilt

After I have made a quilt for the dog's bed, the cat also wanted one...... As you can see I made some progress.

Cheesecake recipe

This week I made a cheesecake with lemoncurd, sugarfree and without butter..... yet delicious.

Here is the recipe.

Pastry crust ingredients:

300 g bread flour ( in France T65 or T85)

40 g sunflower oil

1 egg

1/2 coffe spoon salt

3 coffee spoon backing powder.

150 g white cheese(fromage blanc 0%)

Make the pastry and divide in 3 portions, you only need 1 portions the other 2 can be frozen in.

Put the pastry in the fridge for about 1 hour. Than bake it blind for 15 minutes in a preheat oven (200 degrees).

The filling:

300 g cream cheese (I used fromage à tartiner Aldi)

150 g white cheese (fromage blanc 0%)

2 eggs (divide the yellow and white parts, beat the white).

Fresh lemon juice (1 lemon)

Grated peel from 1 1/2 lemon.
equivalent in sweetener of 100 g sugar 

Beat the ingredients till you have a creamy substance. Carefully put the beaten whites in.
Put the filling in the pastry and put again in the oven for 25 minutes.

Lemon curd
This recipe is bases on a recipe in the book 'douceurs citron bio recettes de CLEA)
3 lemon
Equivalent in sweetener of 100 g sugar
3 eggs
1 table spoon of arrow-root

Press 3 lemons and prepare the grated peel of 2 lemons. Put juice and sweetener on the cooker. Mix arrow-root with 1 beaten egg , then add the other 2 eggs. Add this to the juice, while stirring. The blend will quickly become thicker. Put the blend in a pot and keep it in the fridge.

Alphabe Thursday

Today I'll talk about  the letter J. J for JARDIN, it's the French word for garden.
I'll show you more about where I live. About 25 kilometers from here there are 3 jardins worth visiting.

The first is the Arboretum de la Sédelle.
It is a private arboretum located near Crozant in the department La Creuse. It was established in 1980 on wooded lands along the Sédelle river valley. Maples were the first plantings. Today you can find collections of  acers , querques, cornus etc...... In spring the magnolias and rhododendrons let you smell there amazing perfume. In autumn the maples are in gorgeous shades of red.  Th couple who established the arboretum is still living there in their fabulous wooden house!

Another truly wonderful  garden is the Prieuré d'Orsan of Orsan. It's a monastry style medieval garden founded in the 12th century. There the art of pre-renaissance gardening has brought back to life. The 12th century priory has itself been unchanged for 900 years but the gardens were reconstructed just 15 years ago. They serve spiritual as well as terrestrial needs. growing rare or common, ancient or more recent plants. The gardens are  displayed in a structure making ample use of wood in picket fences, paling ......

The third garden is a contemporary art garden, created in 2000 round a castle in Drulon. 

There is a fabulous flower garden, lots of varieties os roses (1400), a chamber garden, a wild garden. And in those gardens  a hundred of the most beautiful sculptures. 

Knitty Spring

The Knitty Spring is here.
There are some nice patterns and they are free!

I like this cardigan, but the yarn she recommand is to thick , I think it should better knitted in a more lightweight cotton.

What a beautiful shawl!

I'll surely knit these socks.

And what do you think of this???

Spring is here

Weather is so beautiful, I am working a lot in the garden these days. In the meantime I made a very cute pincushion, cannot show it yet because it's for my swappartner Melanie.......
The evenings I am looking in the French craft magazines that iI bought some weeks ago.
there are so many amazing patterns, i'll show you some.....

Alphabe Thursday

Today it's the letter I.

I from INDRE, that's the French department where I live. It's situated in the centre of France. The most important tourist attraction of this department is GEORGE SAND.

George Sand 1804 -1878

"The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women"

George Sand was an amazing woman author and personality. She earned as much notoriety for her Bohemian lifestyle as for her written work. Born as Aurore Dupin , she was the most famous woman writer in the 19th century in France.

In her life she pushed the limits in all kinds of way. She smoked in public, wore men's clothes, include tie and tophat!, 

 and wrote frankly about woman's sexual feelings. She had relationships with famous men, artists writers and musicians. In her house in Nohant near La Châtre in the Berry, she received Alfred de Musset, Balzac, Delacroix, Flaubert Chopin and Liszt. She and Chopin had a complicated relationship, going from friends to lovers to eventually being more like mother and son.

