Off the needles

I found a nice pattern of a vest in the '100 idees', which i bought some weeks ago.  It's warm and comfortable, and it was a quick knit. I used Irish Tweed from katia.

Craft art

Today i 'll show you some amazing craft art pictures.

I found these on a quilting blog, but I don't remember where....

Another  picture that cheers up my day...

You can find these two art projects on Cheryl's blog. On the car were glued  23000 beads, bangles and bows, the croc's are matching perfectly with the car.

These pictures were published in the Interweave  Knits, summer 2009. The artist Theresa Honeywell made this handknit pink cosy ," inspired by the gender restrictions she felt in her marriage. She started making cozies for empowering objects, which happened to be very hard , masculine objects. The handknitted covers softened them up and changed their determined roles".

Alphabe Thursday

K is for KAREL, the coq .
He was born here, two years ago his mother surprised me with 13 kids. I could not found her for about 3 weeks and there she was.......

Proud and a bit aggressive, because she had to protect so many kids.
Karel grew up here with 4 of his brothers and many sisters , I gave away some kids and  have eaten 4 coq's. I am sorry, but that is also French country life.....you cannot keep 5 coq's!

Now he is the king of the farmyard, He has 4 wives, two old ones of 7 years ,one of two years and one of 4 month old. You can imagine that he's happy.
 At about 5 o'clock he jumps in the window-sill  to let me know that it's time for some grains and time  to go to bed. At the moment the young chicken also jumps, because she is so curious. .....and eager to learn.

They live together in the former outside W.C.......

And they are free to go wherever they want, to find something to eat......

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???