She was buried in the grounds of her home in Nohant.

Her house, here it's called ' chateau' (castle).

Her 'boudoir' where she wrote her books.

The small peaceful church next to her house in Nohant.

If you want to visit the other participants of Alphabe Thuesday, go to Jenny's blog.

My first quilt

I made a quilt for the dog bed, it's not perfect at all but I think she'll like it.

Off the needles

Last week I made this summercardi. I bought the yarn in Holland, the lady in the yarnshop wore this cardi and I fall in love with the 'spring' colors and the  simple model.

Spring is coming....

Although the nights are still cold, you can see and feel that spring is near.

In he newspaper they mentioned that the cranes are coming back.

So I started pruning my roses, I have about 70 roses, all different varieties. This is the result of 3 hours work and I have not finished yet!

Alphabe Thursday

I am joining Jenny Matlock for Alphabe Thursday. Today's letter is 'H'.

My 'H' word is HAMEAU, the French word for hamlet. I live in a hameau, there are 6 houses together and we belong to a small village with 260 inhabitants (including the 15 hameau's). There is a church, a small postoffice , a municipal hall and a village hall where they organize about 6 meals a year, for the inhabitants.

Here they say that we live in 'la cambrousse', they mean that here in this French countryside, there is nothing and nothing. There is only rural tranquility
These pictures of a part of the hameau were made last summer.

If you want to visit the other participants, go to Jenny's blog......

Emmaüs

The name of the Emmaüs organisation was chosen by the founder Abbé Pierre, the name symbolises HOPE. It comes from a story in St Luke's Gospel and although Emmaüs is not a religious organisation, communities around the world have kept the name because of its symbolism. The story (chapter 24, vv 12-13) describes how shortly after jesus' death, two of his followers were at Emmaüs , a place near Jerusalem, when they saw the resurrected Jesus and so regained hope.

The first Emmaüs community was founded In Paris in 1949 by Abbé Pierre, a catholic priest and former member of the French resistance.

He devoted himself to fighting homelessness and poverty. To raise the money that was needed they became 'rag pickers', collecting things that people no longer wanted . They sold them and so the concept of companions,(man and woman who live and work in Emmaüs) self supporting businesses with the profit going to those in great need, was born.

Many companions were homeless for a variety of reasons. For some Emmaüs, will fill a short term need, f.a. to gain new skills, to resocialize, to recover from addiction. Others will stay for a longer time  or it will be their permanent home.

In France you can find Emmaüs 'shops' in almost each town. It's a kind of big fleemarket where you can find all sorts of things.......

I bought these vintage ribbons for 1 euro

These beautiful retro coffee cups, also for 1 euro.

Resto du coeur

Your turn now?

Off the needles

When I was in Holland I knitted two shawls. The first one is the 'Andrea's shawl pattern', knitted with Rowan Kid Classic. It came out a bit small , I 'll definitely knit  a big a bigger one with the same yarn.

The second one is 'Damson' from Ysolda Teague, knitted with Malabrigo sockyarn. I like the result but it's not so cosy as the other one, due to the sockyarn.

I am inspired a lot by Bea. She is going to knit 10 shawls in 2010, and believe me, in the meantime she also knits cardigans and socks!

My clapotis arrived in the U.S. It's a very special feeling that I gave it away and someone, so far away, is wearing it now. It looks great on her.

A bit of this and a bit of that

Yesterday i came home from my trip in Holland. In Paris I was a bit in a hurry so not enough time to buy books at Junku's. But I bought this book with recipes from Clea. She has a very interesting blog with healthy cooking recipes: low fat, little sugar, vegetarian....

I also bought this cute little notebook.

In the seventies and eighties there was a very popular craftmagazine in France. It was called "100 IDEES". There is a blog where the fans of this magazine exchange lost numbers or try to complete their collection. I also used this site and I found someone who wanted to sell her collection. I received about 110 numbers !!!!  Not the complete collection, but I am still searching...... 

Someone gave us a  young chicken, she is so very cute...